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BWW Review: What's Really Old is New Again, with POPPEA from Concerto Italiano at Carnegie Hall
Monteverdi's L'INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA--THE CORONATION OF POPPEA--is considered the oldest opera in existence, but the version performed by Concerto Italiano at Carnegie Hall the other night, as part of the La Serenissima Festival (celebrating all things Venetian), showed it is also one of the fresh...
BWW Review: A Passionate Vittorio Grigolo in the Off-Kilter World of Massenet's WERTHER at the Met
Tenor Vittorio Grigolo always seems most at home on stage when he's living close to the edge--portraying a character who's losing control (or about to) of his emotions. It was true earlier this season as Romeo, in Gounod's ROMEO ET JULIETTE at the Met opposite Diana Damrau and, in 2015, as Chevalier...
BWW Review: Juilliard Opera's AGRIPPINA Shows How to Handel Silliness and Politics
A funny thing happened on the way to Emperor Claudius' death scene: He didn't die. At least, that's what happens in Handel's opera AGRIPPINA, setting the convoluted plot in motion and giving the young singers of Juilliard Opera and its Juilliard415 period-instrument ensemble a heck of a ride, direct...
BWW Review: How to Do Beethoven and Mahler, Compliments of NY Philharmonic under Honeck and Soloist Barnatan
Audiences at the New York Philharmonic have been known to come for the soloists and then slip out for the symphony. There didn't seem to be a lot of that at last Thursday's performance led by maestro Manfred Honeck, which began with a wonderful Beethoven Piano Concerto #1 in C Major from Inon Barnat...
BWW Review: THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT Marries Tradition and Contemporary Opera
Austin Opera's second show this season, THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT welcomes Marie (performed by Rachele Gilmore) and 1,500 adopted fathers known as the 21st Regiment. The Long Center's stage is vast, however the regiment is fabulously represented by a chorus of 30 men with sergeant Sulpice at th...
BWW REVIEW: Verdi's Tragic Love Story Of The Fallen Woman, LA TRAVIATA Returns To Sydney Opera House
Elijah Moshinsky's (Director) staging of Giuseppe Verdi's LA TRAVIATA returns to Sydney Opera House, this time under the eye of Revival Director Hugh Halliday....
BWW Review: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Met's New RUSALKA
Anyone arriving at a performance of the Met's new RUSALKA, in Mary Zimmerman's production, thinking that there's going to be an evening of Disney-type fun from this distant cousin of THE LITTLE MERMAID, will be in for a big disappointment. But for those seeking beautiful music (including one of oper...
BWW Opera Review: THE GREAT COMET Walks the Broadway-Opera Tightrope Brilliantly
During the opening sequence of NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812--the extravagant, whirlwind of a show now playing at Broadway's Imperial (how fitting) Theatre--I couldn't help thinking how the Met could learn a thing or two from a show like this. No, I don't mean encouraging the audience ...
BWW Review: THE MAGIC MARKSMAN Slightly Off Target
THE MAGIC MARKSMAN (DER FREISHÜTZ) at George Mason University and present by Virginia Opera certainly offered a spectacle. Directed by Stephen Lawless, the show's well-crafted sets, designed by Benoit Dugardyn, brought you into the small German-esque town. The lighting, designed by Patricia Collins...
BWW Review: NOLI ME TANGERE, The Opera Goes For A Grand Staging
60 years after its original run in Manila, 'Noli Me Tangere, the Opera' is back for a limited engagement at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Main Hall. The show's producers, Jerry Sibal (also the show's director) and Edwin Josue, Filipinos both based in the United States, are going all o...
BWW Review: RIGOLETTO at Metropolitan Opera
Michael Mayer's revised production of Rigoletto in Las Vegas, complete with Vegas dancers, mobsters and a topless pole dancer is GREAT ENTERTAINMENT...
BWW Review: LA CENERENTOLA at Winter Opera St. Louis-- Magic Music, Not Magic Pumpkins!
Rossini's 'La Cenerentola': Winter Opera's fine production of this beloved Cinderella work makes a beautiful anniversary gift....
BWW Review: MARILYN HORNE SONG CELEBRATION at Zankel Hall Shows What Makes America Great
At last month's concert in Carnegie Hall, Joyce DiDonato was glorious musically but less-than-cheery philosophically--and that was before the guy in the White House started taking aim at arts and education funding. Taking the stage at Carnegie's Zankel Hall on Saturday, at THE MARILYN HORNE SONG CEL...
BWW Review: Two Nights in Seville, Part 2 - a New Gypsy in Town for Met's CARMEN
It's that time of the year again, when the flu season gives artistic administrators big headaches, trying to fill in the blanks when a headliner calls in sick. CARMEN's been a particular headache, with mezzo Sophie Koch out of action in the title role after rehearsals had started. Luckily, Clementin...
BWW Review: Two Nights in Seville, Part 1 - with BARBIERE at the Met
It didn't strike me until the lights were going down for the start of CARMEN last Thursday that this was the second night in a row that Met audiences were being transported to the same town in sunny Spain. Truth be told, “sunny” is hardly an adjective I'd hardly use to describe Bizet's tragedy i...
BWW REVIEW: Presented With Stunning Imagery, KING ROGER Is Powerful And Thought Provoking
Opera Australia's co-production with Royal Opera House and Dallas Opera's production of the rarely performed KRÓL ROGER (KING ROGER) is a magnificent expression of one man's inner conflict....
BWW OperaView: A Funny Thing - or Not - Happened on the Way to the Opera House
What's new in opera? Everything you can imagine--and much that you couldn't conceive of--all in the space of a few days in New York....
BWW Review: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR Crazily Sweeps Away at The Israeli Opera
For an Opera that is described as dark, intense and ruthless and its plot is filled with murder, betrayal, insanity and death, at its end it might become even more tragic, as expected, but in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor the journey through all that has many beautiful and captivating mome...
BWW Review: THREE PENNY OPERA by Teater UI: Art Without Politics Would Just Be a Decoration'
THREE PENNY OPERA is a legendary manuscript with such a simple plot in conveying social criticism. A scoundrel is in a tainted friendship with a police chief. A daughter-loving local entrepreneur disguised as a social worker, but it exploits poverty. The male characters are busy with their own affa...
BWW Review: The Coup Stumbles at WNO's THE DICTATOR'S WIFE
The Dictator's Wife stumbles like a badly engineered coup with the fault lying solely with the opera's librettist Mohammed Hanif....
BWW Review: Grigolo's No Dime-Store ROMEO Opposite Damrau in Gounod's Opera at the Met
There's some famous and gorgeous music in Gounod's ROMEO ET JULIETTE—Juliet's waltz, Romeo's “Ah, leve-toi, soleil” and a number of duets —but this is definitely not one of those operas where the title characters can take turns with the showpieces but never look each other in the eye. Luckil...
BWW REVIEW: Opera Australia's Blended Stories Of CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA and PAGLIACCI Presents Two Jilted And Spiteful Lovers With Varying Degrees Of Emotional Engagement.
Rodula Gaitanou directs the revival of Damiano Michieletto's pairing of Pietro Mascagni's CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA and Ruggero Leoncavallo's PAGLIACCI for Opera Australia with varying results....
BWW Review: I Spy Prototype Festival's Chamber Opera, MATA HARI
The life and times of the spy-as-femme-fatale, Mata Hari, has always attracted the interest of film and stage artists. Now we have the Matt Marks-Paul Peers opera MATA HARI—which opened New York's fifth Prototype Festival last week and continues through Saturday the 14th—though I think of it as ...
BWW Review: New York City Opera Returns With A Princely CANDIDE
The opening fanfare of one of the most exhilarating overtures ever to hit Broadway signals the joyous return of New York City Opera. After financial woes threatened to pull down the curtain for good in 2013, the company that was christened in 1943 as 'the people's opera' by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia...
BWW Review: Pointer-Counterpoint – City Opera's CANDIDE vs. Prototype's BREAKING THE WAVES
When I saw that New York City Opera was doing Leonard Bernstein's CANDIDE at the same time as New York's Prototype Festival--with Missy Mazzoli's BREAKING THE WAVES opening the festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre on the same night—I thought that it was great counter-programming. After all,...
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