The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Opera.
Performed with exquisite control by the Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, the hour-long concert of DAVID LANG'S THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL PASSION becomes something far larger than the sum of its parts.
For those of us who like verismo opera—combining the raw emotions of everyday people with historical splendor—but have heard one too many BOHEMEs, TOSCAs, TURANDOTs and BUTTERFLYs in this lifetime, noting Giordano’s ANDREA CHENIER in the Met’s repertoire for this season seemed like a godsend
Here are all the hallmarks of any good Shakespearean comedy: love polygons, gender trouble and a shipwreck to get things going.
For all those operagoers tired of classics set in rodeos, Las Vegas or on a space station (Paris has a BOHEME of that ilk), Otto Schenk’s production for ARABELLA, with stage design by Gunther Schneider Siemssen, dating back to 1983, will be a relief.
Gina Galati’s delightful Winter Opera company has opened its season with a revival of a rarely seen Gilbert and Sullivan show—The Sorcerer.
A confession.
San Diego Opera opened its 2025-26 season on a Halloween night with an appropriately disturbing opera about a murderous clown.
Some of the audience at the chamber concert at the Frick Collection Museum—that jewel-box museum of art from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century on New York’s Upper East Side—had fought its way there through the runners of the NYC Marathon.
It’s hard for a soprano to get a break in Donizetti’s LA FILLE DU REGIMENT, which I caught up with at the Met on Friday evening.
Charles Gounod took Shakespeare’s tale of the star-crossed lovers and adapted it to create the 1867 opera, Roméo et Juliette, with an overture and Shakespeare’s explanatory prologue, delivered by the chorus, followed by a five-act opera, with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré.
What did our critic think of PORGY AND BESS at Houston Grand Opera? As Houston performing arts ventures grow for the 2025-26 season, Houston Grand Opera surpasses them all with a thrilling 50th anniversary production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.
Sir Peter Hall's iconic production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream has achieved legendary status since its premiere in 1981.
PucciniAs the nights draw in, it seems highly appropriate to return to Glyndebourne for the start of its Autumn season and the chilly streets of Puccini’s La bohème.
New things at Union Avenue Opera! This wonderful company is extending it’s 31st season with an evening of two one-act operas.
Technically unsurpassed, but is there a chill where its soul should be?
How did the martyrs—those Christians and otherwise who have been put to death or endured great suffering defending their beliefs, principles, or causes—meet their ends? As told through Douglas AA Balliett’s MARTYRS & RELICS, which played a handful of performances this week as its world premier
If you liked Evita at the Palladium, you'll like Carmen at the Coliseum
Both director and designer have slightly too many ideas about what the show could be, and what is left is unresolved potential.
Sometimes great singing can save a bad production.
What did our critic think of OPERA À LA CARTE'S PRODUCTION OF OFFENBACH'S ORPHEUS IN THE UNDERWORLD at St.
Héctor Armienta’s operatic reimagining of ZORRO is a richly textured work that fuses bravado and romance into a timely meditation on liberty.
It’s over 40 years since English National Opera staged Rossini's Cinderella (La Cenerentola) and they open their 2025-26 season with a vibrant new production of the sparkling comedy.
Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI was one of my first operas and remains among my favorites, despite its misogyny and the difficulty in putting together the kind of cast that can do justice to the string of show-stoppers in the score.
Anyone familiar with Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prizer-winning THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY must be a bit bewildered at how a 700-page novel could be turned into a 3-hour opera.
The forces behind the Met’s latest try at bringing a different (sic: younger) audience to the house, THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, joined forces at the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series last week to introduce the new work to a receptive crowd.
