The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Opera.
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.
If you come to opera via film musicals and, later, stage shows, Tosca is amongst the most accessible.
A thought-provoking reworking of Mozart's popular opera.
Mozart's beloved comedy The Marriage of Figaro opened Glyndebourne's very first Festival in 1934 and is the renowned opera house's most performed work.
In the 35 years I've been going to Opera Holland Park, I've never been disappointed by the music, performances and sheer joy of being in the open air with accompanying local sound effects.
The ever popular and hardy perennial of the operatic canon, composer Georges Bizet’s Carmen, was given a unique yet solid interpretation by the Wolf Trap Opera under the direction of John de los Santos.
Kelly Slawson brings a dazzlingly powerful, beautiful voice to the title role.
Maestro Karen Kamensek opened the Lincoln Center Festival Orchestra’s concert at Geffen Hall—“Paris to Patagonia”—with some interesting introductory remarks that almost sounded like an audition for the Philharmonic’s storied Young People’s Concerts.
This is a great opportunity to hear the breadth of Beethoven’s work performed in a novel way, and the drama does have its flashes of brilliance.
Though Bedrich Smetana’s DALIBOR—seen this week at Bard SummmerStage in a wonderful production by Jean-Romain Vesperini, with an ingenious set design by Bruno de Lavenere, a fine cast and the American Symphony Orchestra in impeccable form under Leon Botstein—was reputedly the composer’s favo
“Timeless Transformations” is a key theme of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center’s season at Geffen Hall this year (itself transformed from Avery Fisher Hall and, earlier, Philharmonic Hall).
