OPERA THEATER REVIEWS

An urban opera about the social impact of the regeneration of St. Teresa's Gardens, a social housing estate in Dublin....

It was 'out with the old, in with the new' for another of the Franco Zeffirelli productions that were once the Metropolitan Opera's bread and butter, designed for audiences to cheer for the scenery even when the cast might not have been top drawer. This time, the victims of changing times (and admin...

CINDERELLA wins more than bracelets in Washington National Opera's closing opera of the season. Featuring the auspicious debut of American mezzo soprano Isabel Leonard (2013 Richard Tucker Winner), Rossini's comic and lyrical romantic opera weaves an easy spell. CINDERELLA – “La Cenerentola” �...

The third and final production in the Gilbert and Sullivan Society's Festival at the Arts Theatre is G&S Fest: Princess Ida....

Incest, power trips and a rebel with a cause are a few of the things we see in Houston Grand Opera's production DIE WALKÜRE. I like to think of the opera world as an elaborate wine list. Delectable notes from a fine Merlot, Riesling or Chablis, and Houston Grand Opera's current season is packed ful...

Gateway Opera's production of Mozart's The Impresario is one of the most delightful evenings of opera that I've ever experienced....

Valerie Joyce and a fine cast go back to the roots of Brecht's THREEPENNY OPERA and uncover a feminist treasure trove...

A display of operatic and symphonic talent rarely seen and heard on one stage...

What a great idea it was for the Met to mount revivals of Verdi's ERNANI and DON CARLO at the same time! It offers an opportunity to compare two operas that have much in common--and a production well worth seeing....

Nine years before IL TROVATORE took the prize for Verdi's most outlandish story line--with gypsies, stolen babies and mistaken identities--there was ERNANI, with a different kind of complicated plot to make your head spin. The Met's current revival of its 1983 production of the opera stars a formida...

Peter Brook's pared down LA TRAGEDIE DE CARMEN is perfect for Opera in the Heights, but it lacks the magic and richness of Georges Bizet's CARMEN. However, if you combine all that is good about Brook's LA TRAGEDIE DE CARMEN with the talented cast and crew of Opera in the Heights, you have a good tim...

Giuseppe Verdi's AIDA, written to open the Khedivial Opera House in Egypt in 1871, proves its timelessness as Director Gale Edwards blends old and new worlds on the waterfront stage. With a 18meter tall partial ruins of the head of Nefertiti towering over Farm Cove, the original setting in Egypt ha...

Long before there was “American Idol” or “The Voice,” there were the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions. A 62-year tradition in the opera world, it comes to a head at the National Council Auditions Finals Concert, which took place this year on Sunday afternoon. It was the culmin...

The title role of Donizetti's LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR was so important to star sopranos during the last half of the 20th century, that it's hard to recall that in Caruso's day, the tenor was the main attraction. I thought of that during the current performance of the opera at the met, with Russian sopra...

The Canadian Opera Company's production of Handel's SEMELE came to BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House complete with a marvelous 17-ton Ming Dynasty temple, transported from the town of Quhou, China. It was central to the production concept by Zhang Huan, a visual and performance artist who admits to ig...

In a bold move, SDO premiered a production of John Adams' most frequently performed opera...

Soprano Diana Damrau did another of her high-wire acts at the Met this week, with her third role debut here in under two years. After last year's spectacular Amina in Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, she's taken on the title role in Massenet's MANON and proven once again that she is one of the company's gre...

I always know to expect the unexpected when I attend a production by New Line Theatre. Artistic Director Scott Miller has a gift for choosing shows that are consistently engaging, entertaining, and smartly cast and directed. Whether it's a revival of a classic or something of a more recent vintage, ...

Zang Huan's imaginative retelling of the baroque Opera at BAM as performed by the Canadian Opera Company....

It's an old story: Woman meets man. Woman loses man…and loses him over and over again on a party-line. Luckily, the woman is Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci and the composer of LA VOIX HUMAINE is Francis Poulenc. Together, they made for a fascinating performance at Lincoln Center's Alice T...

Passionate performances by Libor, Morris and Owens are what propel an otherwise adrift Flying Dutchman. Clearer staging and dynamic direction could have made this production of Wagner's classic opera thrilling....

Maria Callas got the world used to hearing singing that was not always pitch-perfect yet still essential listening. I kept thinking about this at the Met the other night during the new production of Rossini's LA DONNA DEL LAGO with a cast headed by a couple of stars, mezzo Joyce DiDonato and tenor J...

It's the wrong time of year to expect a hurricane in New York, but that didn't stop mezzo Jamie Barton from taking Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall by storm this week. With her warmth, sly sense of playfulness and a voice that just won't quit, Barton held the audience captive....

The joint production of Santa Fe and Opera Philadelphia, Theodore Morrison's opera of the decline and fall of Oscar Wilde has its hits and misses. It's a magnificent production of an unripe work....

Opera Australia's new interpretation of FAUST is a delicious mix of hedonism, debauchery, desire and despair....