The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Opera.
It's a shame that Bellini wasn't Donizetti--because the story of LA SONNAMBULA seems to be begging for the full comic treatment and could have been a great companion to L'ELISIR D'AMORE.
Opera for the 21st century is more than setting RUSALKA in a whorehouse, populating RIGOLETTO with a cast of apes or sending MARIA STUARDA to a maximum security prison.
Although the production doesn't quite soar, LOST IN THE STARS is a welcome addition to the WNO season simply because it's not performed very frequently - at least in comparison to other more familiar works that transcend the opera-musical divide.
There's a great Scottish word that came to mind while I was watching Emmanuel Chabrier's one-act French operetta, UNE EDUCATION MANQUEE (AN INCOMPLETE EDUCATION), this past weekend by Washington, DC's Opera Lafayette at the French Institute-Alliance Francaise in New York.
With MARIA STUARDA at the Met, we're back for the second installment of Donizetti's so-called Tudor Trilogy, with ANNA BOLENA (Anne Boleyn) already off to the gallows and ROBERTO DEVEREUX (with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, it was “Elizabeth and Essex”) still to come.
Opera Australia's THE BARBER OF SEVILLE is presented with the wonderful slapstick physical humor of the early movies as the comic tale unfolds.
Gina Galati and her Winter Opera continue to bless St.
Sometimes, the Metropolitan Opera seems like an endless Puccini festival.
Director Michael Gow's staging of Georges Bizet's THE PEARLFISHERS brings the story of love, friendship and jealously into Colonial India.
It seems ironic--to me at least--that New York's venerable City Opera would be returning to life at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, just as the “Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now” festival was finishing up its run at alternative venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
THE MAGIC FLUTE Returns To Charm And Delight at Sydney Opera House
One more BOHEME? Yet another TOSCA? How about BARBIERE redux? Sometimes the standard repertoire of opera companies seems too standard.
The Washington National Opera has always been a champion for young artists, both on stage and off.
Director Gale Edwards' interpretation of Giacomo Puccini's LA BOHÈME returns for Opera Australia's 2016 Summer Season.
No more carping about out-of-tune singing (for the rest of 2015).
As the title implies You We Us All explores that which binds humanity, from the seeming ubiquity of shallow, Western pop-culture to archetypal human values and experiences embodied literally on the stage as the characters Hope, Virtue, Time, Death and Love.
Equal parts self-congratulatory and self-deprecating--and wholly entertaining--the three-man show BARITONES UNBOUND pays homage to that elusive vocal part between the tenor and the bass: the titular baritone.
On paper, Vivaldi's 1737 opera seria CATONE IN UTICA--involving a confrontation between Cato and Caesar--seems a big mess: The music from the first act is missing and musicologists can't agree what the third act should look and sound like, leaving Act II to make or break a performance of the opera.
With artful direction and choreography from Susan Stroman, Lyric Opera's mounting of Franz Lehar's well-known 1905 operetta THE MERRY WIDOW sweeps audiences into a joyful waltz, complete with exquisite talent and a production with opulence to spare.
The Met's production of Verdi's great opera RIGOLETTO, is often referred to as the 'Ratpack' version--because it is set in the Las Vegas days of Frank Sinatra and his high-living cronies.
The best part of living in New York is that some of our most radically creative artists are performing.
“How do I live? I live!” Exclaimed Mackenzie Whitney as Rodolfo in Madison Opera's fifth incarnation of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohéme.
Appomattox is being presented as a world premiere of a revised version.
Who or what is Lulu, the eponymous character in Alban Berg's landmark opera? Is she saint or sinner? Femme fatale or victim? Put-upon or mistress of her own fate? Whatever else she might be, she is fabulous in the hands of German soprano Marlis Petersen, as the center of William Kentridge's vibrant,
The Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual galas--celebrating each year's winner of the Tucker Award to young American singers--are known for two things.
|
Fiddler on the Roof Union Avenue Opera (7/03-7/11) |
|
Samson et Dalila Union Avenue Opera (8/14-8/22) |
|
L’elisir d’amore Union Avenue Opera (7/24-8/01) |
