OPERA THEATER REVIEWS

Von Stade out of retirement is cause for celebration, but there's no other purpose to the vehicle for it...

For their annual summer festival, Skylark Opera is presenting the Leonard Bernstein classic operetta Candide and the musical revue Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill....

I love theater that challenges me as an audience member and An American Soldier does just that....

In New York, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX will forever be associated with Beverly Sills' powerful portrayal of Elizabeth I, and her stern photo glaring out from the cover of Time Magazine. However, Italian soprano Mariella Devia, a vocal miracle at 66, nearly caused a riot in the role at Carnegie Ha...

Il Divo's A MUSICAL AFFAIR lives up to its promise and brings impressed and appreciative audience members enthusiastically to their feet. The Providence show marked the final stop on Il Divo's North American tour and, rather fittingly, this "love letter" to musical theater graced PPAC's stage on t...

Well, it worked on me! 'The Elixir of Love' opened last night at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and after only a sip or two I fell head over heels for it. At the end of the evening I was, like Nemorino, giddy (oh, let's admit it, the better word is 'drunk') with happiness and delight. It was si...

When New York's Gotham Chamber Opera--in collaboration with the Gerald Lynch Theatre at John Jay College--presented Toshio Hosokawa's THE RAVEN in its US premiere last week, as part of the NY Philharmonic Biennial, the composer could not have wished for a production that made a better case for it. Y...

The Hagerstown Hub Opera production of one of Mozart's most famous operas, The Marriage of Figaro, is an enjoyable way to spend an evening, providing audiences with gorgeous music and vocals and very clever caricatures of the well known opera buffa stereotypes....

Opera Theatre of St. Louis has opened its thirty-ninth season with a bang. Their production of The Magic Flute is unlike any other you've seen (or ever will see)....

Even with its visions of damnation and redemption, Gounod's FAUST, with libretto by Barbier and Carre, is pretty tame stuff. In the wrong hands, it can be dull as well. Well, you can't accuse the Dutch National Opera's new production--by Barcelona's Alex Ollé and the theatre company La Fura dels B...

Seven productions tempt opera-lovers in a bright summer season....

Nicholas Muni gives a stylish yet peculiar take on an age-old story...

Sometimes less is more, but in this case more is more....and much more was needed!...

“The party's over,” wrote Betty Comden & Adolph Green in BELLS ARE RINGING. “It's time to call it a day.” The opera season at the Metropolitan said its farewells to 2013-2014 on May 10 with a bel canto doubleheader of Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA (a shot heard round the world via radio and The M...

With only three more performances of this operatic masterwork, it is essential to waste no time in booking tickets. This is not to be missed....

A winner from start to finish, THE MAGIC FLUTE features Mozart's score, a delightful new translation, superb casting, and the stunning design work of Jun Kaneko. Perfect for fans and novices, this MAGIC FLUTE is a must see....

Poor, plain, easily ignored Nemorino. He's so in love with the beautiful Adina, but she doesn't love him back. Ultimately, lovesick Nemorino is forced to buy a love potion from a charlatan to win Adina's heart. While that may be the plot of Gaetano Donizetti's comic opera, it doesn't take a potion t...

When the Met's production of LA CENERENTOLA, Rossini's version of the Cinderella story. arrives in movie theatres around the world next week, the star for many will be tenor Juan Diego Florez as the prince. But he didn't make it to the first three performances of the opera this season in New York--n...

One of the thrilling things about live opera performance is that it's like watching a tightrope walker, particularly when it's one with as many high notes and such florid writing as in Bellini's I PURITANI. Only daredevils need apply. That was the atmosphere when Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko made...

Closing their 2013-14 Season, HGO is presenting Georges Bizet's acclaimed CARMEN. For this production, Award winning Broadway Director and Choreographer Rob Ashford took the reins and has created a CARMEN that is as beautiful as it is exciting....

In MACBETH, Brett Bailey gives us Shakespeare by way of Giuseppe Verdi's opera, filtered through Third World Bunfight's trademark post-colonialist, avant-garde manifesto....

By this time in the Met's season, audiences can be a little “been there, done that”--but not when it came to Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, singing the title role in Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY for the first time in New York. They nearly stormed the stage when she came out for her curtain call...

Of all the music that Richard Strauss wrote during his long career—and he'd composed almost 60 songs and more than 40 piano works by the time he was 18—perhaps none are more gorgeous and moving than his FOUR LAST SONGS (VIER LETZTE LIEDER). Finnish soprano Karita Mattila's performance on Satur...

Houston Grand Opera, which opened a lavish production of DAS RHEINGOLD this past weekend, is proudly kicking off their first Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner. Like any modern production of Wagner's Ring Cycle, Houston Grand Opera is sparing no expense. At Sunday's matinee, the audience leapt to their fe...

For two magical hours, Ferruccio Furlanetto lifted an embattled San Diego Opera from its doldrums to the lofty heights only such an artist can invoke, in his exquisite rendering of Jules Massenet's noble, genteel Don Quixote....