OPERA THEATER REVIEWS

It didn't have a ten-ton set, a fake diva flying from a parapet, or a star-studded cast, but Opera Lafayette's L'EPREUVE VILLAGEOISE (THE VILLAGE TRIAL) had one thing noticeably absent from the opera stage in New York this season: charm aplenty, charm galore....

This review was first published by KDHX, St. Louis. Opera Theatre of St. Louis has opened Handel's 'Richard the Lionheart,' and it is truly astonishing! It is, in all aspects, the most perfect production of an opera that I've ever seen. And voices? Ah, the voices are quite stunning! This is ...

A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away…a man named George Fredric Handel crafted an opera entitled Rinaldo. A few hundred years later, an opera company that prides itself in bringing a fresh perspective to the art form added their own charms to the libretto. Under the guise of the Star Wa...

A rare Puccini receives a lovely production: 'La rondine' at Opera Theatre of St. Louis...

I think I bring this up every time I write about an opera, but it's just so funny to me that most of my early exposure to the medium came through films that I saw on TV when I was kid. Whether it was an Our Gang short (the one where Alfalfa wants to give up crooning to become an opera singer), a Bug...

Adapted from a scene of Euripides' Medea, the Tapestry Opera's latest production of M'DEA UNDONE brings the myth and tragedy of this classic story to modern times. The opera takes place in the twenty-first century as Jason, a former army captain, begins a new political career and begins to distance ...

Whether audience members know, or let alone have heard, about opera singer Maria Callas, Master Class offers much to contemplate about the dedication towards one's art....

Be shaken as well as stirred by this inventive trio at Sturgeon Bay's Third Avenue Playhouse. Robert Boles, James Valcq and Ryan Patrick Shaw conjure contemporary mayhem from an 18th century Italian opera in Stage Door Theatre Company's enchanting Maid To Marry. This evening's play on words captures...

Forget what might be known or understood regarding Richard Wagner's epic The Ring Cycle- a legendary series of four complete operas he composed over 26 years ( 1848-1874) that requires more than 18 hours to perform. Instead enjoy The Skylight Ring, Skylight Music Theatre's cheeky, slightly irreveren...

The Met was running on all cylinders for the last performance of the season, with Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA in an energized version of the production that premiered in 2012. The trio of principals--soprano Sondra Radvanovsky as Amelia, tenor Piotr Beczala as Gustavo and baritone Alexey Markov as ...

Anybody who enjoys full throated singing, and a swirling orchestral backing, would have been as a delighted as I was....

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...

The finale of Washington National Opera's season, Cinderella, is an enchanting and vibrant retelling of a classic fairy tale with an imaginative twist....

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...