OPERA THEATER REVIEWS

The truth in a story can move an audience to powerful reflection. The Skylight Music Theatre presents a brief production run of El Cimarron in the Studio Theatre to open 2014. A stage where the uncomfortable truth of slavery unfolds through the trials of a runaway Cuban slave, Esteban Montejo, and t...

Before seeing the Met's new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s DIE FLEDERMAUS, directed by Jeremy Sams, on Saturday night, I listened to the afternoon's live broadcast of Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE. Both were written in German and performed in English to make them more palatable to their target audie...

I have to compliment Ignite Theatre for picking the talent needed to pull off the heavy, lead roles required for this show....

“Dying is easy; comedy is hard” says the old show business quip. If anything, opera comedy is even harder. Why is it so difficult? Because it offers so many opportunities to do a disservice to the composer, the artists and the art form in one fell swoop. However, Robert Carsen's antic new produ...

Fun for the whole family, this is a solid offering by the Washington National Opera....

Just what the opera world needs: Another director who doesn't have an idea about what to do with an opera. How else could you explain the new Dmitri Tcherniakov production of Verdi's LA TRAVIATA that opened the season at Milan's La Scala, on Saturday December 7th? Seen in a HD broadcast from the Eme...

Tenor Jeffrey Halili and fellow graduates and resident artists of Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts performed November 30 (and again on December 14) at Philadelphia's First Presbyterian for American Red Cross typhoon relief...

The Academy of Vocal Arts performed an updated version of Mozart's comic opera that makes sense in its handling and boasts some fine performances...

The State Opera of South Australia are restaging the 1997 production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. It was last seen here in 2006 and so popular is this production that it is back again....

On Broadway, when a revival loses two out of three of its stars, the production might very well be put off until another season or, at worst, the producers might pack it in. In the opera world, companies don't have that luxury, particularly at a showplace like the Metropolitan Opera. Thus, we receiv...

Merriment and joviality are the key ingredients for Opera in the Height's production of Gaetano Donizetti's comedic opera DON PASQUALE. When DON PASQUALE first opened in 1843 it was instantly recognized as Gaetano Donizetti's masterpiece, and for many it still holds that distinction. In the classic...

When it comes to operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Don Carlo has to be the most challenging one to produce. Which version do you use? The French version? The Italian translation? Given the over four hour running time of the full version, where do you make cuts, and why? And once you answer those questi...

Live from New York, it's soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci! Lucky for us. Antonacci is considered one of those distinctive, uncategorizable singers who show up every once in a while to excite and inspire us, but never quite find the broader acceptance they deserve. Thus, she doesn't sing at the Met an...

There are more famous operas than Richard Strauss's DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN (The Woman without a Shadow), but you won't find one that is more exciting when all the pieces--and there are lots of them--come together. The Met's production is one of those evenings in the opera house--not perfect but so t...

Handel wrote over 1000 da capo arias—a musical mainstay of Italian baroque operas--during his career, but none more thrilling than “Let the Bright Seraphim.” The showpiece for soprano and piccolo trumpet, which comes at the very end of the oratorio SAMSON, was a joyous crowd-pleaser at the New...

Before the Kauffman Center for the Performing arts opened, co-productions with the likes of the San Francisco Opera seemed unthinkable, but now, the Lyric Opera teams with that company to present a new vision of THE MAJIC FLUTE....

It's easy to see why the Collegiate Chorale chose Arrigo Boito's MEFISTOFELE for its season opener at Carnegie Hall last Wednesday. The opera, which is the only one completed by the librettist of Verdi's OTELLO and FALSTAFF, can't be mistaken for any other. Besides providing a rich score and marvelo...

The Queen of Puddings production of Ana Sokolovic's short opera made its US premiere at Opera Philadelphia with the assistance of FringeArts and a raucous reception...

Maybe next time around, the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager Peter Gelb will hire film director Quentin Tarantino to do a production of Puccini's TOSCA. With its sordid story, self-involved diva and torture-happy, sex-crazed police chief--based on a Sarah Bernhardt vehicle by Victorien Sardou--t...

The Production Company rounded off its 2013 season last night with Gilbert and Sullivan's classic operetta The Pirates of Penzance. There was, however, little reference to the classic that was first performed in 1879. There have been many adaptations of the original, with this production centering o...

It's not everyday that you watch the interconnectivity of two separate people communicating via Internet chat room. Let alone, how about five people's conversations over several weeks with an entire chorus of “chaters” behind them. It adds up to quite the stack of transcripts. The idea, while...

INVISIBLE CITIES, the world's first large scale opera for wireless headphones, is being staged by The Industry, L.A. Dance Project and audio specialist Sennheiser to push the boundaries of art, imagination and wireless technology for an unprecedented, interactive dramatic experience, allowing the au...

Giuseppe Verdi's 1871 opera AIDA is a worldwide phenomenon. It has been adapted into several films, Elton John and Tim Rice adapted it into a Broadway musical with the same title, and, as of 2007, New York City's Metropolitan Opera has given over 1,100 performances of the opera, making it their seco...

After a triumph in Mozart's COSI FAN TUTTE at the Met, James Levine made it two in a row, as he returned with the MET Orchestra and soloist Joyce DiDonato to Carnegie Hall early this week for a concert of far-reaching styles and depth....

The Metropolitan Opera may have chosen soprano Anna Netrebko to add star-power to its new season's opening production of Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN, but she was upstaged, figuratively speaking at least, by the thrilling performance of Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, as the poet Lenski....