OPERA THEATER REVIEWS

Giuseppe Verdi's opera, filled with powerful emotions, has not been seen in Adelaide for over forty years, and this stupendous production leaves one wondering why that is so....

It's not often that singers make their debuts on Broadway and then make a splash at the opera, but that's what happened when Paulo Szot--a Tony winner for “South Pacific”--opened in the Met's production of the Shostakovich opera THE NOSE in 2010. The exciting, intoxicating production by the Sout...

Bellini's “Norma” opened at the Metropolitan Opera last Monday night to a full audience giving resounding praise to the leading lady, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky. Ms. Radvanovsky's performance of the title role was incredibly expressive and most articulately nuanced. Her inaugural American perf...

When it comes to classic opera, Giuseppe Verdi is one of the most prominent composers. LA TRAVIATA is based La dame aux Camelias, a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, and had its world premiere on March 6, 1853. Guiseppe Verdi was displeased that the authorities at La Fenice insis...

Opera Philadelphia stages NABUCCO with 19th Century sets, and some 19th Century Italian political intrigue...

Not many opera performances start with a standing ovation before a single note is sung, but the season's first COSI FAN TUTTE on September 24 was one of those rare occasions. It marked the return of conductor James Levine after a two-year absence, leading the performance from a motorized chair at a ...

A magnificent revolution arrived when the curtain opened at the Skylight Music Theatre on Friday night. The first night Artistic Director Viswa Subbaraman christened his magical season as the Stage and Music Director for his premiere production in Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio....

With a story that is somehow poignant despite its scatological language, ANNA NICOLE's heroine is nicer than Berg's LULU, less lucky than TRAVIATA's Violetta and more cunning than MANON's Manon (though maybe not MANON LESCAUT's). Whatever she is, Anna Nicole Smith is definitely a full-fledged ope...

Two-thirds into the bicentennial year of both Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, the recordings marking the occasions keep coming. Even in a crowded field, recent disks from two of today's major singers, Russian soprano Anna Netrebko and German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, are both treats--making strong ca...

State Opera of South Australia started their main stage programme for the year with a powerful production of Salome, with a libretto by Richard Strauss based on Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of Oscar Wilde's play. Richard Strauss, of course, also wrote the score of the opera...

It's a slippery slope--when an orchestra commemorates the career of a famous singer, featuring other, less well-known artists. That's exactly what the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment did last Thursday at Mostly Mozart in Alice Tully Hall. In an all-Handel concert, the group remembered its long...

Otello was presented by the Eastern Opera of New Jersey at the Brook Theater in Bound Brook on Friday, August 16th through Sunday, August 18th. The opera had the excellent accompaniment of the Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey. The performance, directed by Karole Lewis, was beautifully staged and a co...

From its earliest days, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival has included opera among its offerings, although I recall no production being quite so acclaimed as Iván Fischer's DON GIOVANNI of two seasons ago. With so much to live up to, the director-conductor's vision of Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIG...

I grew up on 'The Mikado,' and in the past year or two I've begun to slowly educate myself on Gilbert and Sullivan via Lamplighters Music Theatre, which does one or two full staged Gilbert and Sullivan operettas each year. For the first time, Saturday night, the company treated me to what seemed a f...

Dressed all in white, singing like angels and dancing like the devil, the 13 performers of "Gertrude Stein's Saints" are young, energetic, talented, and, let's face it, hot enough to be cast in Glee. What's most remarkable about this ensemble, all of them drama students at Carnegie Mellon Universit...

Is Lincoln Center planning to change its summertime schedule from “Mostly Mozart” to “Basically Beethoven”? If so, they couldn't have picked a better concert to put the point across than the opening program of this year's Festival. Heard on Wednesday evening, July 31, the performance was led...

When last heard on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, mezzo Isabel Leonard and soprano Erin Morley were a couple of nuns on their way to the guillotine in LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES. This time around, the two women--along with tenor Stephen Costello--kicked off the Met's Summer Recital Series at...

The Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY said “Bon anniversaire, Joseph Vert”--that's “Happy Birthday, Giuseppe Verdi” in French--on Saturday night, with a performance of LES VEPRES SICILIENNES, celebrating the composer's bicentenary. It offered a fine opportunity to hear an opera that followed ...

Ghenady Meirson's annual young vocalists program begins with a recital of Rachmaninov art songs and more...

Operetta composer Libby Moyer brings Gilbert and Sullivan to Central Pennsylvania in the classic tale of Aesthetic poets and their crazed fans...

Some extra special guests dropped into an event for Premium and Supporting Friends of the Royal Opera House. The Season Preview was hosted by Antonio Pappano, Kevin O'Hare, who presented the 13/14 Ballet Season, and Kasper Holten, who talked about the 13/14 Opera Season. Check it out below!...

There's certainly a reason why the works of Gilbert and Sullivan have remained a fixture in popular culture for nearly 150 years. Their operas are fun, frivolous, and tinted with social and political satire. Though Princess Ida, their eighth operatic collaboration, may not be as well-known as some...

Soprano Patricia Schuman leads Opera Philadelphia in a visually and vocally marvelous production of the modern chamber orchestra classic...