OPERA THEATER REVIEWS

Isabella Bywater ratchets up the tension, as Ailish Tynan and Jerry Louth shine as the governess and her male charge. ...

If you're a parent, brace yourself - and enjoy the glorious singing and fine music writes our critic about TROUBLE IN TAHITI and THE QUIET PLACE. ...

Tobias Kratzer’s production pulls the rug from underneath you writes BWW's critic. ...

“This is not a cathartic tragedy or a tale of noble sacrifice. There are no admirable characters here, no moral lesson, no redemption, and no silver lining. There is only a merciless depiction of society’s dark side,” say the Met’s program notes for RIGOLETTO. I’m not so sure....

It’s fascinating that within two weeks, as the new US opera season began in earnest, Northeast operagoers heard a pair of new (or new-ish) operas by well-known creators: the US premiere of THE LISTENERS at Opera Philadelphia, by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek and the much-revised GROUNDED by Jeani...

Annilese Miskimmon reimagines the tragic tale against the backdrop of a convent in 1960s Ireland in an unsettling production with some outstanding performers that combine with Puccini's haunting score in a compelling production....

The Met performed the season’s first TALES OF HOFFMANN (LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN), by Jacques Offenbach, with libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carre, also a Sher production, and it was a different story....

Deservedly still Tchaikovsky’s most celebrated opera, Eugene Onegin astounds with angelic music that never ceases to amaze. This production by Ted Huffman, in his main stage Royal Opera debut, features a stellar cast with Kristina Mkhitaryan as Tatyana, Gordon Bintner as Onegin, and several choice...

A match made in heaven? Girl meets boy. Girl meets baby. Girl meets drone. Girl meets court-martial....

What did our critic think of LUCIA DE LAMMERMOOR at Opera In The Heights?...

“What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” More often than not, when Shakespeare is adapted into different formats, the text is largely lost but the story remains - not so in this case. Benjamin Britten and his partner Peter Pears opted to go without a librettist, instead taking Shakespeare’s ...

Heavily reliant on strong vocals...

Mozart, music and mayhem in a tale of an outfoxed aristocrat brought down to earth...

In total transparency, I was apprehensive about this one because I’ve always associated opera with being outdated and inaccessible. However, director David Douglas has completely changed my mind....

The term has become familiar and beloved to opera lovers since the late 19th century. Seattle Opera offered Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, one of the most performed works of this genre, as its opening production of the 2024-25 season....

Opera Holland Park close out another acclaimed season with a rollicking Yeomen Of The Guard....

Saying that Giacomo Meyerbeer’s LE PROPHETE is long is like calling the Grand Canyon a pothole: It doesn’t begin to describe the experience, though they both sometimes have a rocky landscape....

If you want to see an opera based on Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet,” head for Gounod’s version of the piece. with its famous waltz and series of duets. Bellini’s I CAPULETI E I MONTECCHI is not it but that's what Will Crutchfield's Teatro Nuovo brought to town this week,...

An opera doesn’t have to be totally obscure to catch Will Crutchfield’s bel canto eye—but it couldn’t hurt. ANNA DI RESBURGO (ANNE OF ROXBURGH), the first of the two works on this summer’s schedule of the maestro’s company, Teatro Nuovo, certainly falls into that category....

Directed by John Caird and, for this revival, Katherine M. Carter, the production featured a talented cast of emerging opera stars, Studio Artists (many of whom were in featured roles), additional chorus members and the Children’s Chorus of Washington. This large cast filled the stage with excitem...

Opera Holland Park’s staging of Handel’s beloved Acis and Galatea is a smashing success that finds just the right balance between musical finesse and tongue-in-cheek comedy....

Opera Holland Park delivers two short pieces - an ideal introduction to the form's unique capacity to bring emotional weight to any story...

There’s a singular simplicity in Madama Butterfly that draws in audiences year after year, decade by decade like moths to a flame: a man loves and leaves a woman; she gives up everything for him. With a staging that mirrors that bare but powerful concept, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s 2002 ...

Has opera found its own Ivo van Hove? Jan Philipp Gloger’s radical production of Così fan tutte continues until 10 July....

Saint Louis’ Union Avenue Opera is celebrating the start of it’s thirtieth year with a superb production of Bizet’s Carmen!  (Thirty years—that’s twenty-nine seasons.  Like everyone else Union Avenue was “dark” in 2020.)  Thirty years of ever-increasing excellence in this most chall...