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Review: EUGENE ONEGIN, Royal Ballet And Opera
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...
Review: Girl Meets Drone in Tesori-Brant GROUNDED for Met Opening Night
A match made in heaven? Girl meets boy. Girl meets baby. Girl meets drone. Girl meets court-martial....
Review: LUCIA DE LAMMERMOOR at Opera In The Heights
What did our critic think of LUCIA DE LAMMERMOOR at Opera In The Heights?...
Review: BBC PROMS: PROM 68 – BRITTEN'S A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, Royal Albert Hall
“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 ...
Review: LA TRAVIATA, Royal Ballet And Opera
Heavily reliant on strong vocals...
Review: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, Royal Ballet and Opera
Mozart, music and mayhem in a tale of an outfoxed aristocrat brought down to earth...
Review: DIDO AND AENEAS, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
In total transparency, I was apprehensive about this one because I’ve always associated opera with being outdated and inaccessible.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....
Review: INTO THE WOODS at Union Avenue Opera
The Union Avenue Opera completes its 30th season with a lavish production of Into the Woods. It’s yet another large challenge for this small company—and once again they meet and conquer it with élan. ...
Review: PAGLIACCI at McCaw Hall
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....
Review: YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park close out another acclaimed season with a rollicking Yeomen Of The Guard....
Review: Bard's LE PROPHETE Makes You Long for 'Brevity' of Wagner's Ring Cycle
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....
Review: AIDA at Union Avenue Opera
Elephants? No elephants here. Just grand, grand opera!
(Tenor Limmie Pulliam will astonish you!)
The evening is filled with moments of glory....
Review: Teatro Nuovo Brings Bellini's CAPULETI-MONTECCHI to New York's Rose Theatre
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,...
Review: Rediscovering Uccelli's ANNA, Teatro Nuovo Again Proves It's Indispensable
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....
Review: LA BOHÈME at Wolf Trap
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...
Review: ACIS AND GALATEA, Opera Holland Park
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....
Review: IL SEGRETO DI SUSANNA / PAGLIACCI, Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park delivers two short pieces - an ideal introduction to the form's unique capacity to bring emotional weight to any story...
Review: MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Royal Opera House
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 ...
Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE, Royal Opera House
Has opera found its own Ivo van Hove? Jan Philipp Gloger’s radical production of Così fan tutte continues until 10 July....
Review: CARMEN at Union Avenue Opera
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...
Review: EDGAR, Opera Holland Park
A curious opera that is beautiful and ugly all at once...
Review: TOSCA, Royal Opera House
Fronted by some fresh faces, Jonathan Kent’s cinematic take on the Puccini masterwork Tosca returns for its seventeenth run at Covent Garden. ...
Review: LA VIE BOHEME at Polish National Opera
This is my very first time at the Polish National Opera and as we all know, first times can be overrated. This is certainly not the case here....
Review: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR at Artscape, Opera House
This restaging of LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR is a fitting tribute to Cape Town Opera's 25 years of artistic excellence. Under Gobbato's direction, the production not only honours the company’s past but also looks forward to its future, showcasing the enduring power of opera to move and inspire. ...
Review: GALILEO GALILEI at Opera Theatre Of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has opened an utterly glorious production of his opera, Galileo Galilei. It reconfirms OTSL’s place among the finest opera companies in the world. And it will assuredly help you resolve your issues with Phillip Glass....
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