Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations

Review: TROUBLE IN TAHITI and THE QUIET PLACE, Royal Ballet and Opera
by Gary Naylor - October 11, 2024

If you're a parent, brace yourself - and enjoy the glorious singing and fine music...

Review: FIDELIO, Royal Ballet and Opera
by Alexander Cohen - October 10, 2024

Tobias Kratzer’s production pulls the rug from underneath you....

Review: With Great Music but Little Jesting, RIGOLETTO Returns to the Met
by Richard Sasanow - October 07, 2024

“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....

Review: Droning Overwhelms the Lives of THE LISTENERS in New Mazzoli-Vavrek Opera
by Richard Sasanow - October 03, 2024

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 Jeanine...

Review: SUOR ANGELICA, London Coliseum
by Michael Higgs - September 30, 2024

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....

Review: Bernheim Brings His Well-Schooled HOFFMAN to the Met with Elan
by Richard Sasanow - September 27, 2024

Last Friday night at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre, I saw a preview of its latest production, MCNEAL, directed by Bartlett Sher, which moved like the wind and was fun to watch and oh-so-enjoyable to hear. On Tuesday, the Met performed the season’s first TALES OF HOFFMANN (LES CONTES D’HOF...

Review: EUGENE ONEGIN, Royal Ballet And Opera
by Michael Higgs - September 30, 2024

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 choices ...

Review: Girl Meets Drone in Tesori-Brant GROUNDED for Met Opening Night
by Richard Sasanow - September 24, 2024

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
by Armando Urdiales - September 21, 2024

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
by Debbie Gilpin - September 11, 2024

“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 words ...

Review: LA TRAVIATA, Royal Ballet And Opera
by Alexander Cohen - September 09, 2024

Heavily reliant on strong vocals...

Review: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, Royal Ballet and Opera
by Gary Naylor - September 03, 2024

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

Review: DIDO AND AENEAS, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
by Mary Baillie - September 02, 2024

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: PAGLIACCI at McCaw Hall
by Erica Miner - August 12, 2024

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
by Franco Milazzo - August 08, 2024

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
by Richard Sasanow - August 05, 2024

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: Teatro Nuovo Brings Bellini's CAPULETI-MONTECCHI to New York's Rose Theatre
by Richard Sasanow - July 27, 2024

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
by Richard Sasanow - July 24, 2024

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
by Emily Berger - July 20, 2024

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 excitemen...

Review: ACIS AND GALATEA, Opera Holland Park
by Michael Higgs - July 21, 2024

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
by Gary Naylor - July 18, 2024

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
by Franco Milazzo - July 15, 2024

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 prod...

Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE, Royal Opera House
by Franco Milazzo - July 08, 2024

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
by Steve Callahan - July 08, 2024

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 challenging of musical...

Review: EDGAR, Opera Holland Park
by Gary Naylor - July 03, 2024

A curious opera that is beautiful and ugly all at once...