Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 13

Review: SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO. 5 at Charlotte Symphony
by Perry Tannenbaum - February 05, 2023

A worthy candidate for CSO's vacant musical directorship, Vinay Parameswaran brings a winsome personality and an eclectic modern program to the Knight Theater podium for his Charlotte debut....

Review: Mozart's Beloved Comic Opera THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO Takes A Gloriously Chaotic Turn At Canadian Opera Company
by Isabella Perrone - February 02, 2023

The Canadian Opera Company presents this production of THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, originally created by the Salzburg Festival, as part of its 2023 season. Directed here by Claus Guth, some of Mozart's most recognizable operatic works come to life through the COC Orchestra, conducted by Harry Bicket....

Review: Exquisitely Subtle CARMELITES Makes Another of Its Brief Stops at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - January 20, 2023

I’ve heard the opera a number of times at the Met over the years and this year’s run holds up with the most breathtaking of them. Despite the number of star performances among the magnificent ensemble currently being heard at the Met, the star of the show doesn’t have a single word to say or note to...

Review: LEAST LIKE THE OTHER, SEARCHING FOR ROSEMARY KENNEDY, Royal Opera House, Linbury Theatre
by Gary Naylor - January 18, 2023

An extraordinary, powerful, moving multimedia work that gives voice to Rosemary Kennedy, denied it for over 60 years....

Review: At the Met, All You Need is Love, When L'ELISIR is in the Right Hands
by Richard Sasanow - January 12, 2023

Donizetti wrote more than six dozen operas in the course of around 30 years, so it must have been hard for him not to steal from himself. Still, it always strikes me during the overture to his great comedy L’ELISIR D’AMORE, whose run at the Met opened the other night, when I hear echoes of the oh-so...

Review: O'Halloran Double-Bill Brings Complex Emotions to the Surface at PROTOTYPE
by Richard Sasanow - January 10, 2023

A powerful double bill by Irish composer Emma O’Halloran, to libretti by her playwright uncle, Mark O’Halloran, deals with disappointment, connection and heartbreak--and what makes people tick. You know, 'the usual.'...

Review: 10th Anniversary PROTOTYPE Festival in NY Blasts Off with Du Yun's IN OUR DAUGHTER'S EYES
by Richard Sasanow - January 06, 2023

There’s more contemporary opera in New York these days than there used to be and I’ll drink to that. But there’s nothing else that does it with the panache of the PROTOTYPE Festival, the brainchild of Beth Morrison Projects and HERE....

Review: Met Audience Tips Its Hat to FEDORA on New Year's Eve
by Richard Sasanow - January 01, 2023

Musicologist Joseph Kerman is probably most widely remembered for calling Puccini’s TOSCA “a shabby little shocker.” I wonder whether he’d have something similar to say about Giordano’s FEDORA, which brought the Met audience to its feet on New Year’s Eve?...

Review: Spectacular Soloists at Chamber Music Society--Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, Oboist James Austin Smith and Harpist Bridget Kibbey
by Richard Sasanow - December 09, 2022

This week’s concert of Vivaldi and Handel at the Chamber Music Society (CMS)--with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, oboist James Austin Smith and harpist Bridget Kibbey--whipped the audience into a frenzy of delight with a combination of arias, sonatas and concertos at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tull...

Review: ISABEL LEONARD and PABLO SÁINZ-VILLEGAS Together at The Conrad in La Jolla
by Ron Bierman - December 05, 2022

Mezzo Isabel Leonard and classical-guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas are stars in their fields. Leonard has sung on two Grammy-winning opera recordings and won a Beverly Sills Artist Award at the Metropolitan Opera--and even guested on Sesame Street. He's garnered 30 international awards, including the...

Review: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, London Coliseum
by Gary Naylor - November 27, 2022

Opera based on much loved 1946 film offers a vision of a town without music, without joy, without love and, in doing so, compels us to value what we have - a moral shared by everyone in the house, but not outside it....

Review: THE HOURS Goes by in Minutes as Met Gives Birth to Fascinating Opera by Puts and Pierce
by Richard Sasanow - November 25, 2022

The Met gave birth to a fascinating new opera on Tuesday and it wasn’t a moment too soon to unleash composer Kevin Puts’s THE HOURS on an audience that sometimes seems doomed to die inundated by too many AIDAs, BOHEMEs and CARMENs. The world premiere production of THE HOURS by Puts and Greg Pierce w...

Review: Oratorio Society Debuts Stunning NATION OF OTHERS by Moravec and Campbell at Carnegie Hall
by Richard Sasanow - November 18, 2022

The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY), under Kent Tritle, gave its second stirring world premiere by Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell with Tuesday’s outstanding performance of A NATION OF OTHERS....

Review: An Old-Fashioned Sing-Off Celebrates ANGEL BLUE at Geffen Hall's 2022 Richard Tucker Gala
by Richard Sasanow - November 15, 2022

Award-winner Angel Blue started off the proceedings at the Richard Tucker Gala (after Barry Tucker’s usual introduction/ode to his father, the great tenor) with a bang: Puccini’s justly famous aria “Vissi d’arte” from TOSCA. For those of us who’ve only heard her as Bess in Gershwin’s PORGY & BESS at...

Review: DON CARLO Returns to the Met, This Time in Italian
by Richard Sasanow - November 13, 2022

Last season, the company gave its first presentation of the French version (that’s the one called DON CARLOS, with a final S to his first name), in the five-act version that lasted almost 5 hours. This year, we’re back to Italian, under Carlo Rizzi’s firm baton, in one of a number of versions (this ...

Review: ALCINA at Artscape is a Sumptuous, Atmospheric Spectacle of an Opera
by Jaime Uranovsky - November 13, 2022

It is imperative that I begin this review by admitting that before viewing ALCINA, I was an opera-virgin. Well, this production was the perfect introduction to the genre. Firstly, what a magical experience to be back in the Artscape after a lengthy COVID-induced hiatus. The excitement and anticipat...

Review: New York Becomes HOMETOWN to Kaminsky-Reed Opera About ICE Raid on Slaughterhouse in Iowa
by Richard Sasanow - November 10, 2022

HOMETOWN TO THE WORLD--the 70-minute contemporary chamber opera by Laura Kaminsky and Kimberly Reed about the aftermath of a 2008 raid by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa--is about as far from the Midwest of Meredith Willson’s THE MUSIC MAN imag...

Review: Crutchfield's Teatro Nuovo Breathes Life into Rossini's MAOMETTO SECONDO at Rose Theatre
by Richard Sasanow - November 07, 2022

Will Crutchfield’s gutsy Teatro Nuovo brought New Yorkers a chance to evaluate Rossini's MAOMETTO SECONDO the other day at Jazz from Lincoln Center’s Rose Theatre. Kudos to Crutchfield, who continues on his quest for the most authentic of the authentic in bel canto, even when the originals weren’t e...

Review: CARMEN (in English Translation) Rose Hall, Jazz At Lincoln Center
by Joanna Barouch - November 05, 2022

If you were under the impression that the term 'Opéra Comique' meant a 'comic opera', you might be literally correct, but truthfully the joke would be on you. What does it really mean? Opéra Comique is a genre of French opera first developed in the eighteenth century....

Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S WORLD PREMIERE OF THE LAST DREAM OF FRIDA AND DIEGO at the San Diego Civic Theater
by Ron Bierman - November 02, 2022

What did our critic think of SAN DIEGO OPERA'S WORLD PREMIERE OF THE LAST DREAM OF FRIDA AND DIEGO at San Diego Civic Theater? ​ ​The San Diego Opera, reveling in modern phantasies, has followed its successful production of Aging Magician with El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Fri...

Review: CARMEN Burns Bright in Canadian Opera Company's Latest Production
by Isabella Perrone - October 25, 2022

Quite possibly one of the best known opera comiques, CARMEN has returned to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts’ stage in a bright blaze....

Review: TOSCA Thrills Edmonton
by Sarah Dussome - October 24, 2022

One of the world’s most beloved operas takes centre stage in Edmonton....

Review: How the Wisdom of Elders Influenced Musicians Davone Tines and Jennifer Koh in EVERYTHING RISES at BAM
by Richard Sasanow - October 18, 2022

In EVERYTHING RISES--a one-hour performance piece from African American bass-baritone Davone Tines and Korean American violinist Jennifer Koh that had its East Coast premiere last week as part of BAM’s Next Wave series--we see these two virtuoso musicians take control of their careers, with the help...

Review: That Was No LADY, in Mtsensk or Anywhere Else, But Boy Was She Spectacular!
by Richard Sasanow - October 10, 2022

Afraid of Shostakovich? Don’t be. LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK is a glory to behold, in Graham Vick’s knockout production, designed and costumed by Paul Brown, staged this time by Paula Suozzi, with Ron Howell’s choreography. And there were times when the music, with the Met orchestra under the firm, sma...

Review: GODS OF THE GAME, Grange Park Opera
by Gary Naylor - October 07, 2022

Football opera land perfectly between the Women's Euros and the Men's World Cup finding plenty of common ground to delight fans of both art forms...