Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 26

BWW Review: Countertenor JAKUB JOZEF ORLINSKI Goes for Baroque at Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall Debut
by Richard Sasanow - February 04, 2019

It wasn't so long ago that countertenors were still considered an oddity; today, you can't turn around without tripping over one, or more. Last year, for instance, when the English Concert did Handel's RINALDO at Carnegie Hall there were, indeed, three countertenors. One of them was the young Polish...

BWW Review: Debuts Galore at Met's First DON GIOVANNI of the Season, But Willis-Sorensen's Anna Steals the Show
by Richard Sasanow - February 03, 2019

According to a quote attributed to Andy Warhol, if you want to tell a good painting from a bad one, first look at a thousand paintings; then you'll realize that there are no hard and fast rules. When it comes to performing arts and traditional repertoire, the standards are a little different. Direc...

BWW Review: LA GIOCONDA at LA MONNAIE in Belgium
by Alexander Diaconu - January 31, 2019

Olivier Py's vision of Amilcare Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda is in the purest sense of the term a wonderfully vibrant and dynamic revival....

BWW Review: CHAMPION at Opéra De Montréal
by Maggie Owen - January 30, 2019

Champion is based on a true story, focusing on the life of welterweight prizefighting champion Emile Griffith, a respected and famous boxer whose life rapidly changed after accidentally killing his opponent, Benny Paret, in the ring. Griffith was also bisexual in a time when it was socially unaccep...

BWW Review: THE ITALIAN GIRL IN ALGIERS at Winter Opera
by Steve Callahan - February 01, 2019

There's that initial low, stealthy tip-toeing pizzicato, like a Warner Brothers cat creeping up on a clever mouse. Then an oboe slips in, and other woodwinds, some piccolo. Then (SURPRISE!) a racing, romping foretaste of the musical fun to follow. It's the utterly delicious overture to Giochino Ross...

BWW Review: Love and Laughter Warms MN Opera's Luscious THE ITALIAN STRAW HAT
by Peggy Sue Dunigan - January 29, 2019

n the midst of a polar vortex this winter, MN Opera sends an early valentine filled with warmth to the Twin Cities in their production The Italian Straw Hat at the Ordway Center's Orchestra Hall. This comic Italian opera set in 1950's Paris plays similar to a French farce while sung in Italian and a...

BWW Review: IOLANTA/BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE at The Metropolitan Opera
by Joanna Barouch - January 28, 2019

​​​​ Opera stories thrive on the tension of good versus evil, of light versus darkness, and although the outcomes are not always happy, there's always an interesting tale to be told....

BWW Review: PELLEAS ET MELISANDE at Metropolitan Opera
by Peter Danish - January 16, 2019

Pélleas et Mélisande last night was hands down the best thing the Met has done this season. No arias, no duets, no trios, no choruses, just ravishing melodies bathed in some of the most complex web-like, ethereal harmonies....

BWW Review: LA TRAVIATA, Royal Opera House
by Sophia Lambton - January 15, 2019

A quarter of a century after its premiere, the long-running production is still worth a shot....

BWW Review: THE QUEEN OF SPADES, Royal Opera House
by Sophia Lambton - January 14, 2019

The Royal Opera's new production sidelines the opera in favour of meaningless chaos....

BWW Review: AIDA at Metropolitan Opera
by Peter Danish - January 09, 2019

Aida has been called the grandest of grand operas and the production that has graced the Met stage for the last (unbelievably) 30 years still looks absolutely amazing - towering columns, massive sandstone blocks, etc. Oddly, the audience did not applaud the sets (as they have in every other performa...

BWW Review: A PRISM of PROTOTYPE's INFINITE PSYCHOSIS for 2019
by Richard Sasanow - January 09, 2019

Where are our Violettas, our Salomes, our Elektras--even our Lulus--for opera to move forward as an art form for the 21 century? They're all victims of stress and suffering of one sort or another, but still worth meeting up with--not only musically but dramatically--more than once. I began thinkin...

BWW Review: Fireworks from Met's New ADRIANA LECOUVREUR with Netrebko for New Year's Eve
by Richard Sasanow - January 02, 2019

On New Year's Eve, the Metropolitan Opera unveiled a new production of Cilea's ADRIANA LECOUVREUR, with a high-powered, audience-pleasing cast--headed by Anna Netrebko--in a production by Met favorite David McVicar, appealingly designed and costumed, and played elegantly by the Met orchestra under G...

BWW Overview: A Look-Back at Opera's Many-Colored Dream Coat of Performance Highs in 2018
by Richard Sasanow - December 27, 2018

Well, it's that time of the year again--time for a look-back on what was worth making note of during the calendar year that's about to come to an end. It's from a totally personal, subjective point of view, of course, but frankly that's the way opera-lovers always seem to like it, n'est-ce pas? The ...

BWW Review: Dudamel's Baptism by Fire Turns in a Solid, Throbbing OTELLO at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - December 17, 2018

Talk about baptism by fire! That's what Gustavo Dudamel--that wunderkind of the classical conducting world--faced as he reached the podium of the Met for the first time Friday night. Not only was he conducting Verdi's great opera, OTELLO, but he was doing so with a last-minute substitute in the titl...

BWW Review: HANSEL AND GRETEL, Royal Opera House
by Sophia Lambton - December 14, 2018

The spectacle is a hunger-inducing delight for the eyes....

BWW Review: It's All GREEK for Me, from Scottish Opera at BAM's Next Wave Festival
by Richard Sasanow - December 13, 2018

I hope somebody from New York City Opera was at BAM last weekend, because Mark-Anthony Turnage's GREEK--a modern retelling of the Oedipus myth from Scottish Opera/Opera Ventures, presented by BAM's Next Wave Festival--is just what the doctor ordered for that company. A great story, a small cast, a s...

BWW Review: Live from New York, It's On Site Opera's AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS
by Richard Sasanow - December 09, 2018

The touching, moving, brilliantly site-specific version of Gian Carlo Menotti's AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS, performed this week by New York's vibrant On Site Opera (OSO), had the audience at the Church of the Holy Apostles Church alternately in tears and cheering....

BWW Review: Damrau's a Top Violetta with the Met's New Maestro Nezet-Seguin in LA TRAVIATA from Mayer
by Richard Sasanow - December 06, 2018

I interviewed Diana Damrau when she had just done her first Violetta, her role debut in the Met's old Willy Decker production. It was a part she lusted over from the time she saw the 1982 Zeffirelli film, but was careful about taking on--waiting for the right time in her vocal development. That was ...

BWW Review: THE MERRY WIDOW at Adelaide Festival Theatre
by Barry Lenny - December 01, 2018

Antoinette Halloran and Alexander Lewis captivate the audience....

BWW Review: CARMEN, Royal Opera House
by Sophia Lambton - December 01, 2018

Barrie Kosky's unmusical revival loses more steam on its second outing....

BWW Review: GLASS or HANDEL, Costanzo Can Handle Whatever's Thrown at Him
by Richard Sasanow - November 29, 2018

No one can accuse countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo of sitting around and waiting for projects to fall into his lap. GLASS HANDEL was first produced by the singer with Visionaire and Cath Brittan at Opera Philadelphia's (OP) O18 Operafest in September and presented in NY by OP and National Sawdust ...

BWW Review: Juilliard Makes Handel's AMINTA E FILLIDE the Opera of the Year
by Richard Sasanow - November 26, 2018

Handel's AMINTA E FILLIDE doesn't have much of a libretto--'nymph meets swain and complications arise,' says the program, and that's about it--and there were just a handful of musicians from Juilliard's early music program on stage at the Morgan Library's tiny Gilder Lehrman Hall. for a work that la...

BWW Review: Saariaho's SOUND, Directed by Sellars, Says Yes to Noh at White Light Festival
by Richard Sasanow - November 21, 2018

With a formidable cast of three, and a brilliant ensemble of voices and instrumental musicians, Kaija Saariaho's ONLY THE SOUND REMAINS swept through town last weekend, created with director Peter Sellars. Once again, she left us in awe of how she can fill an impossibly large theatre with what seems...

BWW Review: Washington Concert Opera Serves Up a Seductive SAPHO
by Sam Abney - November 21, 2018

If you have ever attended an opera and thought 'all of these sets and costumes are so incredibly distracting' then Washington Concert Opera would be right up your alley. Stripping away the grandiose of an opera production, WCO presents their works in their most raw form: with just an orchestra, a ch...