Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 30

BWW Review: Winter Opera of St. Louis Presents L'ELISIR D'AMORE
by Steve Callahan - March 12, 2018

We went out into the chilly spring evening - and it became, for me, one of the most totally pleasing evenings of opera I've ever experienced. Winter Opera of St. Louis presented Donizetti's 'L'Elisir d'Amore' in a production that was as near perfection as one could ever ask....

BWW Review: Exciting Goerke and Nezet-Seguin Change Dynamic of Met's ELEKTRA
by Richard Sasanow - March 07, 2018

When Christine Goerke took on the title role in the Met's revival of Richard Strauss's masterwork ELEKTRA--the final work of director Patrice Chereau--she wasn't so much competing with Nina Stemme, who sang the premiere of the production last spring, but with herself. Six months before this version ...

BWW Review: WNO's Passionate DON CARLO
by Benjamin Tomchik - March 06, 2018

Giuseppe Verdi's epic opera is being staged for the first time in two decades at WNO and features a sterling cast in a grand production....

BWW Review: HAMLET: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2018 at Adelaide Festival Theatre
by Barry Lenny - March 03, 2018

Allan Clayton's performance as Hamlet is riveting....

BWW Review: Verdi Reigns at JUILLIARD-MET LINDEMANN Concert
by Richard Sasanow - February 28, 2018

When I first heard soprano Hyesang Park and tenor Kang Wang--two of the bright young singers featured in last weekend's Juilliard and the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Program concert--they were leads in a charming production of Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA at the school. On Friday evening, they were two ...

BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S TURANDOT at the Civic Center
by Ron Bierman - February 27, 2018

The San Diego Opera's new production of Puccini's Turandot held rapt attention throughout its three acts in spite of a dark plot that's implausible even for opera, and a lead character less loveable than Lady Macbeth. Powerful men from other kingdoms flock to win Princess Turandot's hand by answerin...

BWW Review: La Divina ANTONACCI Takes New York (Again) for City Opera Recital at Zankel Hall
by Richard Sasanow - February 22, 2018

When soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci walked on stage at Zankel Hall for her recital the other night, I thought I had wandered into an Antonioni movie, with a ravishing diva (usually played by Monica Vitti) about to perform for a rapt audience. Then she opened her mouth and sang the first of a series...

BWW Review: MARIA DI ROHAN at Washington Concert Opera
by Molly Korroch - February 22, 2018

While not entirely rare for a single family to possess multiple musical talents, it's certainly unusual to see two people from the same family as leads in the same performance. Washington Concert Opera's Sunday evening performance of Maria di Rohan was such an anomaly: an opera featuring sisters. Ma...

BWW Review: Meade Fearlessly Outruns Dazzlingly Difficult SEMIRAMIDE at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - February 21, 2018

A lot of risk, fast rotations in perfect unison, a precarious balance point. No, I'm not talking about doing a twizzle in Olympic ice-dancing--but starring in SEMIRAMIDE by Gioacchino Rossini, a man who believed there was no such thing as too many runs, roulades and high notes. Neither did soprano A...

BWW Review: MADAMA BUTTERFLY at Times Union Theater
by Jordan Higginbotham - February 20, 2018

Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini is a beautiful show full of so much emotion and talent. The beautiful story, in which Miss Saigon is based on, is intriguing and heartbreaking leaving audience members to reflect on what they hold dear. A story of a young girl who believes in love so much she will...

BWW Review: Parsing PARSIFAL at the Met, with an Impressive Cast under Nezet-Seguin
by Richard Sasanow - February 15, 2018

Richard Wagner's last opera, PARSIFAL, is a tough nut to crack. With its highly religious overtones, lack of action and incredible length (it ran about 5 hours 40 minutes the other night), it's not exactly a 'light night' at the opera--even if for those of us who consider opera to be a 'light night'...

BWW Review: No Heart on the Sleeve of WRITTEN ON SKIN at Opera Philadelphia
by Richard Sasanow - February 13, 2018

Opera Philadelphia's production of the George Benjamin-Martin Crimp WRITTEN ON SKIN is another feather in the cap of the company that's quickly becoming the one to watch in the world of contemporary opera....

BWW Review: NY City Opera's Moving, Lively CRUZAR and 'What is an Opera?'
by Richard Sasanow - January 31, 2018

In many areas of the arts in New York, January is a quiet month. But in the opera world, the last few weeks certainly have been jumping. It has also been a fine time for asking 'What is an Opera?' For me, January started with Prototype 2018's ACQUANETTA and ended this past weekend--with many in betw...

BWW Review: Winter Opera Brings Pearls to St. Louis
by Steve Callahan - January 31, 2018

Sooner or later it had to happen. Somebody had to notice the similarities between pearl divers, who must free-dive as deep as one hundred feet, and opera singers, who must make one breath last to the very end of that bel canto cadenza. Well, in 1863 Georges Bizet and his librettists saw that link be...

BWW Review: CANDIDE at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
by Maria Nockin - January 29, 2018

On January 27, 2018, Los Angeles Opera presented the Bernstein work at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with a cast that included Emmy-winning television star Kelsey Grammer. He is best remembered for his two-decade-long portrayal of psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the situation comedies Cheers, Wing...

BWW Review: ELISIR's Latest Duo Charms the Pants Off Met Audience
by Richard Sasanow - January 28, 2018

There have been starrier casts heading up Donizetti's L'ELISIR D'AMORE at the Met--put the opera's name in the NY Times search engine and the first one that shows up is the debut of the famed tenor Tito Schipa in 1932, with bass Ezio Pinza as the quack snake-oil salesman Dulcamara. But this year's p...

BWW Review: A Stunning & Captivating CANDIDE Maestro Bernstein Would Be So Proud of
by Gil Kaan - January 28, 2018

From the moment the amazing James Conlon-conducted orchestra began their crisp, lively 'Overture' to 'Quartet Finale,' the close of Act One; this remarkable production of CANDIDE entranced the Dorothy Chandler audience. Then after a short intermission, these talented performers and musicians had the...

BWW Review: KING'S SINGERS: GOLD at St. Ignatius Loyola
by Cole Grissom - January 26, 2018

Ok, y'all…I'm going to be honest. A cappella - or as my aunt, with her charming ignorance, would call it 'acapulco singing' - is just not my jam. Groups that sing sacred 'hits' without vibrato has never been a way I'd choose to spend an afternoon. Maybe it's because I suck at this type of singing? U...

BWW Review: Jonas Kaufmann Returns to Carnegie and the Audience Rejoices
by Richard Sasanow - January 24, 2018

After a string of cancellations--including the Met's new TOSCA--tenor Jonas Kaufmann made a triumphant return to New York last Saturday at Carnegie Hall, in a recital with his frequent collaborator Helmut Deutsch. Of course, he could have been singing the telephone book and this audience would have ...

BWW Review: AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE: THREE 20-MINUTE OPERAS at The Kennedy Center
by Molly Korroch - January 23, 2018

Composers and librettists were the stars Saturday night at The Kennedy Center's triple world premiere. For six years, the American Opera Initiative Festival (AOI) has selected three composer-librettist teams to create their own 20-minute operas under the guidance of a seasoned composer and librettis...

BWW Review: Little Ms. ECHO How Do You Do? Very Well, at Prototype 2018
by Richard Sasanow - January 21, 2018

By the time you read this, another year's edition of PROTOTYPE--New York's two-week festival of new opera-theatre/music-theatre works different from most anything you've ever seen before--will be gone and it was another to be grateful for. The last event on my list was a totally original and stunnin...

BWW Review: TRAVELERS in a Strange Land Called Washington, D.C., in NY Debut at Prototype 2018
by Richard Sasanow - January 15, 2018

Even if it were just for its history lesson about the lavender scare of the '50s-- the witch hunt and the mass firings of gay men and women from the federal government during the McCarthy era--FELLOW TRAVELERS by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce would be well worth seeing. But th...

BWW Review: Caught in the Net of Prototype's ACQUANETTA at the Gelsey Kirkland Arts Center
by Richard Sasanow - January 13, 2018

'Memories of Things Past'--'A la recherche du temps perdu' in Proust-speak--and very much in the past it was, for me at least, going in to ACQUANETTA, the piece that opened this year's iteration of the PROTOTYPE. Its name and purported subject--horror films--conjured up childhood memories for me. Mu...

BWW Review: The Met's New TOSCA Tries for Beauty but Disappoints
by Richard Sasanow - January 05, 2018

The trials and tribulations of the Met's new take on Puccini's TOSCA have been well documented--with all three principals replaced along with two conductors--and it would be nice to be able to say that everything came out happily-ever-after. Alas. There's nothing wrong with the company's surprise-fr...

BWW Review: JAMIE BARTON is the G*ddamned Diva Opera Deserves
by Cole Grissom - December 19, 2017

I've always wondered what it would be like to swim in a pool of maple syrup and now I know. From the minute Ms. Barton opened her mouth, she unleashed a rolling tone that poured over her audience, soaking them in the sugary, maple tones of her delicious mezzo. We were drenched but in the way an i...