Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 34

BWW Review: An Off-Night in Seville with an Unexciting FIDELIO at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - March 27, 2017

Beethoven's only opera, FIDELIO, was the last of three operas this season at the Met to take place in Seville, after CARMEN and BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA. Third time definitely wasn't the charm....

BWW Reviews: When It Comes to Desdemona, LoftOpera Shows the Rossini OTELLO Outdoes Verdi
by Richard Sasanow - March 20, 2017

I must admit that I entered LoftOpera's performance of Rossini's take on OTELLO with some trepidation. Besides having a particular affection for the Verdi version, my experience with 'alternate universe' adaptations of famous operas has been iffy at best. But this OTELLO, predating Verdi by over 70 ...

BWW Review: THE LOVE OF THREE KINGS at Sarasota Opera
by Carolan Trbovich - March 16, 2017

Sarasota Opera The Love of Three Kings...

BWW Opera Showstopper: With One Aria, Elza van den Heever Steals the Met's IDOMENEO
by Richard Sasanow - March 13, 2017

No one can accuse the Met of skimping when it put together its current revival of Mozart's opera seria IDOMENEO. Yes, the production's 35 years old, but with this cast, it hardly mattered: tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, elegant and Mozartian to the nth degree, the suave and poignant mezz...

BWW Review: Chemistry Galore from Yoncheva and Fabiano in Met's TRAVIATA
by Richard Sasanow - March 06, 2017

Don't ever underestimate the importance of chemistry when it comes to pulling off an opera performance--and there was animal magnetism galore in the Met's revival of its Willy Decker production of Verdi's LA TRAVIATA. From the moment tenor Michael Fabiano came on stage, at Friday's performance of LA...

BWW Review: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2017: SAUL at Adelaide Festival Theatre
by Barry Lenny - March 03, 2017

A sensational retelling of the story of Saul and David, the first two kings of the Israelites....

Review Roundup: Opera Lafayette's LEONORE, OU L'AMOUR CONJUGAL
by Christina Mancuso - February 28, 2017

Opera Layfeyette presented LEONORE, OU L'AMOUR CONJUGAL in NYC at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater on February 23rd....

BWW Review: Washington National Opera Presents Bold and Haunting DEAD MAN WALKING at the Kennedy Center
by Barbara Johnson - February 27, 2017

Rooted in the moral conflict between society's thirst for justice and Christianity's tenet of forgiveness, the modern American opera DEAD MAN WALKING is an apt selection for the Washington National Opera this season. With a moving score by Jake Heggie and an honest, straightforward libretto by Terre...

BWW Review: What's Really Old is New Again, with POPPEA from Concerto Italiano at Carnegie Hall
by Richard Sasanow - February 24, 2017

Monteverdi's L'INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA--THE CORONATION OF POPPEA--is considered the oldest opera in existence, but the version performed by Concerto Italiano at Carnegie Hall the other night, as part of the La Serenissima Festival (celebrating all things Venetian), showed it is also one of the fresh...

BWW Review: A Passionate Vittorio Grigolo in the Off-Kilter World of Massenet's WERTHER at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - February 23, 2017

Tenor Vittorio Grigolo always seems most at home on stage when he's living close to the edge--portraying a character who's losing control (or about to) of his emotions. It was true earlier this season as Romeo, in Gounod's ROMEO ET JULIETTE at the Met opposite Diana Damrau and, in 2015, as Chevalier...

BWW Review: Juilliard Opera's AGRIPPINA Shows How to Handel Silliness and Politics
by Richard Sasanow - February 22, 2017

A funny thing happened on the way to Emperor Claudius' death scene: He didn't die. At least, that's what happens in Handel's opera AGRIPPINA, setting the convoluted plot in motion and giving the young singers of Juilliard Opera and its Juilliard415 period-instrument ensemble a heck of a ride, direct...

BWW Review: How to Do Beethoven and Mahler, Compliments of NY Philharmonic under Honeck and Soloist Barnatan
by Richard Sasanow - February 21, 2017

Audiences at the New York Philharmonic have been known to come for the soloists and then slip out for the symphony. There didn't seem to be a lot of that at last Thursday's performance led by maestro Manfred Honeck, which began with a wonderful Beethoven Piano Concerto #1 in C Major from Inon Barnat...

BWW Review: Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered by Met's New RUSALKA
by Richard Sasanow - February 10, 2017

Anyone arriving at a performance of the Met's new RUSALKA, in Mary Zimmerman's production, thinking that there's going to be an evening of Disney-type fun from this distant cousin of THE LITTLE MERMAID, will be in for a big disappointment. But for those seeking beautiful music (including one of oper...

BWW Opera Review: THE GREAT COMET Walks the Broadway-Opera Tightrope Brilliantly
by Richard Sasanow - February 07, 2017

During the opening sequence of NATASHA, PIERRE AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812--the extravagant, whirlwind of a show now playing at Broadway's Imperial (how fitting) Theatre--I couldn't help thinking how the Met could learn a thing or two from a show like this. No, I don't mean encouraging the audience ...

BWW Review: THE MAGIC MARKSMAN Slightly Off Target
by Hannah Menchhoff - February 06, 2017

THE MAGIC MARKSMAN (DER FREISHÜTZ) at George Mason University and present by Virginia Opera certainly offered a spectacle. Directed by Stephen Lawless, the show's well-crafted sets, designed by Benoit Dugardyn, brought you into the small German-esque town. The lighting, designed by Patricia Collins,...

BWW Review: RIGOLETTO at Metropolitan Opera
by Milette shanon - January 30, 2017

Michael Mayer's revised production of Rigoletto in Las Vegas, complete with Vegas dancers, mobsters and a topless pole dancer is GREAT ENTERTAINMENT...

BWW Review: MARILYN HORNE SONG CELEBRATION at Zankel Hall Shows What Makes America Great
by Richard Sasanow - January 30, 2017

At last month's concert in Carnegie Hall, Joyce DiDonato was glorious musically but less-than-cheery philosophically--and that was before the guy in the White House started taking aim at arts and education funding. Taking the stage at Carnegie's Zankel Hall on Saturday, at THE MARILYN HORNE SONG CEL...

BWW Review: Two Nights in Seville, Part 2 - a New Gypsy in Town for Met's CARMEN
by Richard Sasanow - January 24, 2017

It's that time of the year again, when the flu season gives artistic administrators big headaches, trying to fill in the blanks when a headliner calls in sick. CARMEN's been a particular headache, with mezzo Sophie Koch out of action in the title role after rehearsals had started. Luckily, Clementin...

BWW Review: Two Nights in Seville, Part 1 - with BARBIERE at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - January 23, 2017

It didn't strike me until the lights were going down for the start of CARMEN last Thursday that this was the second night in a row that Met audiences were being transported to the same town in sunny Spain. Truth be told, “sunny” is hardly an adjective I'd hardly use to describe Bizet's tragedy in th...

BWW OperaView: A Funny Thing - or Not - Happened on the Way to the Opera House
by Richard Sasanow - January 19, 2017

What's new in opera? Everything you can imagine--and much that you couldn't conceive of--all in the space of a few days in New York....

BWW Review: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR Crazily Sweeps Away at The Israeli Opera
by Ronit Suzan - January 18, 2017

For an Opera that is described as dark, intense and ruthless and its plot is filled with murder, betrayal, insanity and death, at its end it might become even more tragic, as expected, but in Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor the journey through all that has many beautiful and captivating mome...

BWW Review: THREE PENNY OPERA by Teater UI: Art Without Politics Would Just Be a Decoration'
by Yuliani Supandji - January 17, 2017

THREE PENNY OPERA is a legendary manuscript with such a simple plot in conveying social criticism. A scoundrel is in a tainted friendship with a police chief. A daughter-loving local entrepreneur disguised as a social worker, but it exploits poverty. The male characters are busy with their own affai...

BWW Review: Grigolo's No Dime-Store ROMEO Opposite Damrau in Gounod's Opera at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - January 15, 2017

There's some famous and gorgeous music in Gounod's ROMEO ET JULIETTE—Juliet's waltz, Romeo's “Ah, leve-toi, soleil” and a number of duets —but this is definitely not one of those operas where the title characters can take turns with the showpieces but never look each other in the eye. Luckily, that ...

BWW Review: I Spy Prototype Festival's Chamber Opera, MATA HARI
by Richard Sasanow - January 16, 2017

The life and times of the spy-as-femme-fatale, Mata Hari, has always attracted the interest of film and stage artists. Now we have the Matt Marks-Paul Peers opera MATA HARI—which opened New York's fifth Prototype Festival last week and continues through Saturday the 14th—though I think of it as more...

BWW Review: New York City Opera Returns With A Princely CANDIDE
by Michael Dale - January 11, 2017

The opening fanfare of one of the most exhilarating overtures ever to hit Broadway signals the joyous return of New York City Opera. After financial woes threatened to pull down the curtain for good in 2013, the company that was christened in 1943 as 'the people's opera' by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia...