Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 37

BWW Review: ARIADNE ON NAXOS Balances Wondrously Between Classic Beauty and Parody
by Steve Callahan - June 18, 2016

'ARIADNE ON NAXOS' balances wondrously between classic beauty and parody....

BWW Opera Review: What's Old is New Again in CARMEN from Bad-Boy Bieito for US Debut at San Francisco Opera
by Richard Sasanow - June 08, 2016

For a director known as opera's bad boy, Calixto Bieito turned to something awfully familiar in CARMEN for his US debut. Then again, he didn't actually show up for it, tied up with a new production of Aribert Reimann's LEAR in Paris and dispatching one of his top collabortors, Joan Anton Rechi, to p...

BWW Opera Review: Not Wild for Barry's Earnest Take on Wilde's EARNEST at NY PHIL BIENNIAL
by Richard Sasanow - June 06, 2016

“There is no sense in which [the play] THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST needs to be an opera.” Those words aren't mine, but come directly from an article by Paul Kilbey in the program at last week's U.S. stage premiere of Irish composer/lyricist Gerald Barry's 2010 opera THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNE...

BWW Review, Part I: Part's MISERERE and Mozart's REQUIEM a Pair to Remember with Dudamel and LA Philharmonic
by Richard Sasanow - June 03, 2016

Early in May, Gustavo Dudamel—the brilliant music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic—was booed at the opening of TURANDOT at the Vienna State Opera purportedly for playing too loud. There were no such complaints when he returned to Disney Hall in Los Angeles on May 20, with a grand, finely nua...

BWW Review: MACBETH - The Dark Tale Shines Bright at OTSL!
by Steve Callahan - May 31, 2016

Opera Theatre of St. Louis continues its forty-first season with another remarkably fine production-Verdi's Macbeth....

BWW Review: THE MAN WHO WOKE UP - American Premiere of Short Opera by British Composer Robin Haigh
by Keith Waits - May 31, 2016

American Premiere of Short Opera by British Composer Robin Haigh...

BWW Reviews: Opera Theatre of St. Louis delights with 'La boheme'
by Steve Callahan - May 23, 2016

OTSL has opened a delicious 'La boheme'....

BWW Review: AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE's 2016 Spring Gala Offered a Delightful Sampling of the Season's Repertoire
by Sondra Forsyth - May 20, 2016

On the evening of May 16th 2016 at the Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center, the beloved troupe that was recognized as 'America's National Ballet Company' in 2006 by the United States Congress proved once again that the American Ballet Theatre is indeed a treasure. Dancegoers in dazzling forma...

BWW Review: THE DA PONTE PROJECT: MAKING MOZART Brings Operatic History Superbly Alive
by Barry Lenny - May 18, 2016

The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi Fan Tutte, were the result of the collaboration Mozart and da Ponte....

BWW Opera Review: A Captivating BEAST from the Center for Contemporary Opera
by Richard Sasanow - May 19, 2016

Under the umbrella of the New York Opera Fest, The Center for Contemporary Opera presented an hour's worth of excerpts from THE WILD BEAST OF THE BUNGALOW, an episodic opera still in development by composer Rachel J. Peters and (the omnipresent) librettist Royce Vavrek. It was, frankly, spellbinding...

BWW Opera Review: Vertical Player Repertory Disinters Pacini's MALVINA DI SCOZIA
by Richard Sasanow - May 16, 2016

As part of the New York Opera Fest, Brooklyn's scrappy Vertical Player Repertory ventured into Manhattan's Christ and St. Stephen's Church near Lincoln Center, bringing with it a true rarity: Giovanni Pacini's bel canto-ish MALVINA DI SCOZIA, which dates from 1851. And while it was good to hear a wo...

BWW Review: CLOUDSTREET Is A Major Australian Success Story
by Barry Lenny - May 14, 2016

State Opera has pulled out all the stops for this opera, which has been five years in the making....

BWW Review: THE MIKADO Gets A New Look With Rich Characterisations
by Barry Lenny - May 13, 2016

Co-Opera and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of South Australia have joined forces to perform The Mikado....

BWW Opera Review: PARK AND BARK - The Next Generation, from NYU and AOP
by Richard Sasanow - May 11, 2016

“Park and bark” is a term usually used derogatively when speaking about opera--a kind of old-style singing that involves standing still and bursting forth in song, with little or no acting skills involved. There certainly wasn't anything old-fashioned about the operas or the group of young singers w...

BWW Opera Review: Few Sparks from Opera Orchestra in Donizetti's Formulaic PARISINA D'ESTE
by Richard Sasanow - May 09, 2016

Those of us with long enough memories can recall some exciting nights at Opera Orchestra of New York's concerts at Carnegie Hall, with Eve Queler at the helm. It's reputed that Donizetti's PARISINA D'ESTE made quite a stir with Montserrat Caballe in the spotlight in 1974--but anyone expecting histor...

BWW Review: Stunning TWILIGHT OF THE GODS at the Washington National Opera
by Andrew White - May 09, 2016

Director Francesca Zambello's Gotterdammerung is truly awesome-in both the original and contemporary senses of the word.  The conclusion of a four-part epic, this six-hour installment depicts the final struggle for ownership of a magical ring whose owner might rule the world-but which also holds a d...

BWW Review: WNO's Next Chapter in THE RING: SIEGFRIED
by Roger Catlin - May 09, 2016

In the third installment of the Washington National Opera's mammoth staging of Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung at the Kennedy Center, a new Brunnhilde awakens, Fafner's dragon turns out to be more of a monster truck, and the titular star of the work, Siegfried, turns out to be much more of...

BWW Opera Review: Oh, To Be Abducted from This SERAGLIO at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - May 04, 2016

I wonder whether James Levine imagined that Mozart's DIE ENFUHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL (THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO) would be his swan song as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. I think he might have chosen better....

BWW Review: Superb Sub in WNO's THE VALKYRIE
by Roger Catlin - May 04, 2016

Ten years of planning and $10 million in production costs couldn't prevent the Washington National Opera from pleasing all the gods in its ambitious staging of all four operas in Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung....

BWW Review: THE RHINEGOLD Magically Opens WNO's The Ring Cycle
by Keith Tittermary - May 03, 2016

In 2006, then Washington National Opera Artistic Director Placido Domingo announced that the Opera would take on their first complete cycle of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). In the subsequent years, the opera produced the first three of the four-some, but not in...

BWW Review: It's a Pleasure Getting to Know Lyric Opera's THE KING AND I
by Rachel Weinberg - May 02, 2016

Under the direction of Lee Blakeley at Lyric Opera (who originally staged this production for Paris's Theatre du Chatelet in 2014), Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical THE KING AND I is heightened to the lavish and beautiful spectacle it deserves. This story of British school teacher Anna Leon...

BWW Opera Review: A WIFE for All Seasons from City Opera at Harlem Stage
by Richard Sasanow - May 02, 2016

An absurdist mash-up of the lives of great Ashcan artist Edward Hopper and the infamous gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, HOPPER'S WIFE--by composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie--had its belated New York premiere last weekend by New York City Opera, in a clever production by Andreas Mit...

BWW Opera Review: MASTERVOICES Strikes a Masterful Chord with Dido and Aeneas
by Christina Pandolfi - May 02, 2016

A heavenly aura flooded through the regal New York City Center this past Thursday night at the MasterVoices premiere of Henry Purcell & Nahum Tate's baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas. With a full orchestra, the MasterVoices choir, and the Doug Varone and Dancers company, this unique production created ...

BWW Opera Review: Met's New ELEKTRA Has the Cast and Conductor--But Where's the Catharsis?
by Richard Sasanow - April 26, 2016

The Met's new production of Richard Strauss's ELEKTRA is something to behold, with Vincent Huguet recreating the original by the late Patrice Chereau from France's Aix-en-Provence Festival. Starring the glorious Nina Stemme in the title role--and backed by the stellar performances of Waltraud Meier ...

BWW Review: CARMEN at Lyric Opera Of Kansas City
by Alan Portner - April 26, 2016

Lyric Opera brings great singers together for memorable production of Bizet's Carmen...