Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 38

BWW Review: I AM ANNE HUTCHINSON/I AM HARVEY MILK Premieres at Strathmore
by Jennifer Perry - April 25, 2016

I am enormously thrilled that Strathmore took this one on. It's not the kind of event the largely classical venue usually presents and I hope to see more risk-taking in the future. The pieces offer up stories that need to be heard, and there's no denying the music and performers are first rate....

BWW Opera Review: SF vs. NY, Tilson Thomas vs. Gilbert, Mezzo vs. Baritone, But Audiences Take the LIED
by Richard Sasanow - April 25, 2016

Earth Day has come and gone in 2016, but symphonic orchestra audiences in New York have lots to remember from this year's celebration, with performances of Mahler's DAS LIED VON DER ERDE (SONG OF THE EARTH). In less than a week, we had two different versions of the piece, with differing pluses and m...

BWW Review: LES FETES VENITIENNES
by Wesley Doucette - April 22, 2016

A review of Robert Carsen's direction of 'Les Fetes Venitiennes,' as performed by Les Arts Florissants and L'Opera Comique at BAM....

BWW Opera Review: Christie's Arts Florissants Brings Venice to BAM with LES FETES VENETIENNES
by Richard Sasanow - April 21, 2016

Andre Campra's 1710 opera-ballet, LES FETES VENETIENNES, with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants made its New York debut at BAM last week in an utterly charming production by Robert Carsen. Unfortunately, watching this lighter-than-air piece seemed like making a complete meal out of amuses-bo...

BWW Review: Gateway Opera Serves Delicious Small Bites to St. Louis
by Steve Callahan - April 12, 2016

Gateway Opera is like a five-star tapas restaurant; it continues to delight its patrons with superbly delicious bite-sized offerings of that succulent dish-opera....

BWW Review: BARBER OF SEVILLE Amuses and Delights
by Dylan Shaffer - April 11, 2016

Figaro! Figaro! Figaro! It's hard not to sing his name over and over again as the barber did effortlessly in Pittsburgh Opera's production. Having produced the show twelve times in its history, Pittsburgh Opera delivered a captivating twist on the Rossini classic, The Barber of Seville....

BWW Review: Lawrence Brownlee Dominates CHARLIE PARKER'S YARDBIRD at New York's Apollo
by Richard Sasanow - April 07, 2016

As Charlie “Bird” Parker, the great jazz saxophonist, who is the central character in CHARLIE PARKER'S YARDBIRD--the opera that had its New York premiere last week at the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem--Lawrence Brownlee wonderfully embraced the classical and bebop sides of the score....

BWW Review: Radvanovsky Completes Donizetti Hat Trick with Potent DEVEREUX at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - April 01, 2016

“The Tudor Trilogy” --putting together Donizetti's ANNA BOLENA, MARIA STUARDA and ROBERTO DEVEREUX--was fabricated to light Beverly Sills' fire as “America's Queen of Opera” at the old New York City Opera. This season, soprano Sondra Radvanovsky was charged with bringing the trio of operas to the Me...

BWW Review: Audience LOVE-fest for Grigolo in Met's Cartoon-y ELISIR D'AMORE
by Richard Sasanow - March 29, 2016

Vittorio Grigolo's fans were out in force last week when he took on the star-tenor role of Nemorino in Donizetti's L'ELISIR D'AMORE (THE ELIXIR OF LOVE) at the Met and it seemed like they'd taken a potion of their own....

BWW Review: Memorable MOMENTS from Aucoin, Gluck and Costanzo at National Sawdust
by Richard Sasanow - March 28, 2016

In THE ORPHIC MOMENT, a “dramatic cantata,” composer-librettist-conductor-poet (phew!) Matthew Aucoin takes an 18th century masterwork, Gluck's ORFEO ED EURYDICE—one of numerous operas based on the Orpheus legend--and knocks it on its ear....

BWW Review: If It's Monday, It Must Be Puccini - Opolais is a Ravishing MADAMA BUTTERFLY at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - March 25, 2016

MADAMA BUTTERFLY was never my favorite Puccini until the current production conceived by Anthony Minghella. Before, Butterfly always seemed too submissive, Pinkerton too brutish and their child, well, too cute. Now—particularly with the current cast, headed by the magnificent Kristine Opolais as the...

BWW Review: St. Louis Enjoys More Treats from Gateway Opera
by Steve Callahan - March 24, 2016

Once again the exciting young Gateway Opera company shows us that you don't need a massive budget to create wonderful opera....

BWW Review: The Audience Cheers Tenor Camarena in Delightful DON PASQUALE at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - March 23, 2016

Point/counterpoint: As if to set off its trio of Elizabethan tragedies by Donizetti, the Met is presenting two of the master's comedies. First up: DON PASQUALE, and it was a pip. (The other is L'ELISIR D'AMORE.) Too bad the Met underestimated its appeal, because it had a truncated run of only five p...

BWW Review: Musco Center for the Arts Celebrates with a Spectacular Grand Opening
by Ellen Dostal - March 21, 2016

It was indeed an auspicious occasion at Chapman University on Saturday night where over a thousand guests gathered for the much-anticipated official opening of the Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts. The black tie event featured a concert performance by luminaries of the opera worl...

BWW Review: Sydney Symphony Orchestra's LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS Brings British Tradition To The Sydney Opera House
by Jade Kops - March 18, 2016

THE LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS delights Anglophiles with a recreation of the relaxed closing concert of the British summer season....

BWW Review: THE ELIXIR OF LOVE at Lyric Opera Of Kansas City
by Alan Portner - March 17, 2016

Elixir enjoys great success in updated version...

BWW Review: An Opera Grows in Brooklyn, Part II - Regina Opera Looks at LUCIA
by Richard Sasanow - March 16, 2016

On the surface, LoftOpera and Regina Opera couldn't be more different--the former turning away hipsters in East Williamsburg (call it Bushwick), the latter providing a matinees-only environment for a family audience. But these two Brooklyn institutions do have one important thing in common: They res...

BWW Review: An Opera Grows in Brooklyn, Part I - LoftOpera Takes on TOSCA
by Richard Sasanow - March 15, 2016

On the surface, LoftOpera and Regina Opera couldn't be more different--the former turning away hipsters in East Williamsburg (call it Bushwick), the latter providing a matinees-only environment for a family audience. But these two Brooklyn institutions do have one important thing in common: They res...

BWW Review: Captivating REQUIEM from Brahms, New York Philharmonic and New York Choral Artists
by Richard Sasanow - March 09, 2016

Brahms wasn't having a midlife crisis when he composed his masterwork, EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM (A GERMAN REQUIEM), his meditation on death. In fact, he was only 33 when he started writing it in 1866 and had written sections of the opening as early as 1861. His reasons for taking on the piece are uncle...

BWW Review: Furlanetto Shows Mastery in San Diego Concert
by Erica Miner - March 07, 2016

One of San Diego Opera's most cherished stage luminaries...

BWW Review: Diva Netrebko Casts Spell at Metropolitan Opera Recital
by Richard Sasanow - March 03, 2016

Anna Netrebko came out on stage in a shimmering white and silver gown with matching headband, looking like an Art Deco goddess in a poster by Alfonso Mucha. It's a look that suited her--not only because the Russian soprano has Bellini's NORMA on her Met schedule in the not-too-distant future, but be...

BWW Review: Lyric Opera's ROMEO AND JULIET Presents a Grand-scale, Classic Interpretation of Shakespeare's Eternal Love Story
by Rachel Weinberg - March 02, 2016

Under the direction of Bartlett Sher (whose work is currently represented on Broadway with Lincoln Center Theater's revival of The King and I, Charles Gounod's 1867 French opera ROMEO AND JULIET comes to opulent, dramatic life--with the quality and grandiosity that characterize Lyric Opera's product...

BWW Review: High Art in Small Places, Part II - Von Stade's Bountiful Trip to EGYPT at American Songbook
by Richard Sasanow - February 23, 2016

Lincoln Center's American Songbook series doesn't usually cross the road to opera-land, but I'm glad it did, when it presented the Ricky Ian Gordon-Leonard Foglia chamber opera A COFFIN IN EGYPT with mezzo extraordinaire Frederica von Stade last week. Performed in Jazz at Lincoln Center's tiny Appel...

BWW Review: High Art in Small Places, Part I - A Deliciously Baroque LA CALISTO from Juilliard Opera
by Richard Sasanow - February 22, 2016

Grand opera--lavish in scale, setting and voices--certainly has its place, but, oh, the joys of hearing Cavalli and Faustini's bawdy, early baroque charmer LA CALISTO in a theatre with fewer than 100 seats! The Juilliard Opera production not only proved a great showcase for the singers, dancers and ...

BWW Review: Kaufmann's Out, Alagna's In with Opolais in Met's New Film-Noir MANON LESCAUT
by Richard Sasanow - February 19, 2016

Take one part “Casablanca,” a taste of Bernstein's CANDIDE, some Alfred Hitchcock and you get Sir Richard Eyre's film noir concept for the Met's new MANON LESCAUT, now set in France in the 1940s, complete with Nazis. Tack on that behind-the-scenes drama of “Roberto Alagna to the rescue”--when tenor...