28 May 2008
Upon its premiere at Chicago’s Lyric Opera in 1997 Anthony Davis’ Amistad found little critical favor. Its undisciplined excesses led one writer to compare it to a high-school pageant. »
27 May 2008
In these days of 'concept' productions, it is rare that the curtain goes up on the first act of an opera and it looks exactly as one might reasonably expect it to. »
27 May 2008
I can still remember my first ever “Pelleas et Melisande” in my first ever outing at San Francisco Opera during my first ever visit to that beautiful town. »
25 May 2008
A recent visit to Berlin’s three opera houses yielded decidedly, nay wildly varying outcomes. »
15 May 2008
The Gotham Chamber Opera has been delighting opera fans on the Lower East Side for seven years now, one small audience at a time. »
13 May 2008
Thirty-six years after Sarah Caldwell and the Opera Company of Boston presented the first complete staged performances in the United States, Hector Berlioz’ Les Troyens returned to Boston in triumph in a series of concert performances presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of James Levine to close the BSO’s 2007-2008 season. »
13 May 2008
Opera companies should practice historic preservation, keeping certain productions forever in the repertory because of their quality and aesthetic value. »
13 May 2008
Prometeo is so radically different that it’s almost incomprehensible heard from preconceived assumptions of what music “ought” to be. »
12 May 2008
John Brown might have been a’mouldering in his grave since he was hanged in 1859, but he was resurrected — in body and spirit — on May 3, when the Lyric Opera of Kansas City staged the world premiere of Kirke Mechem’s John Brown. »
09 May 2008
When Toronto’s Opera Atelier asked her to sing Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo Measha Brueggergosman hesitated. »
09 May 2008
In 2007 it was an experiment; now it’s a new summer festival firmly rooted in fertile Texas turf with a bright view of its second season and of the more distant future as well. »
07 May 2008
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is too light to be a grand opera, but it makes rather grander demands of its singers than operetta could possibly bear. »
06 May 2008
English National Opera’s production of Harrison Birtwistle’s ‘Punch and Judy’ is the company’s second collaboration with the Young Vic Theatre — following the premiere of Neuwirth’s ‘Lost Highway’ a few weeks earlier — and remarkably, also the second London production of this early Birtwistle work within a month, the previous one having been at the Linbury Studio Theatre, a collaboration between Music Theatre Wales and the Royal Opera. »
06 May 2008
Over the years, one tried and true method of packing audiences in to the concerts of Robert Bass’s Collegiate Chorale has been to present concert opera with impressive soloists. »
04 May 2008
Martha Graham used to say, “In order for there to be dance, there must be something that needs to be danced.” »
04 May 2008
When the Met presented La Fille du Régiment for Lily Pons during World War II, she sought permission to wave the Cross of Lorraine, symbol of Charles de Gaulle’s Free French, during the Salut à la France in Act II. »
04 May 2008
Why does one so seldom encounter Dvořák’s Rusalka on stage? »
25 Apr 2008
Satyagraha is an odd duck to encounter if you are seeking a traditional opera-going experience or anything like it. »
23 Apr 2008
Victor DeRenzi is a man of convictions — and of courage. Given his commitment to tradition, you might call DeRenzi, artistic director of Sarasota Opera since 1982, conservative. »
22 Apr 2008
With what might (if one were risking facetiousness) be termed a “false-set” of four countertenors in the cast, this was always going to be an intriguing production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare for aficionados of a voice type which has revolutionised the perception (and popularity) of baroque opera over the past 15 years. »
21 Apr 2008
Harrison Birtwistle’s new full-scale opera, commissioned by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, is a study of isolation and imprisonment. »
21 Apr 2008
It was one of Queler’s good nights. »
21 Apr 2008
It is, you might say, the little opera that can. True, if it’s size of the budget, the price of tickets and the number of seats that concerns you, the Komische Oper is clearly the third of Berlin’s opera houses. »
21 Apr 2008
What to make of "Lucrezia Borgia"? I have always felt that, some lovely arias notwithstanding, this Donizetti work never really gets going until the slam-bang soprano-baritone duet in Act II. »
09 Apr 2008
That Fed Dostoevsky – sure plays a mean pinball! »
08 Apr 2008
Plainly put, Frankfurt Opera’s “The Rape of Lucretia” could be offered as a textbook example of just how great a performance can be when everything goes right. »
07 Apr 2008
BERLIN — Which car-rental agency was it that was once No. 2 and “trying harder?” »
06 Apr 2008
In a climate in which bel canto opera seems to be enjoying a steady and welcome revival, ETO opened their current season with a welcome production of Donizetti's historically dubious account of the latter days of Anne Boleyn. The company's... »
06 Apr 2008
The most interesting opera on ETO's Spring 2008 tour was Carlisle Floyd's 1950s tale of religious hypocrisy in the rural Deep South, based on the Apocryphal tale of Susannah and the Elders. »
06 Apr 2008
The last of the three operas on ETO's Spring 2008 tour was sung in English, and updated to a Spain of the mid-twentieth century under Franco. »
06 Apr 2008
Opera companies often tout new productions as a major attraction of their seasons. »
23 Mar 2008
UC Opera's reputation for showcasing rare large-scale works has been boosted this year with the UK premiere of this 1846 opera by Edouard Lalo after a Schiller play. »
17 Mar 2008
As Anna Russell might say: "The three operas of Puccini's 'Il Trittico' take place on a luxury cruise liner. . . . . On it." »
17 Mar 2008
Let me say up front that I like Jake Heggie's work. I feel he has a true gift for soaring and meaningful melody, a great ear for orchestral effects, a talent for picking good source material, and a knack for crafting affecting melodrama (in the best sense of that word) that can move an audience to tears. »
17 Mar 2008
Do dysfunctional families outnumber the ones that move through life untroubled, or is it — to paraphrase Tolstoy — that every dysfunctional family is dysfunctional in its own way and thus of greater interest to writers and composers? »
16 Mar 2008
I bet this doesn't happen at the movies: »
16 Mar 2008
Let us, for one example among many, take the capstan song in Act I. »
03 Mar 2008
James Conlon has become the artistic heart and soul of Los Angeles Opera in his second season as music director. »
02 Mar 2008
The Opera Company of Philadelphia’s February production is the second staging of David DiChiera’s new opera Cyrano, a co-production with Michigan Opera Theater and Florida Grand Opera. »
02 Mar 2008
Opera North is one of the most innovative opera companies in Britain. »
02 Mar 2008
Perhaps the most beloved comic opera, Rossini’s Il barbière di Siviglia has never left the repertoire. »
02 Mar 2008
San Diego Opera apparently has raided the vaults of Lincoln Center opera companies, circa the 1970s. »
25 Feb 2008
The Royal Opera's new Salome is set roughly in the 1930s, in surroundings which refer overtly to Pasolini's Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, populated by uniformed soldiers and naked whores. »
22 Feb 2008
Dread and disgruntle are the emotions natural to the fan of any special singer when he arrives at the opera house to learn she has withdrawn from the performance and been replaced by an unknown. »
20 Feb 2008
ENO doesn’t really go in for bel canto opera. Other than a Maria Stuarda back in the mid 1990s, the only Donizetti opera in the company’s repertoire in the recent past has been the popular L’elisir d’amore. »
17 Feb 2008
Director Jonathan Miller was there at the curtain call to greet the first night of this latest revival of a production which has now been in ENO's repertoire for twenty years. »
17 Feb 2008
My Valentine’s Day gift came a bit early courtesy of Los Angeles Opera. Of course, it is to be hoped that your own celebration has a happier outcome than that of opera’s most famous Love Couple, “Tristan und Isolde.” »
17 Feb 2008
Valentine’s Day may not quite be in the same major holiday league with the Fourth of July or New Year’s Eve, but you wouldn’t have known it from the fireworks emanating from the stage of Portland Opera, in the form of some dazzling Valentine’s night vocalizing in quite a fine production of Handel’s “Rodelinda.” »
17 Feb 2008
A sound designer? Isn’t that merely a euphemistic upgrade of “sound engineer?” »
17 Feb 2008
An air of anticipation filled the Four Seasons Centre as the announcer walked across the stage to say that soprano Ester Sümegi was ill and would not be performing. »
17 Feb 2008
To open its 2008 season, San Diego Opera restored the production of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser that Günther Schneider-Siemsson created for the Metropolitan Opera three decades ago. »
10 Feb 2008
Anthony Minghella's visually-arresting staging, a co-production with New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Lithuanian National Opera, returned this month to its original home at the London Coliseum after a gap of two years. »