Mary NguyenLondon,
"La Forza del Destino," (The Force of Destiny) is hard to stage. Verdi's marvellous music, including a grandiose overture, is one of his best, yet it strays from being a must-see opera for new audiences. This week, the English National ...
Lewis WhittingtonPhiladelphia,
The Academy of Vocal Arts’ mounts Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" every few years and it always seems to show them at their best. Their 2011 production, directed by the Tito Capobianco, and had the lusty Don Giovanni, in flagrante delicate all ...
Wagner's homage to the everyday tradesman of a German town, though long and at times pedantic, ends up a jolly celebration.
Suzanne WeissSan Francisco,
I don’t know why, but every time I hear the four mighty chords that begin Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger,” tears come to my eyes. Perhaps it’s the sheer grandeur of this music. But this is not the grandeur of the gods ...
A production that goes off the rails in terms of concept is spared by the fine voices and characterizations of its cast.
San Francisco,
To the many interpretations of “The Magic Flute,” San Francisco Opera has added one with the distinction of looking like an animated cartoon. The company’s current production, which debuted in 2012, appears by turns Disney, Looney Tunes, and Hanna-Barbera; it ...
Mary NguyenLondon,
Australian director Benedict Andrews has a new production of La bohème currently showing at the ENO which adds a controversial twist to the original Puccini opera. Oftentimes when the word "contemporary" is slammed together with words like "new production" audiences ...
A hit-and-miss new production is redeemed by terrific singing.
Suzanne WeissSan Francisco,
Sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad, and San Francisco Opera’s new production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” has plenty of both.
First the good news: the singing is pretty terrific and that’s what opera is ...
Mary NguyenLondon,
The second production of the ENO’s new season, shown on the same week as "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk," is Jonathan Miller's twelve revival of "The Barber of Seville." It is Rossini’s most celebrated comic opera based on the play ...
Mary NguyenLondon,
The ENO began its 2015/16 opening season with Shostakovich’s ‘tragic – satire opera’ Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934) which caused Stalin to walk out during a performance and led to a scathing review in Russia’s political newspaper Pravda. Directed by ...
An oddly bland staging of Verdi's tragedy opens the San Francisco Opera's fall season.
San Francisco,
In an irony that surely makes the god Momus snicker, San Francisco Opera bestowed its Opera Medal for Artistic Excellence upon director/designer Francesca Zambello in the same week that her production of "Luisa Miller" limped in as the opener of ...
This production makes the case for Sondheim's macabre masterwork as grand opera.
Suzanne WeissSan Francisco,
I must confess I have always preferred my horror on an intimate scale. That means a television set rather than a multiplex and, most particularly, Stephen Sondheim’s macabre masterwork, “Sweeney Todd,” as a chamber opera, rather than a Broadway musical. ...
