News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Richard Sasanow - Page 21

Richard Sasanow

Richard Sasanow has been BroadwayWorld.com's Opera Editor for many years, with interests covering contemporary works, standard repertoire and true rarities from every era. He is an interviewer of important musical figures on the current scene--from singers Diana Damrau, Peter Mattei, Stephanie Blythe, Davone Tines, Nadine Sierra, Angela Meade, Isabel Leonard, Lawrence Brownlee, Etienne Dupuis, Javier Camarena and Christian Van Horn to Pulitzer Prize-winning composers Kevin Puts and Paul Moravec, and icon Thea Musgrave, composers David T. Little, Julian Grant, Ricky Ian Gordon, Laura Kaminsky and Iain Bell, librettists Mark Campbell, Kim Reed, Royce Vavrek and Nicholas Wright, to conductor Manfred Honeck, director Kevin Newbury and Tony-winning designer Christine Jones. Earlier in his career, he interviewed such great singers as Birgit Nilsson, and Martina Arroyo and worked on the first US visit of the Vienna State Opera, with Karl Bohm, Zubin Mehta and Leonard Bernstein, and the inaugural US tour of the Orchestre National de France, with Bernstein and Lorin Maazel. Sasanow is also a long-time writer on art, music, food, travel and international business for publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, Town & Country and Travel & Leisure, among many others.






BWW OperaView: A Funny Thing - or Not - Happened on the Way to the Opera House
BWW OperaView: A Funny Thing - or Not - Happened on the Way to the Opera House
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: Grigolo's No Dime-Store ROMEO Opposite Damrau in Gounod's Opera at the Met
BWW Review: Grigolo's No Dime-Store ROMEO Opposite Damrau in Gounod's Opera at the Met
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 wasn't the case with Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo in the Met's new Bartlett Sher production, where they lit some fires at Tuesday's performance.

BWW Review: I Spy Prototype Festival's Chamber Opera, MATA HARI
BWW Review: I Spy Prototype Festival's Chamber Opera, MATA HARI
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 of a dance than an opera. Not literally, of course, but dramatically, as a dance of death for the title character and the men (and one woman) who surround her in this compelling, though somewhat messy, work.

BWW Review: Pointer-Counterpoint – City Opera's CANDIDE vs. Prototype's BREAKING THE WAVES
BWW Review: Pointer-Counterpoint – City Opera's CANDIDE vs. Prototype's BREAKING THE WAVES
January 10, 2017

When I saw that New York City Opera was doing Leonard Bernstein's CANDIDE at the same time as New York's Prototype Festival--with Missy Mazzoli's BREAKING THE WAVES opening the festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre on the same night—I thought that it was great counter-programming. After all, what could be further from Mazzoli's brilliant but grim gem than Bernstein's comic masterpiece--proving there's more than one way to skin a music theatre piece?

BWW Preview: Choreographer Pat Birch is Candid on New CANDIDE at City Opera, Opening January 6 at the Rose Theatre
BWW Preview: Choreographer Pat Birch is Candid on New CANDIDE at City Opera, Opening January 6 at the Rose Theatre
January 4, 2017

Leonard Bernstein's CANDIDE has had more lives than that proverbial cat--the latest being New York City Opera's new take on it, opening on January 6 for a ten-performance run at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theatre. It is, once again, helmed by director Hal Prince and choreographer Pat Birch, who were responsible--with librettist Hugh Wheeler and conductor John Mauceri--for the resuscitation and renovation of the once-considered unproducible work, more than 40 years ago.

BWW Preview: Mazzoli-Vavrek WAVES Gets Second Break, at New York's Prototype Festival in January
BWW Preview: Mazzoli-Vavrek WAVES Gets Second Break, at New York's Prototype Festival in January
December 27, 2016

For a new opera to have its second major showing less than four months after its premiere is unheard of—but then BREAKING THE WAVES, based on the Lars Von Trier film of the same name, isn't just any opera. This triumph by composer Missy Mazzoli, librettist Royce Vavrek, and direction by James Darrah—with a star-making turn by soprano Kiera Duffy in the central role of Bess—debuted at Opera Philadelphia last September and is having its New York premiere on January 6-9, 2017, over the first weekend of the Prototype Festival at NYU's Skirball Center.

BWW Review: Joyce DiDonato Brings WAR & PEACE, Baroque-Style, to Carnegie Hall
BWW Review: Joyce DiDonato Brings WAR & PEACE, Baroque-Style, to Carnegie Hall
December 21, 2016

At IN WAR & PEACE, HARMONY THROUGH MUSIC, her Carnegie Hall concert the other night with the Baroque ensemble, Il Pomo d'Oro, mezzo Joyce DiDonato was in fine voice, if not in high spirits—and who could blame her? The state of the world is about as bad as it has been for a long time, with death and taxes far from the only certainties, starting in our own backyard.

BWW Review: Stunning Phillips in Saariaho's Mesmerizing L'AMOUR DE LOIN at the Met
BWW Review: Stunning Phillips in Saariaho's Mesmerizing L'AMOUR DE LOIN at the Met
December 19, 2016

On paper, it might seem that Kaija Saariaho's L'AMOUR DE LOIN (LOVE FROM AFAR), libretto by Amin Maalouf, couldn't possibly fill a stage the size of the Met's: three characters and a chorus that bobs in and out of the action. Yet, in action, this breathtaking, shimmering piece not only seems at home--particularly in the able hands of soprano Susanna Phillips and the Met orchestra under the  Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki in Robert Lepage's production--but it's hard to imagine hearing it any other way.

BWW Review: Racette Strips to Essentials as Opera's Ultimate Mean Girl, SALOME, at the Met
BWW Review: Racette Strips to Essentials as Opera's Ultimate Mean Girl, SALOME, at the Met
December 13, 2016

Despite some fine singing from soprano Patricia Racette (who also went the Full Monty in the title role), the Met's revival of Richard Strauss's SALOME was a little tame--something that it should never be.

BWW Preview: Works & Process at Guggenheim Looks at the Met's L'AMOUR DE LOIN, Through December 29
BWW Preview: Works & Process at Guggenheim Looks at the Met's L'AMOUR DE LOIN, Through December 29
December 1, 2016

Composer Kaija Saariaho is a woman of few words but potent music, judging by her comments about her acclaimed opera, L'AMOUR DE LOIN, and the excerpts performed at the Guggenheim's Works & Process series several weeks ago, in preparation for the opera's much-anticipated Met debut on Thursday, December 1.

BWW Review: Stars Align in Met's BOHEME with Opolais, Beczala, Kele and Cavalletti
BWW Review: Stars Align in Met's BOHEME with Opolais, Beczala, Kele and Cavalletti
November 28, 2016

Take Puccini's LA BOHEME for granted at your peril. Sure, it has more gorgeous music per square inch than just about any other opera in the repertoire, but that doesn't mean that it always falls together, even at the Met. Lucky for those attending the current run of the opera, the stars are in alignment--with Kristine Opolais (Mimi), Piotr Beczala (Rodolfo), Brigitta Kele (Musetta) and Massimo Cavalletti (Marcello) as the stellar central quartet and not a weak link down the line.

BWW Interview: As BOHEME's Marcello at the Met, Baritone Massimo Cavalletti Is the Real Deal
BWW Interview: As BOHEME's Marcello at the Met, Baritone Massimo Cavalletti Is the Real Deal
November 23, 2016

When Massimo Cavelletti stepped on stage at the Met on November 16, it was a milestone: His 100th performance as Marcello, the baritone lead in LA BOHEME and part of the quartet at the opera's heart: There's Mimi, the seamstress, the sad soul who dies at the opera's end; Rodolfo, the heartthrob tenor, a poet, in love with her; Musetta, the spitfire who eats men for breakfast; and then there's Marcello, a painter, her lover—and, aah, the linchpin that holds it all together.

BWW Review: Juilliard Opera Takes FLIGHT in the Airport from Hell
BWW Review: Juilliard Opera Takes FLIGHT in the Airport from Hell
November 22, 2016

Like a morsel of Proust's madeleine soaking in a cup of tea, the setting of Juilliard Opera's new production of Jonathan Dove's opera FLIGHT took me back to another age, and Eero Saarinen's modernistic TWA (now Jet Blue) Terminal at Kennedy Airport in New York. But the only thing retro about the evening itself is a return to a golden age, with the excellent performance of the cast and orchestra, under conductor Steven Osgood and the direction of James Darrah.

BWW Review: Renee Fleming Glows in the Desert Sun of Kevin Puts' LETTERS FROM GEORGIA
BWW Review: Renee Fleming Glows in the Desert Sun of Kevin Puts' LETTERS FROM GEORGIA
November 17, 2016

Georgia O'Keeffe dressed in monk-like clothes and probably wouldn't have worn lipstick on a dare--hardly the image you'd associate with glamorous soprano Renee Fleming. But when Fleming opened her mouth and began to sing the first of the five songs in Kevin Puts' song cycle, LETTERS FROM GEORGIA, at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, these two disparate artists became one.

BWW Review: Where is Heroic GUILLAUME TELL Now that We Need Him? On Stage at the Met
BWW Review: Where is Heroic GUILLAUME TELL Now that We Need Him? On Stage at the Met
November 13, 2016

Always looking for new worlds to conquer, Gioachino Rossini wrote GUILLAUME TELL in French, as Paris became the center of the opera world. Despite his successes there, this was to be his operatic swan song, a story glorifying a revolutionary character--with a message that resonated, loud and strong, at the performance the night after the troubling American election.

BWW Interview, Part II: Composer Kevin Puts, Soprano Renee Fleming and Developing LETTERS FROM GEORGIA
BWW Interview, Part II: Composer Kevin Puts, Soprano Renee Fleming and Developing LETTERS FROM GEORGIA
November 11, 2016

Since writing his first opera, SILENT NIGHT--the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner for Music--with librettist Mark Campbell, composer Kevin Puts he has done two other operas, also with Campbell. This time around, he has a different collaborator: famed American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, whose correspondence provides the text of his song cycle, LETTERS FROM GEORGIA, commissioned for opera superstar Renee Fleming by the Eastman School of Music. It makes its New York debut on November 14.

BWW Review: War Is Hell but the Puts-Campbell SILENT NIGHT Is a Wonder in Atlanta
BWW Review: War Is Hell but the Puts-Campbell SILENT NIGHT Is a Wonder in Atlanta
November 9, 2016

If "satire is what closes on Saturday night" (according to the great playwright and wit George S. Kaufman), then contemporary opera is usually not far behind. That is, unless it's Kevin Puts' and Mark Campbell's prize-winning SILENT NIGHT, which actually opened on Saturday night (this past weekend) at Atlanta's Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, in a moving new production by the company's General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun that doesn't go for the heart strings but gets there anyway.

BWW Review: Karita Mattila Steals the Show in Janacek's JENUFA at the Met
BWW Review: Karita Mattila Steals the Show in Janacek's JENUFA at the Met
November 3, 2016

The opera's called JENUFA, after the unfortunate young woman at the center of its story. But the star of the show at the Met's revival of this soaring musical masterpiece by Janacek is the Kostelnicka of the magnificent Finnish soprano Karita Mattila.

BWW Review: An Old-Fashioned Opera Hoedown at Carnegie Hall's Richard Tucker Gala
BWW Review: An Old-Fashioned Opera Hoedown at Carnegie Hall's Richard Tucker Gala
November 2, 2016

Returning to Carnegie Hall this year after more than 25 years, the Richard Tucker Gala—celebrating the current winner of the Richard Tucker Award, soprano Tamara Wilson, as well as the life and career of the famed tenor for whom it was named—was a grand night for singing.

BWW Interview: Composer Kevin Puts, the Pulitzer Prize and Atlanta Opera's SILENT NIGHT
BWW Interview: Composer Kevin Puts, the Pulitzer Prize and Atlanta Opera's SILENT NIGHT
October 31, 2016

"Art isn't easy," Stephen Sondheim wrote famously in SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. Some artists, however, make it look simpler than others--like composer Kevin Puts, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for SILENT NIGHT, with Mark Campbell's libretto, for his first try at the notoriously difficult art form. (The Southeast premiere is opening at Atlanta Opera on November 5.) Easy? Well, looks can be deceiving.



  …       21       …    




Videos