Classical Music Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 22

BWW Review: THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE Melds Music, Storytelling, and Inspiration, at Portland Center Stage
by Krista Garver - April 13, 2016

Chalk up another winner for Portland Center Stage this season -- THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE is one you don't want to miss! Mona Golabek's one-woman show about her own mother's escape from Nazi-controlled Austria on the Kindertransport is part-concert, part-storytelling, and all magic....

BWW Reviews: Folds Spreads the Spotlight Around in Concert with CSO
by Paul Batterson - April 11, 2016

As a principal percussionist for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Philip Shipley is used to watching concerts from behind the oboes and the woodwinds. At the CSO's concert with Ben Folds on April 9, Shipley got distinctly different point of view....

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: Broadway Divas and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Bring Girl Power to the Strathmore
by Vanessa Michaud - April 04, 2016

Talented vocalists Christina Bianco, N'Kenge, Kristen Plumley, and Mandy Gonzalez, in conjunction with Jack Everly and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, headlined the concert of classic songs from the Great White Way to honor some of the most beloved Broadway divas and musicals of our time at the Mu...

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Sydney Symphony Orchestra's FROM THE CANYONS TO THE STARS Pairs Contemporary Orchestral Work With Landscape Images
by Jade Kops - March 10, 2016

Artistic Director and Conductor has paired Olivier Messiaen's contemporary orchestral work, Des Canons aux etoiles (FROM THE CANYONS TO THE STARS) with Deborah O'Grady's images to present a unique experience....

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: Louisville's SPRING COLLABORATION - Artists Are Breaking Out
by Keith Waits - March 08, 2016

The Louisville Orchestra and Louisville Ballet Spring Collaboration may be one of those nights we will talk about in the future. We will say -- Remember the night that the private conversation the artists shared went public?...

BWW Review: TRIAL BY JURY At Baltimore's Historic Westminster Hall - A Victorian Treat
by Charles Shubow - March 07, 2016

Gilbert & Sullivan's operetta performed by Baltimore lawyers and judges along with performers from the Young Victorian Theatre Company is just plain well-done!...

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: Darren Criss, Betsy Wolfe, and the National Symphony Bring a Little Broadway to Kennedy Center
by Jennifer Perry - February 28, 2016

One thing I can always count on when I go to a National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) Pops concert featuring music of the Great White Way - and perhaps beyond - is that the accomplished musicians and their exceptional conductor Steven Reineke will give it all the energy, vigor and verve it deserves. Thi...

BWW Review: SUTTON FOSTER Sparkles in Performance with the Baltimore Symphony
by Charles Shubow - February 23, 2016

Principal Baltimore Symphony Pops Conductor Jack Everly presents top notch entertainment....

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: Broadway Valentine Exceeded All Expectations
by Anton Anderssen - February 22, 2016

The Michigan Philharmonic Orchestra exceeded all expectations on February 13 when it presented BROADWAY VALENTINE, a salute to some of the best love songs on Broadway.  Carefully chosen by Maesto Nan Washburn,  the program included selections from My Fair Lady, Les Miserables, Evita, Superstar, Grea...

BWW Review: Kristen Chenoweth with the Louisville Orchestra
by Keith Waits - February 22, 2016

There are a lot of superlatives that have been thrown around about the World Renowned Kristin Chenoweth: Stunning, personable, fun, entertaining. All are true and she demonstrated all of those traits when she came to Louisville for a second time and performed with our Louisville Orchestra under the ...

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...

BWW Review: NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC MAHLER 6TH SYMPHONY at David Geffen Hall
by Peter Danish - February 18, 2016

Bychkov leads the NY Philharmonic a magnificent and majestic Mahler 6th....

BWW Review: Spectacular Sleepwalking in Bellini's SONNAMBULA at Juilliard Opera
by Richard Sasanow - February 17, 2016

It's a shame that Bellini wasn't Donizetti--because the story of LA SONNAMBULA seems to be begging for the full comic treatment and could have been a great companion to L'ELISIR D'AMORE. (I'm not sure how Maria Callas would have felt about changes in one of her great roles.) As it stands, performing...