Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 21

BWW Review: Fleming and Whishaw Open NY Arts Center, The Shed, with NORMA JEANE BAKER OF TROY
by Richard Sasanow - April 10, 2019

Helen of Troy didn't launch a thousand ships but was a put-upon sexual victim and Marilyn Monroe--born Norma Jeane Baker, of the title--was a cloud in the shape of a woman. It was also a “disaster to be a girl” in those days before #MeToo, with powerful men (whether Menelaus or Arthur Miller) holdin...

BWW Review: Van Hove's Take on Janacek's DIARY at BAM Is Audacious - But Not in a Good Way
by Richard Sasanow - April 09, 2019

“Audacious” can mean daring--and Belgian director Ivo van Hove certainly fits that description for his approaches to Arthur Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE and THE CRUCIBLE and numerous other theatre pieces. But when it came to Leos Janacek's DIARY OF ONE WHO DISAPPEARED, van Hove's work (with the D...

BWW Review: Mozart's CLEMENZA DI TITO Brings Best Cast of Season to Met
by Richard Sasanow - April 05, 2019

While the cast for the season's revival of Mozart's LA CLEMENZA DI TITO looked good on paper, it didn't even hint at how good the singing was going to be at the Met this week. From top—tenor Matthew Polenzani, elegant and vibrant in the title role (“Se all'impero”), and the great mezzo Joyce DiDonat...

BWW Review: SAN DIEGO OPERA'S CARMEN at the San Diego Civic Center
by Ron Bierman - April 03, 2019

San Diego Opera is the 13th company since 2011 to cast mezzo-soprano Ginger Costa-Jackson in the title role of Bizet's Carmen. Her voice, sultry looks, and sensuous flamenco dancing are perfect for the role. She even manages castanets in perfect rhythm without missing a step. The considerable powers...

BWW Review: [Opera] Star Trek - The Next Generation from the Met National Council Finals Concert
by Richard Sasanow - April 02, 2019

Judging by the number of small opera companies in New York alone--see the 2019 New York Opera Fest that starts performances next month--there's no shortage of up and coming opera singers trying to make their way on the scene. But there's no showcase like the Finals Concert of the Metropolitan Opera'...

BWW Review: GALA EVENING WITH JUAN DIEGO FLOREZ, Royal Festival Hall
by Sophia Lambton - March 30, 2019

Juan Diego Flórez gave an orchestral recital which failed to display his superlative assets....

BWW Review: BERENICE, Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - March 28, 2019

Berenice is something of a forgotten delight, its tortuous plotting more than offset by its splendid arias and delightful characters, with plenty of contemporary resonance on hand if you need it....

BWW Showstopper: Ride 'Em, Valkyries, in Part Two of the Met's RING CYCLE
by Richard Sasanow - March 27, 2019

There's lots to enjoy in the Met's revival of DIE WALKURE, the second part of Richard Wagner's great tetralogy, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, better known simply as Wagner's Ring Cycle, which had its first performance of the season on Monday night--all five hours of it!--under the pulsating control of Ph...

BWW Review: What Retirement? Fleming Soars in Final Scene from CAPRICCIO with the Boston Symphony under Nelsons
by Richard Sasanow - March 22, 2019

Since my days as a pothead are long gone (LOL)—did anyone ever watch 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY without a little help from a friend?--I came to the Boston Symphony's (BSO) concert at Carnegie Hall the other night more interested in hearing the excerpts from Richard Strauss's CAPRICCIO, including Renee Fl...

BWW Review: LA FORZA DEL DESTINO, Royal Opera House
by Flora Seymour - March 22, 2019

Not since a memorable La traviata in 2008 have superstars Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann appeared together at the Royal Opera House. Small wonder, then, that their pairing as fate-thwarted lovers Leonora and Don Alvaro in Verdi's sprawling tragedy La Forza del Destino sent the Royal Opera House bo...

BWW Review: MN Opera's Memorable THE FIX Composes Requiem for the American Dream
by Peggy Sue Dunigan - March 20, 2019

This past weekend at the Ordway Center, MN Opera unveiled their World Premiere The Fix in tribute to the All-American sport and spirt of baseball. The story created through the company's New Works Initiative by Eric Simonson, who wrote the libretto and also directed the production, was accompanied b...

BWW Review: Washington National Opera's FAUST is a Devilishly Good Time
by Sam Abney - March 20, 2019

Few works have inspired such a long-lasting legacy as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust. The Faustian bargain has become a common expression for metaphorically selling one's soul in order to obtain their goals. Of course, the metaphor is much less metaphorical in von Goethe's work and, subsequently...

BWW Review: Exhilarating CARMINA BURANA Brings 'Total Theatre' to the Skylight
by Kelsey Lawler - March 19, 2019

17 Skylight artists. Seven Danceworks dancers. 25 Chant Claire Chamber Choir members, plus four Chant Claire guest artists. Six percussionists. Two pianists. One conductor. One visionary artistic team. One stage. It all adds up to Skylight's exhilarating Carmina Burana, an experience dubbed ''total ...

BWW Insight: Opera and Music as More than Simply a Night Out? BLUE and THE JUST Say Yes
by Richard Sasanow - March 20, 2019

Can opera be a medium for social commentary and change? I've been thinking about this lately--or, more accurately, yet again--since attending a preview of the new Jeanne Tesori-Tazewell Thompson opera, BLUE, which was part of the Guggenheim Museum's fascinating Works & Process series. The performanc...

BWW Review: San Diego Opera's JAKE HEGGIE'S THREE DECEMBERS at The Patrick Henry Phame Theatre
by Ron Bierman - March 12, 2019

Mezzo soprano Frederica von Stade starred in the San Diego Opera's staging of Three Decembers. One of several works written with her in mind by her close friend Jake Heggie, it' s a chamber opera for three singers and 11 musicians. In a recent Interview Von Stade said, 'I've done three productions, ...

BWW Review: Here's Hoping For The Return of the People's Opera, NOLI ME TANGERE
by Jared Echevarria - March 11, 2019

Gone are the days when the opera is treated like an old-world passion and a cultural event where people are required to dress to the nines. The arrival of National Artists Guillermo Tolentino and Felipe Padilla de Leon's “Noli Me Tangere, The Opera” for the nth time in Manila was welcomed mostly by ...

BWW Review: WNO's Exquisite EUGENE ONEGIN at the Kennedy Center
by Benjamin Tomchik - March 12, 2019

Washington National Opera's (WNO) Eugene Onegin is exquisite! The entire evening soars like a dream with pitch-perfect performances led by the immaculate Anna Nechaeva as Tatiana....

BWW Review: Winter Opera brings Remarkable Voices to the Druidic World of NORMA
by Steve Callahan - March 11, 2019

Winter Opera has opened a sumptuous production of Norma, Vincenzo Bellini's bel canto masterpiece from 1831....

BWW Review: Finding GOLD as the Met's Ring Cycle Begins Anew
by Richard Sasanow - March 11, 2019

If Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's Ring Cycle (formally, DER RING DAS NIBELUNGEN) had worked as smoothly when it opened in 2010 as it did at this season's marvelous premiere of its prologue, DAS RHEINGOLD, on Saturday afternoon, there probably still would have been complaints--not about its f...

BWW Review: Live from the Crypt, It's Baritone Lucas Meachem
by Richard Sasanow - March 09, 2019

The Crypt Sessions, which take place in the stone chamber beneath the Church of the Intercession on West 155th Street in Manhattan, might conjure up visions of horror, though it bears no relation to HBO's long-running anthology, “Tales from the Crypt.” Add that the center of attraction for the recit...

BWW Review: THE MAGIC FLUTE at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood
by Maria Nockin - March 04, 2019

On March 3, 2019, Pacific Opera Project (POP) presented its more-than-a-little-bit-zany version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE (DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE) at Los Angeles's El Portal Theatre. POP Director and Designer Josh Shaw and Baritone E. Scott Levin premiered a new English version of Emanue...

BWW Review: Carsen's Stellar FALSTAFF with Ambrogio Maestri and Game Cast Returns to the Met
by Richard Sasanow - February 28, 2019

Will anyone else but Ambrogio Maestri bring the same dynamism to Robert Carsen's 1950's take on Verdi's masterpiece, FALSTAFF? Time will tell. But the return of the wonderful production, with the great Met orchestra under conductor Richard Farnes and an all-around terrific cast, brought a little sun...

Andre Previn - of Opera and Classical Music, as well as Hollywood, Broadway and Television - Dies at 89
by Richard Sasanow - March 01, 2019

Composer, conductor and pianist Andre Previn has died at the age of 89 on February 28. Previn was composer of the opera versions of Tennessee Williams's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and Noel Coward's BRIEF ENCOUNTER, dozens of orchestral works, film scores, jazz works and the score for Tom Stoppard's ...

BWW Review: ARIODANTE at Monte-Carlo Opera
by Marieke van den Wall Bake - March 01, 2019

For the first time in history, Ariodante has stepped on the Monte-Carlo Opera stage, bewildering and enchanting the Monegasque audience in this 3+ hour opera by Handel. Following the success of the Salzberg Festival production (under the keen eye of Christof Loy), the opera is set in the captivating...

BWW Review: COSI FAN TUTTE, Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - February 26, 2019

The Royal Opera House revives its 2016 Cosi with all the mischievous wit and splendid music of Mozart and Da Ponte - but also lets us in on the game within the game - and the price that's paid...