Opera Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 24

BWW Review: Halloween Comes Early with Kallor's FRANKENSTEIN and Poe in Green-Wood Cemetery
by Richard Sasanow - October 14, 2018

I grew up with many versions of the Frankenstein story--some with greater nods to Mary Shelley's novel than others--spending Saturday afternoons being scared witless and loving every minute of it. But I was changed forever by Mel Brooks' YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, making it hard to come to the story of mon...

BWW Review: Lang's MILE-LONG OPERA is a Voyeur's Paradise on New York's High Line
by Richard Sasanow - October 05, 2018

THE MILE-LONG OPERA's composer David Lang says he is trying to expand the definition of what an opera is. Well, AIDA this ain't. If you live in New York, you might know the High Line, a modern elevated walkway built over abandoned railroad tracks that stretches from the West Village to the Westside ...

BWW Album Review: Renée Fleming Hits a High Note With New Album BROADWAY
by Tori Hartshorn - October 05, 2018

Genre is not a word that seems to be in Renee Fleming's vocabulary, just as her vocal ability does not confine her to a certain arena. The four time Grammy award winner graced the Broadway stage last season as Nettie in Rodgers and Hammerstein's CAROUSEL, opposite Jessie Mueller and Josh Henry. Not ...

BWW Review: PROVING Mazzoli's Place in the New Opera Scene at the Miller in New York
by Richard Sasanow - October 01, 2018

Missy Mazzoli had me with BREAKING THE WAVES, her 2016 opera written with librettist Royce Vavrek at Opera Philadelphia and PROTOTYPE 2017. With PROVING UP--same librettist and with a production also conceived by James Darrah--which had its New York debut this week at Columbia University's Miller th...

BWW Review: 'Losing Your Mind' Three Ways in a Weekend at Opera Philadelphia's Festival O18
by Richard Sasanow - September 26, 2018

Whether from disease, 19th century #MeToo-style abuse, or unrequited love, Opera Philadelphia's (OP) Festival O18 opening weekend showed us three ways that central female characters lost their grip on reality. While I considered only one of them a total success, audience openness to sometimes-demand...

BWW Review: Met Opera Season Opens with New SAMSON ET DALILA, in Crazy, Rich Philistine Style
by Richard Sasanow - September 25, 2018

Well, no one could accuse the opening of the Met's new season, with Darko Trasnjak's production of Saint-Saens' SAMSON ET DALILA, to Ferdinand Lemaire's libretto, of being drab. Starry, certainly. Over the top, definitely. Filled with feathers, absolutely. Call it “Crazy, Rich Philistines.”...

BWW Review: In Any Language, the London-Thoron HATUEY Brings Fire to Kasser Theatre at Montclair State
by Richard Sasanow - September 21, 2018

'A Ukrainian Jew walked into a bar in Havana....' Wait, haven't I heard this one before? Not by a longshot. HATUEY: MEMORY OF FIRE, the opera by Frank London and Elise Thoron, performed in Yiddish, English and Spanish, is a unique work that ambitiously crosses many creative lines in a work inspired ...

BWW Review: Bullock's Back and the [Other] Met's Got Her
by Richard Sasanow - September 18, 2018

Soprano Julia Bullock is at the Met in New York this year--but not necessarily the one that comes to mind when you're thinking about performances by an opera singer. It's the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she kicked off her year as Artist-in-Residence (2018-2019) on Saturday night with “History'...

BWW Review: Dell'Arte Opera Unlocks the Cypher of LA CIFRA by Salieri
by Richard Sasanow - August 27, 2018

Before there was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, there was Antonio Salieri. Today, most people only know the latter as a character in the play AMADEUS and its Oscar-winning film version, and not as head of all things musical in Vienna for decades and a prolific composer. You've got to give points to the sp...

BWW Review: A Powerful Production of Weill's 'Lost in the Stars' Closes Union Avenue's Season
by Steve Callahan - August 21, 2018

Kurt Weill's 'Lost in the Stars' brings a moving tale of South Africa to the Union Avenue Stage....

BWW Review: I Like MOZART. Does That Make Me a Bad Person?
by Richard Sasanow - August 16, 2018

Lincoln Center's MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL is over for the season and finished up with a program that was an oddity because it wasn't mostly Mozart (or no Mozart) but all Mozart. Well, hooray for the 18th century. I was happy to be back in the bosom of the festival's namesake. Does that make me a bad p...

BWW Review: Forget Mozart. It is THE FORCE OF THINGS that Begs Our Attention
by Richard Sasanow - August 09, 2018

Ashley Fure's and Adam Fure's THE FORCE OF THINGS: AN OPERA FOR OBJECTS--one of this week's unusual attractions at Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival--took place at Brooklyn's Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet. As far as I could tell, that first sentence was filled with misnomers: no ...

BWW Review: Glimmerglass VIXEN is a Cunning Take on a Moral Tale
by Richard Sasanow - July 27, 2018

Anyone who loves Leos Janacek's gorgeous but grim operas--JENUFA, KATYA KABANOVA, MAKROPOLOUS--might be surprised by THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN. It's being presented, now through August, in a handsome production at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY....

BWW Review: L'ITALIANA IN ALGERI at Santa Fe Opera
by Maria Nockin - July 26, 2018

Daniela Mack is Isabella, an Italian pilot, who makes an emergency landing in Algiers and is captured by its ruler, the Bey. He wants an Italian girl for a wife but she loves Lindoro, the Bey's Italian slave. L'ITALIANA has lots of good bel canto singing and plenty of comedy to keep you smiling all...

BWW Review: The WEST SIDE of the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY
by Richard Sasanow - July 25, 2018

Yes, it's still the Leonard Bernstein centennial and what better way to celebrate than at the Glimmerglass Festival with WEST SIDE STORY. It remains a unique creation, the collaboration of four geniuses: Bernstein himself, of course, Jerome Robbins (choreographer-director), Arthur Laurents (book) an...

BWW Review: A Weekend in the Country at Glimmerglass Festival, Part One, SILENT NIGHT
by Richard Sasanow - July 24, 2018

None of the three pieces that I saw at the Glimmerglass Festival near Cooperstown, NY, last weekend was exactly what it seemed to be: Is CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN a fairy story or a cautionary tale? Is WEST SIDE STORY simply in a class of its own? Does SILENT NIGHT find that war is hell—or that hell is s...

BWW Review: Call It Mishmash or MASS, Mostly Mozart Celebrates Bernstein Centennial
by Richard Sasanow - July 19, 2018

This week, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival added its two-cents to the Leonard Bernstein centennial festivities, with the first of two performances of Bernstein's MASS: A THEATRE PIECE FOR SINGERS, PLAYS AND DANCERS, in an environmental production by Elkhanah Pulitzer....

BWW Review: H.M.S. Pinafore is a Bright, Merry Musical Romp!
by Steve Callahan - July 09, 2018

The Union Avenue Opera opens its 24th season with a splendid production of Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore, and it brims with glorious music, wonderful voices, and bright, delightful, timeless comedy....

BWW Review: St. Petersburg Opera Presents Meredith Willson's THE MUSIC MAN at the Palladium
by Peter Nason - July 03, 2018

Fantastic barbershop quartet as well as the dance ensemble stand out in this production of the iconic musical....

BWW Review: MACBETH at STAATSOPER UNTER DEN LINDEN - Superstars Netrebko and Domingo miscast in a glittering new production of Verdi's MACBETH
by Mark Janicello - June 22, 2018

Currently, the world of opera is sorely lacking superstar talent. Last night, at the Staatsoper unter den Linden, three of the world's brightest classical-music talents came together in a very expensive, glittering new production of Verdi's MACBETH. Anna Netrebko, Placido Domingo and conductor Danie...

BWW Review: In Series Ends Season with THE EMPEROR OF ATLANTIS
by Roger Catlin - June 19, 2018

'Holocaust Opera' is probably not the most inviting description for the season ending offering for the In Series....

BWW Review: ORFEO & EURIDICE at OTSL Dazzles
by Steve Callahan - June 15, 2018

Orpheus could charm the very stones with his lyre and his singing. Just such magic can be seen on the stage of Opera Theatre St. Louis when Jennifer Johnson Cano portrays the mythical superstar in the company's current production. She gives an utterly stunning performance....

BWW Review: OKLAHOMA!, West Horsley Place
by Fiona Scott - June 09, 2018

Oh, what a beautiful evening in West Horsley! Grange Park Opera open their 2018 summer festival season with Rogers and Hammerstein's vintage musical (the first of its kind in 1943), set in the farming heartlands of America....

BWW Review: REGINA at Opera Theater Of St. Louis
by Joanna Barouch - June 04, 2018

For certain xenophobic East Coast opera lovers, the words 'St.Louis' and 'Opera' could seem like an oxymoron. However, this would be an invalid assumption....

BWW Review: DINNER Now Being Served at NYU's Opera Lab and American Opera Projects
by Richard Sasanow - June 02, 2018

What's left to say about Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party"--that milestone of 20th century feminist art now on permanent display at the Brooklyn Museum--that hasn't already been said? Actually, quite a bit, according to the students from the Opera Lab of NYU Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Pr...