Interview Part 2: NICOLAS REVELES OF SAN DIEGO OPERA'S PRODUCTION OF GHOSTS at The Balboa Theatre
by Ron Bierman - March 06, 2023
GHOSTS, an opera Nicolas Reveles completed shortly before his recent death, premieres on Friday, April 14. He was visibly ill when I interviewed him in January, but excited and enthusiastic about the coming production. Part 1 of my interview described how the new opera came to be written. This concl...
Review: Oh Goddess, Bellini's NORMA Returns to the Met
by Richard Sasanow - March 10, 2023
You’ve got to admit that the Met had a lot of guts to dedicate this season’s performances of Vincenzo Bellini’s NORMA (libretto by Felice Romani) to the memory of Maria Callas on the 100th anniversary of her birth. Hers was simply one of the most legendary portrayals of the role, by a fabled singer....
Review: Met's New LOHENGRIN Is Thrillingly Sung but Close Your Eyes and Listen
by Richard Sasanow - February 27, 2023
The Met’s new production of Richard Wagner’s LOHENGRIN showcases startlingly good singing from tenor Piotr Beczala in the title role, supported ably and nobly by soprano Tamara Wilson’s Elsa, bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin’s Telramund and bass Gunther Groissbock’s King Heinrich. And soprano Christine ...
Review: Met Opera Continues Support of Ukraine with CONCERT OF REMEMBRANCE
by Richard Sasanow - February 27, 2023
Friday night, the Metropolitan Opera gave its second concert honoring “Ukraine and its brave citizens as they fight to defend their country and cultural heritage.” The country’s colors flew above the performance, which opened with a pretaped video message from First Lady, Olena Zelenska, along with ...
Review: New MACBETH Production, ALCINA in Concert at Barcelona's Liceu – Guess Who Comes Out on Top: Part Two
by Richard Sasanow - February 23, 2023
Two operas in two days at Barcelona’s legendary Liceu opera house. Who could ask for anything more? Well, turns out you can, judging by the visiting ALCINA from Marc Minkowski’s Musiciens du Louvre and the Liceu’s new production of Verdi’s MACBETH by Jaume Planes. Part II: Verdi’s MACBETH ...
Review: ALCINA in Concert, New MACBETH Production at Barcelona's Liceu – Guess Who Comes Out on Top: Part One
by Richard Sasanow - February 23, 2023
Two operas in two days at Barcelona’s legendary Liceu opera house. Who could ask for anything more? Well, turns out you can, judging by the visiting ALCINA from Marc Minkowski’s Musiciens du Louvre and the Liceu’s new production of Verdi’s MACBETH by Jaume Planes. Part One: Handel’s ALCINA ...
Review: THE SAN DIEGO OPERA'S PUCCINI DUO at San Diego Civic Center Theater
by Ron Bierman - February 16, 2023
The big question for the evening was how mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe would do as the first woman in professional opera to sing the baritone title role in Gianni Schicchi. But the question wouldn’t be answered until the second one-act opera in San Diego Opera’s “Puccini Duo.” Blythe was first a co...
Review: THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT at Minnesota Opera
by Jared Fessler - February 06, 2023
What did our critic think of THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT at Minnesota Opera?...
Review: SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO. 5 at Charlotte Symphony
by Perry Tannenbaum - February 05, 2023
A worthy candidate for CSO's vacant musical directorship, Vinay Parameswaran brings a winsome personality and an eclectic modern program to the Knight Theater podium for his Charlotte debut....
Review: Mozart's Beloved Comic Opera THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO Takes A Gloriously Chaotic Turn At Canadian Opera Company
by Isabella Perrone - February 02, 2023
The Canadian Opera Company presents this production of THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, originally created by the Salzburg Festival, as part of its 2023 season. Directed here by Claus Guth, some of Mozart's most recognizable operatic works come to life through the COC Orchestra, conducted by Harry Bicket....
Review: Exquisitely Subtle CARMELITES Makes Another of Its Brief Stops at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - January 20, 2023
I’ve heard the opera a number of times at the Met over the years and this year’s run holds up with the most breathtaking of them. Despite the number of star performances among the magnificent ensemble currently being heard at the Met, the star of the show doesn’t have a single word to say or note to...
Review: LEAST LIKE THE OTHER, SEARCHING FOR ROSEMARY KENNEDY, Royal Opera House, Linbury Theatre
by Gary Naylor - January 18, 2023
An extraordinary, powerful, moving multimedia work that gives voice to Rosemary Kennedy, denied it for over 60 years....
Review: At the Met, All You Need is Love, When L'ELISIR is in the Right Hands
by Richard Sasanow - January 12, 2023
Donizetti wrote more than six dozen operas in the course of around 30 years, so it must have been hard for him not to steal from himself. Still, it always strikes me during the overture to his great comedy L’ELISIR D’AMORE, whose run at the Met opened the other night, when I hear echoes of the oh-so...
Review: O'Halloran Double-Bill Brings Complex Emotions to the Surface at PROTOTYPE
by Richard Sasanow - January 10, 2023
A powerful double bill by Irish composer Emma O’Halloran, to libretti by her playwright uncle, Mark O’Halloran, deals with disappointment, connection and heartbreak--and what makes people tick. You know, 'the usual.'...
Review: 10th Anniversary PROTOTYPE Festival in NY Blasts Off with Du Yun's IN OUR DAUGHTER'S EYES
by Richard Sasanow - January 06, 2023
There’s more contemporary opera in New York these days than there used to be and I’ll drink to that. But there’s nothing else that does it with the panache of the PROTOTYPE Festival, the brainchild of Beth Morrison Projects and HERE....
Review: Met Audience Tips Its Hat to FEDORA on New Year's Eve
by Richard Sasanow - January 01, 2023
Musicologist Joseph Kerman is probably most widely remembered for calling Puccini’s TOSCA “a shabby little shocker.” I wonder whether he’d have something similar to say about Giordano’s FEDORA, which brought the Met audience to its feet on New Year’s Eve?...
Review: Spectacular Soloists at Chamber Music Society--Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, Oboist James Austin Smith and Harpist Bridget Kibbey
by Richard Sasanow - December 09, 2022
This week’s concert of Vivaldi and Handel at the Chamber Music Society (CMS)--with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, oboist James Austin Smith and harpist Bridget Kibbey--whipped the audience into a frenzy of delight with a combination of arias, sonatas and concertos at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tull...
Review: ISABEL LEONARD and PABLO SÁINZ-VILLEGAS Together at The Conrad in La Jolla
by Ron Bierman - December 05, 2022
Mezzo Isabel Leonard and classical-guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas are stars in their fields. Leonard has sung on two Grammy-winning opera recordings and won a Beverly Sills Artist Award at the Metropolitan Opera--and even guested on Sesame Street. He's garnered 30 international awards, including the...
Review: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, London Coliseum
by Gary Naylor - November 27, 2022
Opera based on much loved 1946 film offers a vision of a town without music, without joy, without love and, in doing so, compels us to value what we have - a moral shared by everyone in the house, but not outside it....
Review: THE HOURS Goes by in Minutes as Met Gives Birth to Fascinating Opera by Puts and Pierce
by Richard Sasanow - November 25, 2022
The Met gave birth to a fascinating new opera on Tuesday and it wasn’t a moment too soon to unleash composer Kevin Puts’s THE HOURS on an audience that sometimes seems doomed to die inundated by too many AIDAs, BOHEMEs and CARMENs. The world premiere production of THE HOURS by Puts and Greg Pierce w...
Review: Oratorio Society Debuts Stunning NATION OF OTHERS by Moravec and Campbell at Carnegie Hall
by Richard Sasanow - November 18, 2022
The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY), under Kent Tritle, gave its second stirring world premiere by Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell with Tuesday’s outstanding performance of A NATION OF OTHERS....
Review: An Old-Fashioned Sing-Off Celebrates ANGEL BLUE at Geffen Hall's 2022 Richard Tucker Gala
by Richard Sasanow - November 15, 2022
Award-winner Angel Blue started off the proceedings at the Richard Tucker Gala (after Barry Tucker’s usual introduction/ode to his father, the great tenor) with a bang: Puccini’s justly famous aria “Vissi d’arte” from TOSCA. For those of us who’ve only heard her as Bess in Gershwin’s PORGY & BESS at...
Review: DON CARLO Returns to the Met, This Time in Italian
by Richard Sasanow - November 13, 2022
Last season, the company gave its first presentation of the French version (that’s the one called DON CARLOS, with a final S to his first name), in the five-act version that lasted almost 5 hours. This year, we’re back to Italian, under Carlo Rizzi’s firm baton, in one of a number of versions (this ...
Review: ALCINA at Artscape is a Sumptuous, Atmospheric Spectacle of an Opera
by Jaime Uranovsky - November 13, 2022
It is imperative that I begin this review by admitting that before viewing ALCINA, I was an opera-virgin. Well, this production was the perfect introduction to the genre. Firstly, what a magical experience to be back in the Artscape after a lengthy COVID-induced hiatus. The excitement and anticipat...
Review: New York Becomes HOMETOWN to Kaminsky-Reed Opera About ICE Raid on Slaughterhouse in Iowa
by Richard Sasanow - November 10, 2022
HOMETOWN TO THE WORLD--the 70-minute contemporary chamber opera by Laura Kaminsky and Kimberly Reed about the aftermath of a 2008 raid by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on a slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa--is about as far from the Midwest of Meredith Willson’s THE MUSIC MAN imag...
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