LA BOHEME

Riverside Opera Company, celebrating its 27th season on Staten Island, will host PoPera 2024 on the lawn of the Garibaldi Meucci Museum....

Back in December, I saw the chamber version of John Adams’s EL NINO—dubbed EL NINO: NATIVITY RECONSIDERED—at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Pared down to its essence, it was wonderful, starred two of the singers who made their debuts in the premiere at the Met, soprano Julia Bullock and bass-baritone Davone Tines plus countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, who were at their best. It was a somber evening in a dramatic setting—a far cry from the oratorio/opera’s over-the-top welcome to Lincoln...

The first night of the Met’s revival of Puccini’s LA RONDINE (THE SWALLOW) was filled with surprises of one sort or another, under the baton of that smart conductor, Speranza Scappucci. She knows her way around Puccini and deserves to be heard more frequently at the house. The production had glamour through Art Deco-ish scenic design by Ezio Frigerio, with lighting by Duana Schuler and costumes by Franca Squarciapino....

It’s hard to compete with a dazzling concert hall like Barcelona’s Palau de la Musica Catalana—designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, one of Antonio Gaudi’s contemporaries in the modernista style. Or, with the famed Catalan (yes, not Spanish) diva Victoria de los Angeles, a Met favorite, whose centenary was being celebrated. Nonetheless, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho did quite impressively in her house debut at the Palau with the Franz Schubert Filharmonia under Tomas Grau....

The Riverside Opera Company presents PoPera 2023, a fusion of Broadway and opera classics accompanied by a full orchestra.  This concert will feature a cast of ROC's award-winning singers performing popular Opera and Broadway favorites....

In an opera filled with gorgeous music, it’s hard to beat the end of LA BOHEME’s Act One, with the trifecta of arias about young love. If only tragedy and sadness weren’t going to catch up with the central pair, Mimi and Rodolfo, and their friends, in the succeeding three “tales from the Bohemian life” (as the work’s source material was called). But wait. Director Yuval Sharon to the rescue, with a version that just finished a successful run at Opera Philadelphia, playing out the story in revers...

If we needed any further proof about how opera continues to evolve--as in “what’s an operatic experience?”--a concert at New York’s United Nations Headquarters featuring a live-and-in-person version of Paola Prestini‘s and Magos Herrera’s CON ALMA album celebrated International Women’s Day. The album--and event--were subtitled “An Operatic Tableau on Isolation.”...

Puccini's 'La Boheme,' returned for its second run of the season this week and cast and conductor delivered the goods. There's nothing to say that has not already been said about La Boheme as an opera and the famous Zeffirelli production, so we won't dwell on it....

What is there to say about Puccini’s TOSCA that hasn’t been said in the last hundred-plus years since its premiere in Rome (to echo the locations in the opera)? It is a marvel of brevity, with librettists Illica and Giacosa shaving locations, characters and action from the original play, written by the French dramatist Victorien Sardou for the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt, without sacrificing its impact. It has a gorgeous score, but for a grand opera, it is also quite intimate, with the act...

Every time I head to a performance of Puccini’s LA BOHEME, I can’t help but think of Bette Davis’s famous line from “All About Eve”: “I detest cheap sentiment.” But then I actually get there and, more likely than not, I feel genuinely moved, swept away by the mood that the composer and his librettists (Illica and Giacosa) have conceived through what seems like an endless array of gorgeous melodies in the Franco Zeffirelli production. ...

Puccini’s opera of passion, friendship and heartbreak is one of the best-loved operas worldwide. Richard Jones’s recent production for The Royal Opera, adapted to accommodate safety regulations, perfectly captures the vulnerability of youth amid the harshness and glamour of a big city. ...

Special guest stars are  Alison Madill, who  appears singing your Broadway favorites  along with Adeline Cherny and Jared Seaver winners of 'Staten Island Has Talent.'...

On the Los Angeles Opera website, tenor Russell Thomas and collaborative pianist Kyung-Mi Kim present a program of song that includes Schumann's song cycle, Dichterliebe (Poet's Love),  Handel's aria “Total Eclipse” from Samson, and love songs by Adolphus Hailstork and Robert Owens that was filmed recently at Spivey Hall in Atlanta, Georgia. ...

Looks can be deceiving, as the New Year’s Eve edition of the Met’s “Live in Concert” series proved in abundance. But could even the talent of four wonderful singers--sopranos, Angel Blue and Pretty Yende and a matching pair of tenors, Javier Camarena and Matthew Polenzani-- breathe new life in a program filled with warhorses, from “Che gelida manina” from BOHEME to that Neopolitan classic, “O sole mio”? In a word: Yes. ...

Tickets are now on sale for Pacific Opera Project's (POP) revolutionary new drive-in production of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, COVID fan tutte on Saturday, November 14; Sunday, November 15; and Sunday, November 22 at 5:30pm at Camarillo United Methodist Church. ...

This week, you can stream opera productions from all over the world, from The Met, to Seattle, Los Angeles, England, and more. Check out these 10 operas that you don't want to miss this week....

For her delightful Los Angeles Opera Living Room Recital, soprano Latonia Moore is accompanied by pianist Roberto Berrocal. First, she sings: Tatiana's dramatic 'Letter Scene' from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. The young and naive girl, Tatiana, writes an expressive love letter to the sophisticated Onegin, who is shocked and rebuffs her....

In the midst of this COVID-19 crisis that is gripping the world--and keeping so many people in quarantine--the Metropolitan Opera managed to pull off a brilliantly executed music coup. It connected stars, chorus members and orchestral musicians in an “At-Home Gala”--a combination fund-raiser for the Met with wonderful entertainment. And the technology worked!...

In these crazy days when no theatres are open to the public, the Live in HD series on PBS is a lifeline to the Met; last Friday, on PBS' Great Performances (on WNET in New York, at least) there was this fall's TURANDOT with a first-rate cast....

The Florentine Opera announces the 2020-21 SEASON OF THE ENSEMBLE. The Florentine Opera finds glory in the human voice through ensemble storytelling, from Riverwest to the West Side....

Join Amore Opera for its Annual New Year's Eve Gala featuring Act 2 from Carmen, La Boheme and Die Fledermaus. Maestro Richard Owen conducts a cast of outstanding singers and full orchestra in this magical evening. We serve a full dinner at intermission, champagne at midnight, and a bonus concert that goes into the early hours of 2020. The perfect way to ring in the new year with glorious music!...

From October 28, Mozart's exciting opera Don Giovanni will enchant audiences in movie theaters around the US. This wonderful fast-moving tragi-comedy about a master seducer features enchantingly complex characters, gripping drama and glorious melodies, from Don Giovanni's exuberant 'Champagne Aria' to Don Ottavio's tender expression of love 'Dalla sua pace'....

New York City Opera has announced that Blythe Gaissert & Michael Kelly and Briana Elyse Hunter & Jorell Williams will comprise the rotating casts of its upcoming production of AS ONE....

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 recital of the powerfully expressive baritone, Lucas Meachem, was Mahler's KINDERTOTENLIEDER, which translates to the grisly sounding (but actually elegant) “Songs on the Death of Children,” and one might ...

Puccini's La Boheme, one of opera's best-known love stories, is returning to the stage at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Art, life, love and loss collide for a charismatic group of struggling young artists in 19th-century Paris. Set to some of the most moving music ever composed, the story has captured the hearts of generations of audiences and inspired numerous adaptations, including the hit Broadway musical, Rent. La Boheme runs for 10 performances on April 17, 26, 28, May 2,...