Lyric Opera of Chicago to Present PROVING UP
Lyric Opera of Chicago will present the acclaimed chamber opera by the award-winning team of composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek: Proving Up, performed at the Goodman’s Owen Theatre, January 22–30, 2022.
BWW Feature: Streaming Opera For The Week Of 9/20
Verdi’s Il Trovatore can be seen live online on Sunday, October 3 at 2:00 pm or on Wednesday, October 6 at 7:30 pm live streamed directly from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Streamed live, they will not be able to be re-visited. Access to these performances is $30.00, available by clicking on the link below.
LINK https://www.laopera.org/performances/2122-season-page/il-trovatore-3/
BWW Reviews: Santa Fe's Back with a MIDSUMMER Treat and a LORD-ly Mishap
There are a number of parallels between the two operas I saw in Santa Fe (NM) this past weekend: The Benjamin Britten/Peter Pears treatment of Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM and the world premiere of the John Corigliano/Mark Adamo THE LORD OF CRIES. The first was, for me at least, an all-around, marvelous success, while the other was a disappointment.
BWW Review: BREAKING THE WAVES at Home Computer Screens
On May 29, 2020, Opera Philadelphia presented the digital premiere of Royce Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli's Breaking the Waves, a story based on the 1996 international film of the same name directed by Lars von Trier. Winner of the Music Critics Association of North America 2017 award for Best New Opera, the story took place in the 1970s at a seaside settlement in the Scottish Highlands.
OSF's Allen Elizabethan Theatre Opens June 7-9
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival invites audiences to enjoy two plays by William Shakespeare-plus one about a young girl with a crucial superpower, curiosity, and the beloved fantastical dream adventure in which she tries to figure out how to stay true to who she is-under the stars when its flagship outdoor theatre opens the weekend of June 7-9, 2019. The Allen Elizabethan Theatre will feature Macbeth, directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela; Alice in Wonderland, adapted from Lewis Carroll by Eve Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus, directed by Sara Bruner; and All's Well That Ends Well, directed by Tracy Young. Previews begin May 28, and all three shows will run through the weekend of October 11-13.
BWW Review: PROVING Mazzoli's Place in the New Opera Scene at the Miller in New York
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 theatre, she proved she's a force to be reckoned with.
BWW Review: 'Losing Your Mind' Three Ways in a Weekend at Opera Philadelphia's Festival O18
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-demanding material made it clear that the company has found a formula that strikes at the hearts of opera-goers, new and old.
NE QUITTEZ PAS Comes to O18 Festival
Lauded as “one of the most creative and ambitious companies in this country” (New York Times), Opera Philadelphia justified that reputation once again when it launched its inaugural Festival O last season; the Washington Post found it “one of the most enjoyable additions to the fall calendar in years,” and the Philadelphia Inquirer noted the festival's ambition “not to follow taste but to lead it.”
BWW Review: Pointer-Counterpoint " City Opera's CANDIDE vs. Prototype's BREAKING THE WAVES
When I saw that New York City Opera was doing Leonard Bernstein's CANDIDE at the same time as New York's Prototype Festival--with Missy Mazzoli's BREAKING THE WAVES opening the festival of opera-theatre and music-theatre on the same night—I thought that it was great counter-programming. After all, what could be further from Mazzoli's brilliant but grim gem than Bernstein's comic masterpiece--proving there's more than one way to skin a music theatre piece?
BWW Preview: Mazzoli-Vavrek WAVES Gets Second Break, at New York's Prototype Festival in January
For a new opera to have its second major showing less than four months after its premiere is unheard of—but then BREAKING THE WAVES, based on the Lars Von Trier film of the same name, isn't just any opera. This triumph by composer Missy Mazzoli, librettist Royce Vavrek, and direction by James Darrah—with a star-making turn by soprano Kiera Duffy in the central role of Bess—debuted at Opera Philadelphia last September and is having its New York premiere on January 6-9, 2017, over the first weekend of the Prototype Festival at NYU's Skirball Center.
Goodman Theatre Announces March-April 2015 Lineup for Citywide August Wilson Celebration
Goodman Theatre, in collaboration with Chicago's various off-Loop theaters and Northwestern University, unveils partial programming in its spring 2015 citywide "August Wilson Celebration" -- an extensive retrospective of the late playwright's life, artistry and influence on American culture. The seven-week Celebration takes place in March and April 2015 on dual landmark occasions: the 70th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright's birth and the 10th anniversary of his death.