Month: July 2014

Santa Fe Opera’s new production of Huang Ruo’s 2011 opera “Doctor Sun Yat-Sen” demonstrated the depth of the artistic resources that the company commands. The opera’s libretto is written in the Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese dialects. The opera was considerably recomposed with new orchestration designed for the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra that integrated several traditional Chinese instruments. [Chinese composer Huang … Read more

Composer Tobias Picker’s 2005 opera based on Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 novel, was presented at the 2014 Glimmerglass Festival in a revised version, directed by Peter Kazaras. [Below: Director Peter Kazaras, resized image, based on an Alan Alabastro photograph for Seattle Opera.] In its previous form, the opera had been commissioned by the New York Metropolitan Opera in a production … Read more

Director Francesca Zambello, whose imagination seems boundless, can always be counted on to provide us with new insights into familiar operas. Her latest new production, created for the Glimmerglass (New York) Festival of which she is the General Director, is a reconceptualization of Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos”. No part of the witty concoction by … Read more

The 2014 Glimmerglass Festival, as part of the company’s multi-year salute to the American musical, mounted Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s 1945 classic, “Carousel”. [Below: Director Charles Newell, edited image, based on a publicity photograph from the Goodman Theater of Chicago.] The creative team behind the production included two experts on Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s masterful work, their second effort … Read more