Avatar photoWilliam Burnett

I have been attending opera performances since my early teenage years. In 2005, I created operawarhorses.com, and have traveled throughout North America, and to Europe and Asia to report on opera performances and to interview opera performers, conductors and administrators.

Review: Warhorse Warriors – John Cox’ ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ at San Francisco Opera, July 2, 2005

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John Cox is rarely thought of as a “concept director”, creating productions that transform an opera into a time, place and context unimagined by the composer and librettist in order to put make some point, or perhaps only for shock and awe. Cox, a former general director at the Glyndebourne Festival whose attentions are now … Read more

Review: An Enchanting “Pearl Fishers” with Castronovo, Amsellem and Dazely – San Francisco Opera, June 26, 2005

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The San Francisco Opera, for the first time in “main season” history presented 24-year old Georges Bizet’s “Les pêcheurs de perles [The Pearl Fishers”]. Although French Second Empire opera fare had not been associated with the General Directorship of San Francisco Opera’s Pamela Rosenberg, she signed up San Francisco to be the second stop for … Read more

Review: Jones the Ripper’s “Queen of Spades” at San Francisco Opera, June 12, 2005

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When is it cool to change the sexual orientation of an operatic character?*  Suppose you are an “opera concept director”, and have decided you really want to make a statement on Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter”, but that your next operatic assignment is “Harvey Milk”, the opera by composer Stewart Wallace and librettist Michael Korie about the … Read more

Review: Zandra Rhodes’ New Look for Bizet’s “Pearl Fishers” – San Diego Opera, February 27, 2004

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The San Diego Opera, whose director Ian Campbell had enlisted British-born California fashion designer Zandra Rhodes to design costumes for a production of Mozart’s “Magic Flute”, commissioned Rhodes to create both the sets and costumes for a new production of Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers [Les pêcheurs de perles]”. [Below: Designer Zandra Rhodes; edited image, based … Read more