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: 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