William Burnett

Santa Fe Opera is famously committed to sponsoring contemporary works, allocating one of its five operas each season to a recently composed opera. For 2009, the new work selected by now retired General Manager Richard Gaddis was one the Santa Fe Opera commissioned. Composer Paul Morevac, whose vibrant incidental music inspired by the Bard’s “The … Read more

ALCESTE REVIEW Santa Fe Opera mounted Gluck’s “Alceste” as the occasion for the Santa Fe Opera debuts of Wagnerian soprano Christine Brewer and of lyric tenor Paul Groves. Conducted by Irish conductor Kenneth Montgomery, a familiar face on the Santa Fe podium, the opera, that Gluck had revised for Paris in 1776, was presented in … Read more

The Santa Fe Opera chose the Fourth of July to unveil its new Stephen Lawless production of Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore”. Lawless established the opera’s time and place as several years into World War II, in a small Italian Village, that is in the process of being liberated by the American army. (Ashley Martin-Davis was Scenic … Read more

French coloratura soprano Natalie Dessay, who had enjoyed previous engagements at the Santa Fe Opera as Pamina in Mozart’s “Magic Flute” (2006) and Amina in Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” (2004) chose the 2009 festival’s opening night for her role debut as Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata”, the first of 11 scheduled performances spanning the entire season, … Read more

The final assignment as Musical Director for the San Francisco Opera for Conductor Donald Runnicles, whose tenure  ends with the company’s 2008-09 season, was Verdi’s “La Traviata”. Runnicles conducted six performances, five for the Violetta of Anna Netrebko, with a final one scheduled with Allyn Perez. I attended the last of Netrebko’s five performances. Although Runnicles is particularly … Read more

For the second time in seven months, this website is reviewing a performance of the Zambello production of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess”. The production, which generates enthusiasm and sold out performances in every city in which it has shown, was reviewed in its Lyric Opera performances in Chicago last November, less than two weeks after … Read more

This website has described the San Francisco Opera as the “House of Puccini”, both because of its long association with the operas of the Tuscan composer and the recent excellence of its Puccini productions, since David Gockley assumed the general directorship of the company in 2006. The 2006 production of “Manon Lescaut” with Karita Mattila … Read more

Over the past three years, I have reviewed productions of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” – San Francisco Opera’s reconceptualization of Ron Daniels/Michael Yeargan’s production (2006 and 2007), Moffat Oxenbould’s Opera Australia production presented by the Pittsburgh Opera (2007) and the revival of Robert Wilson’s production (based on his original work at Opera National de Paris) for … Read more

This reviewer in recent weeks has expressed a high degree of optimism about the state of contemporary Verdi singing both in the United States and Europe. (The fact that most of the best singers are engaged by the major companies of both Europe and the United States means that if one observes excellent performances in … Read more

On this Spring’s trip to Northern Germany, I was able to sample the fare at three opera houses. My comments on the  performances attended at Hamburg Staatsoper and Berlin Staatsoper have been posted previously. The third company visitied was the venerable Deutsche Oper Berlin, which I found of particular interest. I attended just one performance … Read more

I am reporting on opera in Berlin, a city celebrating and reflecting on the 20 years since the Wall between East and West Berlin was torn down. The subsequent reunfication of Germany had many consequences, including massive pressures on governments and taxpayers to shoulder the costs of integrating East Germany, that had lagged behind the … Read more

Hamburg Staatsoper’s general director Simone Young continues on her cycle of new productions of Benjamin Britten’s works, that has previously included “Billy Budd” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. Her third new production is “Death in Venice”,  a co-production with the Volkskoper Vienna, where it will be mounted subsequently. For the opera’s lead, Gustav von Aschenbach, Young had … Read more

At Los Angeles Opera, the buzz was Achim Freyer’s often mysterious staging of “Die Walküre”,  the second of the four operas of Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (for my review of the first of the “Ring”, see: Achim Freyer’s Fascinating “Rheingold” Begins L. A. “Ring” – March 11, 2009.) But, beyond the buzz about the production, … Read more

Every once-in-a-while some long lost masterpiece-manuscript of a great composer’s music is remarkably re-discovered, usually in some long-forgotten, dusty attic. So it happened in with an epic-opera by the great Antonio Vivaldi (Italian 1678-1741 – think his Four Seasons heard almost daily on every classical music radio station in the world!!!), which is receiving its … Read more

Verdi’s “Rigoletto”, like “Il Trovatore”, the opera that immediately followed it, has had popular approval from its very first performances.  With one of the most familiar arias in all of Italian opera, the lead tenor’s La donna e mobile, and a succession of familiar and infectious musical numbers, its position at the very core of … Read more

The work of German artist Achim Freyer has been seen twice before at Los Angeles Opera, including a new production of Berlioz’ “Damnation of Faust” in 2003, which Los Angeles Opera co-sponsored with the Warsaw Opera. Influenced by surrealist artists and by ideas from the theater and opera of Japan and China, a Freyer production … Read more

Opera Australia’s 2006 co-production of Delibes’ “Lakme” with the Opera de Montreal was imported by the Florida Grand Opera, providing a well-received vehicle for a reigning star of the Florida Grand Opera – coloratura soprano Leah Partridge. The production, seen in Sydney and Melbourne in 2006 and in Montreal in 2007 is comprised of a … Read more

For the third time in a 365 day period, I am reviewing a performance of Delibes’ fascinating opera, “Lakme”, which appears to be building its fan base for an eventual return to the standard opera repertory, much in the way that an opera by Delibes’ close friend, Georges Bizet, “The Pearl Fishers (Les Pecheurs de … Read more