William Burnett

Operawarhorses.com reviews San Francisco Opera’s new production of “La Traviata” included

The operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck have rarely been performed by the San Francisco Opera. Gluck’s most famous opera, “Orpheus and Eurydice”, received only a couple of stage performances in a 1959 production. For the company’s centennial season, San Francisco Opera presents it in its original 1762 Italian version, “Orfeo ed Euridice”, which premiered in … Read more

A review of Poulenc’s “The Dialogues of the Carmelites”, which returns to San Francisco Opera, the site of its 1957 United States premiere.

An operawarhorses.com review of an admirable San Francisco Opera performance of Robert Carsen’s “world treasure” production of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”..
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John Adams’ latest opera, whose plot is derived from the Shakesperean tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, received its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera. A run of six additional performances was scheduled to follow the world premiere. This review is of the third of the seven total performances. There is much to admire in San … Read more

The Santa Fe Opera revived Rossini’s most popular opera, “The Barber of Seville”, after its 17-year absence from the company, in a brilliant new production by Australian-born British director Stephen Barlow. First performed in 2016 at Britain’s Grange Festival in Hampshire (near Winchester), the production mixes 18th century fashions with abundant references to studiously anachronisitic … Read more

In the first 64 years of its 65-year history, the Santa Fe Opera had never presented any of the three-act operas of German composer Richard Wagner. (These three-act operas comprise eight of the ten Wagner operas in opera’s standard repertory, excepting only “The Flying Dutchman”, last performed 34 years ago, and “Das Rheingold”, never performed … Read more

A highlight of the Santa Fe Opera’s 2022 season is Sir David McVicar’s extraordinary production of Verdi’s final masterpiece, “Falstaff”, starring Hawaiian baritone Quinn Kelsey in the title role. Quinn Kelsey’s Sir John Falstaff [Photo: Falstaff (Quinn Kelsey) is angry that he suffered the indignity of having to hide in a smelly laundry basket, and … Read more

I am reporting on the second of five scheduled performances in the world premiere run of composer Huang Ruo’s and librettist David Henry Hwang’s opera “M. Butterfly”, based on Hwang’s 1988 Tony-award winning play of the same name. Both play and opera were inspired by the notoriety surroundng the sexual relationship of a man working … Read more

The Santa Fe Opera’s first August performance of the new Mariame Clément production of Bizet’s “Carmen”, which opened the 2022 season a month prior, introduced a cast change as Don Jose. Joining a cast that included Isabel Leonard as Carmen, Sylvia d’Eramo as Micaela and Michael Sumuel as Escamillo, New Jersey tenor Michael Fabiano took … Read more

This is the second part of a series of conversations with German director Grischa Asagaroff [See An Opera Director’s Historical Perspective: A Conversation with Grischa Asagaroff, Part 1]. It continues with a discussion of his work at the San Francisco Opera between the company’s 1980 and 1983 seasons and his close association with the productions … Read more

In my world premiere review [World Premiere Review: “The Dream of the Red Chamber” Transforms into a Fascinating Opera – San Francisco Opera, September 10, 2016], I expressed my assessment of this opera and the extrordinary accomplishement of composer Bright Sheng and his co-librettist David Henry Hwang in extracting an opera out of the first … Read more

I attended a Sunday matinee performance of the third permutation of Michael Cavanagh’s interrelated productions of Mozart’s three da Ponte operas. My reviews of the Cavanagh conceptualizations of “The Marriage of Figaro” [Review: Strong Cast, Arresting New Production for “Marriage of Figaro” – San Francisco Opera, October 13, 2019] and “Cosi fan Tutte” [Review: “Cosi … Read more

Opera San Jose filmed this performance of “Three Decembers’ on December 3, 2020. It subsequently made it available to the streaming service of the Houston Grand Opera in December 2021. This review was based on a December 2021 stream from HGO Digital, where it may be accessed through January 9, 2022. In the decade between … Read more

What if you were to take an Caldecott Medal-winning children’s book – one beloved for the past six decades, with the distinction of being the book title that has been checked out of the New York Public Library more than any other in the library’s history – and transform it into an opera? The book, … Read more

Operawarhorses.com recommends the Los Angeles Opera’s 2021 production of Rossini’s “Cenerentola” for both the veteran opera goer and the person new to opera!