William Burnett

The middle of the 20th century was an exciting time for those curious about the Italian bel canto operatic masterpieces of Gaetano Donizetti. First Maria Callas and then Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe and Beverly Sills used their stardom to advance the cause of Donizetti’s dramatic operas. I myself saw Caballe as Elisabetta in … Read more

Chicago’s civic pride in the ascension of a hometown African-American family to the world stage has created intense interest in the most famous opera about an African-American community. Two weeks after President-Elect Barack Obama’s victory celebration at Chicago’s Grant Park, the Lyric Opera added Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” to its performance history. The community interest … Read more

Until the late 1960s, San Francisco Opera paid scant attention to Donizetti’s great romantic comic opera, “L’Elisir d’Amore”, having had only three performances of the opera in San Francisco in the first 44 seasons of the company’s history.  (If this seems incredible for an international house led for its first 30 years by an Italian-born … Read more

San Francisco Opera, as part of its efforts to increase interest in live operatic performance among younger audiences, has developed the “family matinee”, which takes place at the opera house, utilizing the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus and the production sets from one of the main season operas. This year’s family matinee is Donizetti’s … Read more

As a vehicle for veteran basso Samuel Ramey, San Francisco Opera mounted a production closely associated with him – the seven scene 1869 version of Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov”. Ramey was supported by memorable performances by the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, conducted by Vassily Sinaisky, in his debut season with the opera company, and the San … Read more

By tradition and for practical reasons, persons who review opera performances usually attend the first performance in a season of a given opera, although persons reviewing performances at several companies often must attend a second or later performance at one company to be able to accommodate to the schedule of another. Almost every company is … Read more

For opening night of the Pittsburgh Opera’s 2008-09 season, Saint-Saens’ “Samson et Dalila” was performed in a “refurbished” production that saw the role debuts of tenor Frank Porretta as Samson and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Dalila. It was also the occasion for the stage debut of baritone Kim Josephson (who had sung the role in … Read more

For Lyric Opera’s 1997-98 season Nicolas Joel created a production of Bizet’s “Les Pecheurs de Perles” in which Paul Groves and Gino Quilico played the male lead roles, with sets created by Hubert Monloup. Eleven seasons later, the Joel production was revived, with extensive revisions. Scott Marr of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center created new sets … Read more

Lyric Opera’s 2008-09 season commenced with Massenet’s “Manon” in the fascinating David McVicar production, originally designed for English National Opera in London and subsequently shown in Barcelona, Auckland, Liege, Houston and Dallas. McVicar, who sticks to the story and time period of most operas he assays, famously delves into the sexual conduct at least implied … Read more

Conductor Donald Runnicles again showed that the San Francisco Opera has the ability to produce challenging repertory, leading the effort to bring the 2004 co-production (from the Salzburg and Vienna opera companies) of Korngold’s “Die Tote Stadt” to the Bay Area. It proved to be unambiguosly a personal triumph for Runnicles, who leaves his post … Read more

Tom’s Notes on the Santa Fe Season, Part II Tom’s Notes Part I contains my comments on Santa Fe Opera’s 2008 presentation of Verdi’s “Falstaff”, and Bob and Annie’s thoughts on the contemporary opera, “Adriana Mater”. William previously posted reviews on the company’s productions of Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” and Britten’s “Billy Budd” (to which Tom’s … Read more

Tom’s Notes on the Santa Fe Season Part I Your website host William and I share the pleasure of reviewing this summer’s Santa Fe Opera Summer Festival Season. My 2008 Santa Fe season started with a spectacular backdrop for the stage.  Even for Santa Fe, the iridescent-red sunset for the August 18 performance of Mozart’s … Read more

Los Angeles Opera in 2004 unveiled Robert Wilson’s concept production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”, incorporating the ideas from a previous Wilson “Butterfly” created a decade earlier for Opera National de Paris. In the subsequent L. A. season, Wilson’s thoughts on Wagner’s “Parsifal” introduced in Hamburg in the early 1990’s were the basis for another new Los Angeles Opera … Read more

San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley assumed the leadership of the Bay Area’s operatic powerhouse at the beginning of 2006, and has done a creditable job of changing the direction of the company that had seemed to have disconnected itself from its traditional standards of excellence and from the interests and desires of its audiences. Scrapping some … Read more

San Francisco Opera has demonstrated that a great opera company can present the mainstream treasures of the operatic repertory respectfully, yet simultaneously expand the boundaries of the operatic medium. One year after the extraordinary world premiere of Philip Glass’ “Appomattox” in San Francisco, the company achieved an even greater success  with the world premiere of … Read more

Hollywood Does Los Angeles Opera – Part IV Those who listen to the orchestral suites of Canadian Howard Shore’s soundtrack music culled from such cinema masterpieces as Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy or Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator will recognize an immensely talented composer of luscious music. His invitation to compose an opera commissioned by the Los … Read more

Hollywood Does Los Angeles Opera –  Part III Los Angeles Opera, which earlier in the evening unveiled blockbuster new productions of Puccini’s “Il Tabarro” and “Suor Angelica” created by Academy Award winning film director William Friedkin, turned the final third of the evening over to Academy Award winning film director Woody Allen. Friedkin took two operas, each of whose dramatic and … Read more

Hollywood Does Los Angeles Opera – Part II Giacomo Puccini’s favorite of the three operas of the Trittico was “Suor Angelica” and it annoyed him greatly that opera companies would drop it from an evening’s program and perform only “Tabarro” and “Gianni Schicchi” (or one of those two operas paired with something entirely different).  It … Read more

Hollywood Does Los Angeles Opera – Part I Los Angeles Opera has presented Giacomo Puccini with several presents for his year-long 150th birthday party that should  improve the fortunes substantively of a trio of his lesser known works. Since the opera company’s founding, it has performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion within the complex of … Read more

Santa Fe Opera, now well into its second half-century, finally has chosen to include Britten’s 57 year old opera, “Billy Budd”, into its repertoire. Although it is hardly appropriate to say it was worth the wait for the first presentation of an opera that many other opera companies have presented several times, there are features about … Read more