Reviews

Los Angeles Opera assembled a cast of rising American stars for Vincenzo Bellini’s opera “Norma” that met and exceeded the opera’s bel canto imperative. Washington state soprano Angela Meade was cast as Norma, joined by Georgia mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Adalgisa, Florida tenor Russell Thomas as Pollione and Georgia basso Morris Robinson as Oroveso, each artist chosen for an opera expressly created to exemplify … Read more

For David Gockley’s final season as General Director of the San Francisco Opera, Sir David McVicar’s 2011 Glyndebourne Festival production of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger” was mounted. Even for an opera company with a strong tradition of great Wagner performances, the McVicar “Meistersinger” was an extraordinary success. [Below: the unit set for David McVicar’s production of Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger”, here … Read more

Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”, the second offering of the Houston Grand Opera’s 2015-16 season, was presented in Canadian director Robert Carsen’s classic production, created for the New York Metropolitan opera and now owned by the Canadian Opera Company (Toronto). [Below: Eugene Onegin (Scott Hendricks, left) makes the acquaintance of Tatyana (Katie Van Kooten, right) at her country home; … Read more

Puccini’s “Tosca” opened the Houston Grand Opera’s 2015-16 season. I attended the third of six scheduled performances. The principal cast consisted of Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska in the title role, Siberian tenor Alexey Dolgov as Mario Cavaradossi, Polish tenor Andrzej Dobber as Baron Scarpia and Russian bass Dmitri Bellosselskiy as Cesare Angelotti. [Below: Liudmyla Monastyrska as Floria Tosca; … Read more

“Great Scott”, the highly anticipated collaboration of composer Jake Heggie and librettist Terrence McNally, is unlike anything else in the operatic repertory. A tour de force created for Kansas mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, it is simultaneously a parody on the Rossini comic opera, an affectionate ribbing of the early 19th century Italian style of music-drama, a sentimental … Read more

In the final season of the tenure of its General Director David Gockley, the San Francisco Opera, revived one of the Gockley era successes, the Jun Kaneko production of Mozart’s fantasy opera, “The Magic Flute”. First unveiled in 2012 [see my reviews at Perfect Game: Gunn, Shagimuratova Shine in New Kaneko-Designed “Magic Flute” – San Francisco Opera, June 13, 2012 and A … Read more

The San Francisco Opera mounted an illuminating new production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”, staged by Canadian director Michael Cavanagh, with notably effective sets and projections by Washington scenic designer Erhard Rom. Nadine Sierra’s Lucia The production proved to be a triumph for Florida soprano Nadine Sierra, who had replaced an established star on short notice, … Read more

My review of the San Francisco Opera 2015-16 season opener  [Review: Michael Fabiano’s Star Ascends in Verdi’s “Luisa Miller” – San Francisco Opera, September 11, 2015] praised the lead tenor, entire cast, conductor, orchestra and stage direction. One follows, when one can, the great operatic voices singing at their prime in live performance, so I made … Read more

Tom’s Review of Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci” continues his observations of the Los Angeles Opera’s double bill, the first offering of the company’s 2015-16 season. [See Review: Domingo Dominates Double Bill: Part 1 “Gianni Schicchi” – Los Angeles Opera, September 24, 2015.]   After an intermission which clearly was too short for Maestro Domingo (who had just completed singing the title … Read more

Los Angeles Opera launched its 30th Opera Season with two operatic treasures beautifully joined in an evening featuring one of the world’s true Superstars of Opera, Placido Domingo. He not only sang, but, later in the evening, he also conducted — in short, running the whole show! [Below: Gianni Schicchi (Placido Domingo, left) gestures as … Read more

Having reported on the two performances that introduced Lee Blakeley’s production of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” first to Houston [Review: “Sweeney Todd” at Houston Grand Opera: Nathan Gunn, Director Lee Blakeley Make a Compelling Case for Sondheim as Opera, April 24, 2015] and then to San Francisco [Review: Searing Performances by Brian Mulligan and Stephanie Blythe for … Read more

This DVD review of Jerome Kern’s and Oscar Hammerstein’s “Show Boat” is the first of two reviews of productions of classic American musicals performed by the San Francisco Opera. Each DVD is of a production conceived and staged by director Francesca Zambello. For the review review of George Gershwin’s and Dubose Heyward’s “Porgy and Bess” see: … Read more

The San Francisco Opera mounted Lee Blakeley’s mammoth production of Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd” with New York baritone Brian Mulligan in the title role and New York mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as Todd’s partner-in-crime, Mrs Lovett. Nothing surpasses the macabre merriment that exudes from a great “Sweeney” performance. Superb portrayals of Todd and Lovett by Mulligan and Blythe, … Read more

The San Francisco Opera opened its 2015-16 season with a rousing revival of Verdi’s “Luisa Miller”. Famously a “tenor’s opera”, it is unabashedly a vehicle for the brilliant lyric tenor voice of Michael Fabiano, a rapidly rising star on the world’s operatic stages. Only the third tenor to appear in San Francisco as the opera’s hero Rodolfo (his … Read more

The Seattle Opera has an established tradition of mounting opera productions in which the key principal roles are double cast. This permits the opera company to maximize the number of performances on Saturday evenings and Sunday matinees, when demand for tickets is at its strongest. For Verdi’s “Nabucco”, the Seattle Opera selected pairs of artists, … Read more

Until this evening, Seattle Opera had never performed Verdi’s first great success, “Nabucco”. It was mounted in an innovative new production that highlighted the opera’s musical wonders – vocal, choral and orchestral – while presenting the famously implausible plot in a reasonably effective way. Mary Elizabeth Williams’ Abigaille No company should present “Nabucco” without singers adept in the … Read more

Charles Frazier’s Pulitzer Prize award-winning novel Cold Mountain is focused on two persons, Confederate soldier W. P. Inman and his Charleston-born sweetheart, Ada Monroe, whose lives have been transformed completely by the devastation that the Civil War wrought upon the South. Composer Jennifer Higdon teamed with librettist Gene Scheer to create an opera out of Frazier’s sprawling work. … Read more

The Santa Fe Opera presented Richard Strauss’ “Salome” in an intense production by English director Daniel Slater. Alex Penda’s Salome [Photo: Alex Penda as Salome; edited image, based on a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the Santa Fe Opera.] The performance starred Bulgarian soprano Alex Penda. Her chilling portrayal plumbed the tenets of Freud’s revolutionary theories of … Read more

Santa Fe Opera’s new production of “La Finta Giardiniera” proved to be an effectively mounted and beautifully sung presentation of the 18-year old Mozart’s foray into romantic comic opera. Each aria is a masterpiece. Santa Fe Opera audiences were treated to a performance in which the seven principals were carefully chosen to excel in an opera of which the company intends … Read more

My final mainstage experience at the 2015 Glimmerglass Festival was attending a second performance of Anne Bogart’s staging of Verdi’s “Macbeth” [See my first review at Review: Gripping Portraits by Eric Owens, Melody Moore in Anne Bogart’s Staging of Verdi’s “Macbeth” – Glimmerglass Festival, July 17, 2015]. Even with so much to admire in the three … Read more

Madeline Sayet’s new production of Mozart’s “Magic Flute” sets in the Woodlands of Central New York State will receive 12 performances at the 2015 Glimmerglass Festival. Her production has become the vehicle for displaying the vocal talents of Pennsylvania lyric tenor Sean Panikkar and Korean coloratura soprano So Young Park, admirably supported by strong cast of … Read more

Francesca Zambello, long an advocate for presenting classics of American theater in opera houses, chose Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” to stage for the 2015 Glimmerglass Festival. When compared with Bernstein’s blockbuster hit “West Side Story”, whose composition was contemporaneous, “Candide” has been considered unsuccessful. [Below: David Garrison as the poet-dramatist Voltaire; edited image, based on a Dory … Read more

The Glimmerglass Festival is located in New York’s Finger Lakes district. In developing repertory, the Festival often considers operas or productions that have some tie to the surrounding communities. Thus, the Festival’s interest in the early 18th century Vivaldi opera “Cato in Utica” is easily understood, with a nearby New York city sharing the name of the … Read more

The Glimmerglass Festival presented director Anne Bogart’s new reconceptualization of Verdi’s “Macbeth”. The production was the occasion for role debuts by Pennsylvania baritone Eric Owens and Tennessee soprano Melody Moore, both of whom displayed mastery of their roles’ vocal demands and deep insights into the psychological motivations of these formidable characters. [Below: Lady Macbeth (Melody Moore, right) … Read more