Reviews

British Stage Director Stephen Lawless’ brilliantly conceived new production of “Carmen” was unveiled at Santa Fe Opera, with notable performances by Argentine mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack as Carmen, Italian tenor Roberto de Biasio as Don Jose, Lebanese soprano Joyce El-Khoury as Micaela, and Greek bass-baritone Kostas Smoriginas as Escamillo. The production’s most remarkable features were the arresting … Read more

There are many elements that go into a successful operatic performance. An array of brilliant elements were present in the imaginative 2006 production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”, not seen previously in San Francisco, in which cast, conductor, orchestra and chorus, production design and staging all contributed to bringing Puccini’s heartrending tale of delusion and culture clash to … Read more

The John Copley production of Verdi’s “La Traviata” with elegant sets by John Conklin returned to the War Memorial Opera House, after an absence of a decade. [Below: the John Conklin sets for Act I, set in Violetta’s Parisian apartments; edited image, based on a Cory Weaver photograph, courtesy of the San Francisco Opera.] The … Read more

San Francisco became the fourth city – after Chicago, Houston and Washington D.C. – visited by the Francesca Zambello production of Jerome Kern’s 1927 blockbuster musical “Show Boat”. I had previously reported on its opening run at the in Chicago [see Team Zambello Shows off “Show Boat” to Chicago’s Lyric Opera – March 14, 2012]. Even … Read more

Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi created the staging, costumes and mise-en-scéne for a new production of Mozart’s comedy “The Magic Flute”. Mizrahi’s “Flute” opened the 2014 season of the Opera Theater of Saint Louis, incorporating the brilliant dance routines of Alaskan choreographer John Heginbotham. [Below: Fashion designer and “Magic Flute” production designer Isaac Mizrahi; resized image of a … Read more

The Los Angeles Opera mounted André Previn’s 1998 opera based on Tennessee Williams’ dramatic masterpiece A Streetcar Named Desire, Presented in Director Brad Dalton’s stunningly effective staging, it starred soprano Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois in the role she created 16 years earlier at the San Francisco Opera. [Below: Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois, with the Los Angeles … Read more

Anatole France’s 1890 novel about the life of the historical Saint Thaïs, proved an irresistible subject to French composer Jules Massenet. The novel yielded two vividly drawn operatic characters. The first was Thaïs, a courtesan who lived in fifth century Alexandria, Egypt, but who renounced the sins of the world to seek eternal life. The … Read more

Edoard Lalo’s epic opera on a Breton myth – “Le Roi d”Ys” – has been missing from the core operatic repertory for decades. In America, it is basically unknown. Those opera-goers who think of it at all likely have recordings of Mylio’s enchanting aria Vainement, ma bien-aimée, and perhaps of the massive overture. There has not been … Read more

The Rossini festival in Pesaro, Italy, which has dedicated many years of scholarship to developing authentic scores of Rossini operas, commissioned a new Graham Vick production of the Italian version of Rossini’s final opera, “Guglielmo Tell”. (I had seen the French version – “Guillaume Tell” – twice at San Francisco Opera in the 1990s, from … Read more

The venerable Italian conductor Nello Santi at age 83 remains a favorite of Zurich Opera audiences, his appearances drawing sustained ovations [Below: Zurich Opera conductor Nello Santi; resized image of a publicity photograph, from www.orchestradellasvizzeraitaliana.ch.] Thus, it was with more than routine interest that I scheduled a performance of Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier” in Zurich, the first time … Read more

A traditional “Pique Dame” performance of Tchaikovsky’s  opera “Pique Dame” often has an episodic feel as it wanders through different elements of Saint Petersburg society. The opera explores the antics of boys playing at soldiering. It notes the opinion of crowds about the changing weather. It focuses on the spontaneous attempts at peasant dancing by young upper … Read more

Over the past year, German director Dieter Dorn has unveiled his new production of Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelungs”, created for the Grand Théâtre de Genève. I was able to schedule the final performance of the final opera of the cycle, “Götterdämmerung”, which gave me insight into Dorn’s realization of Wagner’s gargantuan work. [Below: German director … Read more

Robert Carsen’s famous production of Sicilian composer Vincenzo Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” has again been revived at the Opéra National de Paris’ Bastille opera house. Carsen proved again that Bellini’s operatic version of the Romeo and Juliet story needs no staging gimmickry to be a theatrical triumph. [Below: Canadian production designer/stage director Robert Carsen; edited image … Read more

The Toronto performances of Donizetti’s “Roberto Devereux” were remarkable in so many ways that “historic” seems not too outlandish an adjective to apply. Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky’s Elisabetta, created in the context of British Director Stephen Lawless’ now familiar trio of productions of operas based on stressful events consuming the English House of Tudor, proved to … Read more

The San Diego Opera revived its 2009 production of Massenet’s “Don Quichotte” (translated into the Spanish and English as  “Don Quixote”, the more familiar name for Cervantes’ caricature of the elderly would-be knight-errant). Massenet’s opera, loosely based on episodes suggested by Cervantes’ epic, was presented again as a vehicle for Ferruccio Furlanetto, arguably the pre-eminent contemporary … Read more

Last Fall, EuroArts issued the first in a series of six scheduled DVDs of performances by the San Francisco Opera at its home, the War Memorial Opera House. The performance is of Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia”, starring Renée Fleming as Lucrezia, the Duchess of Ferrara. [Below: the cover of the brochure accompanying the “Lucrezia Borgia” DVDs.] … Read more

The Los Angeles Opera chose the Ides of March to unveil a new production of Donizetti’s most famous opera, “Lucia di Lammermoor”, conducted by the opera company’s Music Director James Conlon and starring Uzbekistan-born Russian soprano Albina Shagimuratova and Albanian lyric tenor Saimir Pirgu. Coloratura Soprano Albina Shagimuratova’s Lucia In this most lustrous of the … Read more

The Lyric Opera, that commissioned Scottish production designer Sir David McVicar, to create a new production of Dvorak’s “Rusalka”, also requested that he revise his production of Mozart’s opera seria “La Clemenza di Tito” for presentation on the Lyric stage. Adding to the luster of the evening was the special attention to the work given by … Read more

i’Since I last reported on one of David McVicar’s masterful operatic productions [See 21st Century Verdi: Hvorostovsky, Ciofi, Kim, Aceto in McVicar’s Illuminating “Rigoletto” – ROH Covent Garden, October 11, 2010],, the Scottish stage director has been knighted as part of the Queen Elizabeth II’s 2012 Birthday Honors. The Lyric Opera of Chicago has mounted his … Read more

The San Diego Opera mounted Verdi’s “Ballo in Maschera [A Masked Ball]” for Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, who returned to San Diego after his 2010 debut as Rodolfo in Puccini’s “La Boheme”, [Below: Piotr Beczala as King Gustavus; edited image of a Ken Howard photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.] Beczala was joined by … Read more

The Los Angeles Opera revived Francesca Zambello’s now classic interpretation of Britten’s grandest operatic work, “Billy Budd”, about the struggles of Good and Evil aboard a British Warship during the Wars of the French Revolution, [Below: Francesca Zambello; edited image, based on a B.  A. Nilsson photograph from www.metroland.net.] Returning to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion … Read more

Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti made a felicitous San Diego Opera debut as Nemorino in Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love (L’Elisir d’Amore)” during a weekend that began with Saint Valentine’s Day. The performance also was the occasion for the North American debut of Moldovan soprano Tatiana Lisnic as Adina, the home-town girl who makes Nemorino’s heart … Read more

San Diego Opera revived its 2008 John Coyne production of Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci”, whose single set portrays a rustic village with a small stage on which a traveling troup of commedia dell’arte players are scheduled to perform that evening. [See Cura, Futral Shine in New San Diego Opera “Pagliacci” – March 22, 2008.] For the 2014 revival Australian … Read more

Houston Grand Opera’s 2013-14 season is notable for the introduction to North America of two ambitious projects. The most ambitious effort, scheduled for April 2014 is the first set of a collaborative venture in mounting Wagner’s four opera “Ring of the Nibelungs” with Valencia, Spain’s Fura dels Baus. One opera a year will be introduced … Read more

Houston Grand Opera mounted Verdi’s “Rigoletto”, providing East Texas the opportunity to experience a youthful cast, comprised of strong contenders for operatic superstar status. The conductor was Houston Grand Opera’s Music Director Patrick Summers, who is the opera company’s co-manager (with general director Perryn Leech). Summers’ career has been devoted to mentoring many of the world’s … Read more