Reviews

Stage director and impresario Francesca Zambello is in her third season as General and Artistic Director of the Glimmerglass Festival, located on Lake Otsego, New York. For the second consecutive season, she has staged a new production of a major  work from the standard operatic repertory. In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth … Read more

Having commented previously on its world premiere [see Warm Reception for Adamo’s “Mary Magdalene” – San Francisco Opera, June 19, 2013], I attended  sixth and last scheduled performance of Mark Adamo’s new opera in San Francisco’s War Memorial Opera House. This second report gives me a chance to give my further impressions of the work and of … Read more

Santa Fe Opera’s second 2013 summer festival offering was a revival of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro”, previously seen in the 2008 season. The Mozart comedy is one of humankind’s greatest masterpieces. It provided Santa Fe audiences with the chance to hear important new voices in the roles of Figaro and Cherubino, and established stars … Read more

Santa Fe Opera’s 2013 opera festival opened with a rousing new production of Jacques Offenbach’s 1868 comedy “Le Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein”. The evening was significant in many ways – introducing a new performing edition, and introducing a new English translation of the spoken dialogue  (the opera itself is sung in its original French). It … Read more

In my review of the Western Hemisphere premiere of Laurent Pelly’s new production of Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann”, I remarked favorably on both the Pelly’s concept and on the bravura performance of Matthew Polenzani as Hoffmann [see Matthew Polenzani Triumphs in Pelly’s Take on “Tales of Hoffmann” – San Francisco Opera, June 5, 2013.] As with any … Read more

The San Francisco Opera presented the world premiere of composer-librettist Mark Adamo’s “The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene” in a strongly cast, visually effective production. Adamo wades into the controversies that divided Jewish sects at the time of Yeshua (Jesus). His libretto draws upon fragments of ancient accounts, re-discovered in modern times through the work … Read more

Mozart’s glorious comedy about the inconstancy of women returned to the War Memorial Opera House stage after an absence of eight years. Maestro Nicola Luisotti and Stage Director Jose Maria Condemi presided over a young but very strong cast in what proved to be an eye-pleasing, continuously entertaining, beautifully sung performance. Luisotti, after assuming the … Read more

Illinois native Matthew Polenzani, in an extraordinary exhibition of the art of the French lyric tenor, held the War Memorial Opera House stage for over three hours. Polenzani appeared in the title role of  French stage director’s fascinating re-conceptualization of Offenbach’s posthumous grand opera, “The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann)”. Matthew Polenzani’s Hoffmann The operatic character … Read more

There were winners all around at Los Angeles Opera, when Placido Domingo conducted a stellar performance of Puccini’s “Tosca”. The winners included the opera’s leading men – tenor Marco Berti as Cavaradossi and Lado Ataneli as Baron Scarpia. “Tosca’s” several important comprimario roles were well-cast also. The winners included the brilliant stage direction and production design … Read more

An extraordinary performance of Aida by soprano Latonia Moore and a strong showing as Amneris by American mezzo-soprano Jill Grove were among the highlights of a warmly received San Diego Opera performance of Verdi’s “Aida”. The Houston Grand Opera’s sets were used.  Designed by San Diego’s local celebrity artist Zandra Rhodes, her zany, color-drenched artwork … Read more

The San Diego Opera chose Easter weekend to produce Ildebrando Pizzetti’s “Murder in the Cathedral”, its much anticipated vehicle for Italian dramatic basso Ferruccio Furlanetto. An extraordinary work, dating from 1958, Pizzetti reverentially sets to music T. S. Eliot’s 1936 verse-play that found prewar 20th century significance in the  moral choices of a 12th century king’s … Read more

My colleague Tom Rubbert had reviewed the first Los Angeles performance of this production earlier in the month [Wagner’s “Flying Dutchman” Sails into Los Angeles, Making a Terrific Splash – Los Angeles Opera, March 9, 2013] while I was reviewing operas on the opposite coast. I had seen the production nine years ago at the … Read more

Last December, I reported on a performance of the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production of Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” in Paris, and the confluence of this influential production (which appeared in its first permutation at the San Francisco Opera in 1969) with a revival of interest in Rossini’s great body of operatic work. [See Ponnelle’s Historic “Cenerentola” at the … Read more

A fully dressed Mariachi stand-up orchestra in silver-studded black traditional Mariachi costumes with huge straw Sombrero hats in an Opera House performing an Opera, you ask in disbelief? [Below: the Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitan amidst representations of monarch butterflies; edited image, based an Edward Wilensky photograph, courtesy of the San Diego Opera.] Surely you jest, you say, but no … Read more

Soprano Angela Meade’s role debut as Norma in Bellini’s opera of that name occurred in a Washington National Opera performance at the Kennedy Center. [Below: Angela Meade as Norma; edited image, based on a Scott Suchman photograph, courtesy of the Washington National Opera.] Buttressed by the indulgent but effective conducting of Daniele Rustioni in his … Read more

Commemorating stellar super-composer Richard Wagner’s 200th Birth Date on May 22, 2013, Los Angeles Opera joins many other opera companies, worldwide, by presenting one of his most entrancing-dramatic works, Der Fliegende Holländer — The Flying Dutchman. The cast features Tomas Thomasson as The Dutchman, making his Los Angeles Opera debut. Tomasson’s Dutchman brought down the house. He scored a home run at Los Angeles Opera as did this entire … Read more

John Pascoe’s intelligently conceived 2004 production of Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” returned nine years later to the Washington National Opera for its first revival at the Kennedy Center. Strongly cast in both its major and minor roles, it provided the role debut for Puccini specialist Patricia Racette and introduced Bulgarian tenor Kamen Chanev to new audiences … Read more

The San Diego Opera, whose early years were noted for such adventurous excursions into 19th century French opera as Thomas’ “Hamlet”, Saint-Saens’ “Henry VIII” and Chabrier’s “Gwendoline”, has emerged as one of America’s current champions of the French opera repertoire. In the past seven seasons the San Diego Opera has created new productions of Bizet’s … Read more

The Florida Grand Opera presented a revival of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula”, respectfully staged – as it was in 2007 – by Renata Scotto, herself one of the greatest protagonists of the title role in the 1960s and 1970s. The revival provided the opportunity to hear two young American artists, Georgia’s Rachele Gilmore as Amina and … Read more

The San Diego Opera opened their four opera 2013 season by mounting Emilio Sagi’s immensely amusing production of Donizetti’s melody-filled “La Fille du Regiment”, time-shifted to the era of World War II. Premiering in Paris in 1840 (composed a generation before Gounod’s “Faust”), “La Fille” is the oldest 19th century French opera that can be said to have … Read more

On a bitterly cold January evening, chilled Salt Lake City residents were invited to escape to a fantasy tropical river cruise, as Utah Opera presented Catan’s “Florencia en El Amazonas”. The work is a contemporary opera meant to be accessible to audiences, with lush orchestration and melodic themes, and an absorbing, ultimately surreal storyline. Inspired … Read more

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Bayerische Staatsoper has revived its spectacular production of Puccini’s “Turandot”, first seen in Munich in December 2011, which Spanish Concept Director Carlus Padrissa resets into the year 2046. [Below: Director Carlus Padrissa; edited image, based on a photograph from rtve.es.] In this fifth decade of the 21st century of Padrissa’s imagination, Chinese bond dealers, having taken advantage … Read more

Gluck’s French operatic masterpieces challenge production designers and stage directors, who are seeking to mount the works in ways that can be appreciated by 21st century audiences. In 2009, I had reported on Mexican Director’s Francisco Negrin’s ideas for Gluck’s “Alceste” at the Santa Fe Opera Festival, in which exoticism in costumes and dance styles … Read more

Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” is the longest running smash hit in the standard operatic repertory, as witty, hilariously funny, and beautifully written as any musical composition ever designed for performance. It is a source of wonder that throughout its 226 years of existence up to the present day, opera goers can attend performances multiple … Read more