Opera Warhorses

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