Opera Warhorses

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

Donizetti’s daffy French comic opera “La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment)” became the Santa Fe Opera’s latest “discovery” from the core 19th century French repertory – a body of works that was neglected during the first half century of the opera company’s existence, but which it has been exploring with a series of brilliant new productions. For its … Read more

The oldest opera that is considered part of the core operatic repertory is Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro [Le Nozze di Figaro]”. Dating from 1786, and undervalued in its day, except in the Bohemian capital of Prague [See my article Don Giovanni in Bohemia: How the Community of Prague Assured Mozart’s Last Four Operas], “Le Nozze” is now … Read more

Italian composer Marco Tutino’s new opera based on Alberto Moravia’s 1958 novel La Ciociara received its world premiere at San Francisco Opera’s War Memorial Opera House before an enthusiastic audience. San Francisco Opera music director Nicola Luisotti, conducting the San Francisco Opera Orchestra with the limitless energy one expects from a Luisotti performance, added yet another triumph … Read more

In one of its most ambitious undertakings in the San Francisco Opera’s 93 years of existence, the company mounted Sir David McVicar’s massive production of Hector Berlioz’ “Les Troyens”. The opera was presented with a distinguished cast of international rank, consisting mostly of American artists (the Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci sang the role of … Read more

The first offering the Sixth Korea Opera Festival, held in May and early June 2015 was Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro”, performed by the Muak Opera Company on three consecutive days at the attractive and acoustically impressive Seoul Arts Center. Kihwan Sim’s Figaro [Photo: Bass-baritone Kihwan Sim was Figaro; edited image, based on a publicity photograph … Read more

Two years ago, the most wildly enthusiastic, cheering, vociferous happy audience I’ve seen in the 50-year history of the San Diego Opera (I’ve attended since Day One) greeted Mexican composer Jose “Pepe” Martinez’ opera performed by the Mariachi Vargas De Tescalitlan band. [See my previous review at Operatic mariachi: “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” – San Diego Opera, … Read more

“Die Walküre”, Houston Grand Opera’s second installment of their one a year commitment to the four operas of Wagner’s “The Ring of the Nibelungs”, is one of the early steps in Christine Goerke’s ascendancy to the title of world’s reigning Wagnerian dramatic soprano. In the mid-1950s Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson, with her steel-edged power voice, came … Read more