Arizona Opera 2018-19 Review: Silent Night

“Silent Night,” Puts’ first opera, received its premiere at Minnesota opera in 2011 and won a Pulitzer Prize the following year. According to its libretto, during a late December in World War I, French, German and Scottish troops found it possible to declare an unofficial “truce” and celebrate a common holiday in brotherhood. This story has been told in several other artistic formats including the French film “Joyeux Noël” on which Campbell based his libretto.

Chicago Opera Theater 2017-18 Review: Elizabeth Cree: A Masterpiece Hits the Stage in Potent Fashion

The Chicago Opera Theater presented a stellar performance of “Elizabeth Cree” on Feb. 10, 2018, at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago’s Fine Arts Building. A co-production with Opera Philadelphia, this murder mystery opera based on Peter Ackroyd’s historical crime novel, “The Trial of Elizabeth Cree,” treads a knife-edge, successfully balancing horrific dramatic narrative, tongue-in-cheek vaudeville, and bittersweet pathos. Mark Campbell’s text {…}