Fans of bel canto opera were treated nearly a year ago to the first mounting of “Norma” at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 20 years with a dream cast that included Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. Those fans have waited since the 1991-92 season to see Bellini’s final work, the masterful “I Puritani,” which I saw Saturday night in {…}
Since 2009 Opera Rara has been bringing obscure operatic works to the resplendent royal city of Kraków in Poland. Even though this year’s Opera Rara Festival included works by Charpentier, Gluck, Purcell and John Blow (the latter performed by John Butt and the superb Dunedin Concert) it is not just baroque bijoux which are presented to the receptive and appreciative {…}
Opening with Ravel’s « Cinq mélodies populaires grecques, » William Huyler set the tone for what was an introspective and heartfelt themed Master recital at the Manhattan School of Music’s Greenfield Hall. Huyler emphasized how each of the art song composers chosen for his recital (Ravel, Mahler and Copland), were each forbidden to have their creations performed at some point in their {…}
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 {…}
Purists fear not. Rest easy, ye who learned with alarm that writer/director Wajdi Mouawad has taken extreme liberties with the libretto of Mozart’s early masterpiece, “The Abduction from the Seraglio,” not just tinkering with dialogue but inserting whole new scenes to both accentuate European racism and sexism and soften Ottoman despotism: not a note of Mozart’s divine magic has been {…}
On February 3, 2018, the Tucson Guitar Society and the University of Arizona Bolton Guitar Studies Program presented bass-baritone Philippe Sly and guitarist John Charles Britton in an all-Schubert recital. This was yet another part of the Tucson Desert Song Festival. At first, I wondered about Schubert with a guitar instead of a piano, or to be more historically informed {…}
At the end of the final act, Otello has just killed Desdemona and he stands at the front of the stage, facing the audience. From the back of the stage Desdemona reappears and approaches Otello. Standing beside him, she simulates the taking of a knife from its sheath, raises it and plunges it into her belly, and Otello, taking a {…}
The world is divided into men and women. And only the unification of these two sides, through mutual understanding and respect can bridge the gap and bring about a new world full of equality. Sounds familiar right? It was what François Girard saw prior to 2013, and his vision remains ever true to this day. Perhaps even more prevalent. It {…}
Gioachino Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” has always been the gold standard for Italian opera buffa as it is based on the Figaro plays of 18th-century French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais. It seems that the buffa-style laughs and gags endemic to this masterpiece were not enough for Spanish director Joan Font, whose version is currently running at Houston Grand Opera. What {…}
