(Photo: Pat Redmond) Irish National Opera continues to march forward. Although only in its fifth year, it has managed to establish itself as an innovative, forward-thinking company of high quality, which successfully mixes traditional productions with new works and modern presentation methods. Whereas many companies closed down during the COVID crisis, INO used it to showcase new short operas via {…}
(Image credit: © Lidia Crisafulli) Julia Burbach directs a new production of “Eugene Onegin” at Opera Holland Park, Tchaikovsky’s passionate realisation of Alexander Pushkin’s classic Romantic verse novel. Bookish Tatyana falls for the lofty, Darcy-ish Onegin, a dashing figure but also a rebarative one. He lets her down gently – thinking he has done the honorable thing, which he both {…}
(Credit: Vincent Pontet / ONP) The week Rafael Nadal lifted his trophy for an unprecedented 14th victory at the Roland Garros tennis tournament in Paris, the opera public attending Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal” at the Opéra National de Paris at the Bastille saw tenor Simon O’Neill triumphantly raise a supersized Holy Grail chalice with a shape that had an uncanny resemblance {…}
(Credit: © Marc Brenner) “La Gioconda,” or “‘The Ballad singer” to give the opera its usual English translation, actually translates to, “The Happy Woman.” Irony overload, indeed, for an opera infused with sin, bitter revenge, betrayal, adultery, suicide, murder, cruelty and the Roman Inquisition. “La Gioconda” is a bit of a bizarre opera, by any standards. Encapsulating passion, violence and ultimately tragedy it {…}
(© 2022 ROH. Photograph by Clive Barda) Camille Saint–Saëns’ “Samson et Dalila” received its first new production – indeed first performance – at the Royal Opera House in nearly 20 years, replacing Elijah Moshinsky’s, which had a vintage of 1981 (before this reviewer was even born). It’s a tricky work to get right – traditionalist stagings feel uncomfortably Orientalist, sometimes {…}
(Credit: Raftermen) Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell, and Kimberly Reed’s chamber opera “As One” has brought a newness to the opera stage through the kind of story they tell and created opportunities for opera professionals in the LGBTQIA+ community. In The Atlanta Opera’s production, starring Lucia Lucas as Hannah Before and Blythe Gaissert as Hannah After, the positive impact and need {…}
Photo credit: Brett Boardman Antonio Cesti’s 1656 opera “Orontea” was first performed in Innsbruck at the court of Archduke Ferdinand Charles. So popular was it in its day that it enjoyed more than 17 revivals at various musical centers before the close of the 1600s. On May 26, 2022, it premiered in Australia thanks to the enterprising Australian baroque company, {…}
(Photo credit: Ali Wright) Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” after the novella by Prosper Mérimée, is a piece that presents plenty of challenges to audiences today. Some are owing to problematic aspects of the text – stereotyped depictions of the Gypsies in the piece, the spectacle of a murdered woman crowning the action – and others simply the weight of tradition and {…}
(Photo Credit: Ken Howard / Met Opera) Opera is a way in which we can creatively examine momentous historical shifts and rediscover the possibilities of radical change in an existentially emblematic and exuberant way, especially at the Met. However, what is it that makes this art form balanced enough not to tip over into becoming purposefully deceptive and overly politically {…}