(Source: Heartbeat Opera Facebook) In the canon of German Romantic opera, Weber’s “Der Freischütz” is about as conventional as they come. The opera, which is loosely based on a traditional German folktale, features hardy woodsmen, drinking songs, enchanted bullets, demonic incantations, a melancholic male hero, a pure virtuous maiden, and a mysterious hermit. Thus, it was ripe for the kind {…}
On Dec. 15, 2019, The Metropolitan Opera raised the curtain on this season’s run of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” Julie Taymor’s family-friendly production continues to be a visual and musical delight that, while abridged, makes for a strong concentration of the work. Under the baton of Lothar Koenigs, Sunday’s cast of artists was comprised of a fine mix of new {…}
(Photo: Yasuko Kageyama) Opera Roma rolled out the red carpet for the opening evening of its 2019-20 season, with a rare performance of Verdi’s grand opera “Les Vêpres Siciliennes” in its original French version. Overshadowed by his three preceding middle period operas, “Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore” and “La Traviata,” and by the mature works which followed, it has struggled to gain {…}
(Credit: Catherine Ashmore / ROH) Smothered in monochrome, Keith Warner’s 2017 production of Verdi’s “Otello” is a humorless parody of art deco design. Tar-colored towers hold its personages in a chokehold; escorting them onstage with sliding trays resembling CD player disc drives. Vertical slots in the abyss and square-shaped patterns often visible on casual sweaters sever the obscurity. In its {…}
(Credit: Fay Fox) Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton was the flame that lit a rainy night in San Francisco this past week. With Kathleen Kelly at the piano, she sang an eclectic concert on the subject of love, her powerful and sumptuous voice bringing pleasure and beauty to her entire audience. It was glorious. Barton announced during the concert that she and {…}
(Credit: Karen Almond / Metropolitan Opera) A debutante. The return of a singer for the first time in eight years. A rising star finally getting a true standout role. A bass-baritone reprising his star-making turn. And one of the great living conductors also making a vital return. These were the main pieces that came together, among others, for what has {…}
(Photo credit: Martha Benedict) “La bohème aka The Hipsters,” Pacific Opera Project’s version of Puccini’s most famous opera, has become a regular holiday-season feature of Los Angeles’s opera calendar. This year’s production is the company’s fifth. Staged at the 1912-vintage Highland Park Ebell Club, POP updates “La bohème” to present-day Highland Park, which these days has a large population of {…}
Saturday, December 7, 2019, saw the finals concert of Premiere Opera Foundation and NYIOP’s International Vocal Competition. The 20 finalists gathered in the resonant First Christian Science Church to share their artistic gifts before a live audience and a panel of distinguished judges, including Paul Hopper of the Metropolitan Opera, Gerald Martin Moore of the Glyndebourne Festival, Pamela Walsh of {…}
A Baroque opera with a goddess riding a flying pig and a sea-god in a submarine? These were just some of the unexpected combinations that you could see if you went to the Opéra de Versailles’ new production of “Ercole Amante.” This co-production of the Opéra National de Bordeaux and the Opéra Comique was performed five times in Paris where {…}