Photo Credit: He Maofeng/Asianewsphoto Outside Western opera, there are operas which are just as long, if not longer, than Wagner’s “Ring Cycle.” One such example is the masterwork, “The Peony Pavilion,” a tragic comedy in the form of 55 scenes which take more than 22 hours to perform. With the play written by Tang Xianzu, one of the most important {…}
Photo Credit: Concerto Köln Much like his contemporaries during the 18th century, Leonardo Vinci, a highly important but relatively overlooked Italian composer from the first-half of the 18th century whose 40 operas have gone relatively ignored by contemporary opera and early opera alike, used mythology and extant fiction like everyone else at his time. His final opera, composed the year {…}
Photo Credit: Edyta Dufaj/Opera Vision The latest opera by one of contemporary opera’s well-beloved figures, Tobias Picker, in only two acts Picker weaves a dynamic story about the real-life figure, Lili Elbe, one of the first but possibly most famous transgender women in history. Having started life as a painter with the given name Einar Wegener, in 1930 following a {…}
“I, Claudius” and “Claudius the God“ is a trio of operas composed by Spanish composer Igor Escudero and librettist Pablo Gómez during 2019 on the theme of two Roman rulers, Augustus and Claudius, as well as the dynamics of the Julio-Claudian family. The opera’s initial began in 2014 following the eponymous BBC TV series. The opera premiered at the Miguel {…}
(Photo: Jill Steinberg) “Sensorium Ex” is an opera by composer Paola Prestini and librettist/poet Brenda Shaughnessy and co-directed by choreographer Jerron Herman. It is a multi-sensory narrative woven together at the intersections of disability and artificial intelligence. “Sensorium Ex” opera will be premiering at the Common Senses Festival in Omaha for their 2025 season, and is commissioned by the Ford {…}
Photo Credit: Grant Triplow / NZ Opera “Ihitai ‘Avei’a – Star Navigator” is the first opera composed by New Zealand musician and composer Tim Finn, member of the band Split Enz, with supplementary compositional aid from Tom McLeod. The work emerged out of a co-commission partnership between the New Zealand Opera and West Australian Opera. The opera featured the Tahitian language in {…}
Photo Credit: Stefan Bremer/Finnish National Opera “Covid fan tutte“ is a reconceptualization of Mozart’s comic opera organized by the Finnish National Opera in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The story is a farcical reimagining of “Così fan tutte,” focusing on the impact of COVID-19 and the ability of opera singers to perform. Most of the opera takes a satirical look {…}
Photo Credit: Airat Ichmouratov Based on the seventh book by French novelist and poet Victor Hugo, Russian-Canadian composer Airat Ichmouratov and his opera, “The Man Who Laughs,” is a chilling look at the ways in which our pasts always catch up to us, no matter who we are, noble or otherwise. The opera originated from a 2023 Festival Classica commission in {…}
(Photo Credit: Opéra de Lyon) “Irrelohe” is the sixth opera of 20th-century Austrian composer Franz Schreker, begun in 1919 and premiered shortly after in 1924 at the Stadttheater Köln. Coming right after Schreker’s then latest opera, Der Schatzgräber. The opera is a three-act opera about the tribulations of love and sacrifice. This was a poignant theme for him, as during {…}
“A Marvelous Order” is the first opera of American composer Judd Greenstein in collaboration with librettist Tracy K. Smith and visual artist Joshua Frankel. Using projected visuals and vocal samples, the opera invigorates the standard libretto-composer model that opera tends to use. Focusing on a fight over city space during the 1960s in New York City, the opera attempted to {…}
Photo Credit: Cory Weaver Premiering at San Francisco Opera just last year, John Adams’ newest opera, “Antony and Cleopatra” brought the story of the ill-fated lovers to the 21st century with a score that echoed the profound feelings each lover had for the other. On the back of previous renditions of the infamous story, such as Samuel Barber’s 1966 version, {…}