164 search results for…

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Seattle Opera 2021-22 Review: Blue

https://operawire.com/seattle-opera-2021-22-review-blue/

Seattle Opera has produced a riveting production of the new opera “Blue,” composed by Jeanine Tesori to the libretto of Tazewell Thompson, who also directed. “Blue” shines a searing light on issues of racism, violence, and the loss that result. Everthing comes together for this West Coast premiere to create a gripping, enlightening, and moving experience.  Originally commissioned by The {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Opera in a Box 2022 Review: Carmen

https://operawire.com/opera-in-a-box-2022-review-carmen/

On February 20th, touring southern UK opera company “Opera in a Box” performed its second of six performances of Georges Bizet’s best-known operas “Carmen” to a packed black-box theater within The Station in Bristol, UK. With a cast of mostly young and early-career singers, accompanied by a single pianist and subsumed in transfixing lighting arrangements by a modest crew of {…}

IndieOpera

Creative Capital Announces $2.5 Million in Grants

https://operawire.com/creative-capital-announces-2-5-million-in-grants/

Creative Capital has announced that it has awarded $2.5 million in grants to support 50 new artists’ projects. Among them are Du Yun’s “For Ever More – Future Tradition: An XR Opera Garden.” The work will bring Kunqu opera to life via augmented reality and web-based virtual reality. Another recipient of the grant is “Apponte: An Opera,” a creation of {…}

News

Nikola Printz Headlines Opera San José’s ‘Carmen’

https://operawire.com/nikola-printz-headlines-opera-san-joses-carmen/

(Credit: Bob Shomler) Opera San José is set to present Bizet’s “Carmen” to open the new year. The production, which will be shown at the California Theatre in downtown San José, will be conducted by Joseph Marcheso. The production will be reimagined with stage direction by Lillian Groag and feature a new collaboration with the acclaimed Flamenco Society of San {…}

Special Features

Page to Opera Stage: Pushkin’s Tragicomedy & Tchaikovsky’s Melodrama in ‘The Queen of Spades’

https://operawire.com/page-to-opera-stage-pushkins-tragicomedy-tchaikovskys-melodrama-in-the-queen-of-spades/

“Page to Opera Stage” looks at stories – real-life or fiction, old and new – that have inspired operas, and the ways these narratives have been edited and dramatized to fit a new medium. This month, we return to Pushkin and Tchaikovsky with “The Queen of Spades”, where an opera has expanded the original novella, radically altering characters and atmosphere {…}

News

Sydney Mancasola, Tansel Akzeybek, Hagen Matzeit & Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke Lead Komische Oper Berlin’s ‘Orphée aux Enfers’

https://operawire.com/sydney-mancasola-tansel-akzeybek-hagen-matzeit-wolfgang-ablinger-sperrhacke-lead-komische-oper-berlins-orphee-aux-enfers/

(Credits: LA Opera official website / Komische Oper Berlin official website / Oper Wuppertal official website / © Lioba Schöneck) The Komische Oper Berlin will present a production of Jacque Offenbach‘s opera buffa “Orphée aux enfers” in December 2021. American soprano Sydney Mancasola makes her long anticipated debut in the role of Eurydice, while tenor Tansel Akzeybek appears in the {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Bayreuth Baroque Festival 2021 Review: Judas Maccabaeus

https://operawire.com/bayreuth-baroque-festival-2021-review-judas-maccabaeus/

(Photo: Ralf Münch) The recently restored Stadtkirche was chosen as the venue for the festival’s performance of Handel’s 1647 oratorio “Judas Maccabaeus.” Situated in the historical center, it is the city’s largest church, built in the late gothic style between 1611 and 1614. It is dominated by its two imposing domed towers which are connected by a bridge. It is {…}

Special Features

Holy Fire: Verdi’s Representation in McQueen’s Spring/Summer 1999 Fashion Show

https://operawire.com/holy-fire-verdis-representation-in-mcqueens-spring-summer-1999-fashion-show/

We are all familiar with the aphorism ‘clothing maketh the man‘ and its related parabolic lesson, regardless of the superficiality of the statement and its inherent inadequacies as a didactic phrase that can be really listened to in any meaningful way. The backward iniquitous core of this phrase most properly resonates as eternally problematic when reworked in George Bernard Shaw’s {…}