Florida Grand Opera (FGO) opened its 85th season with a heartfelt reminder that opera can be community-driven, emotional, musically accessible, and relevant to the present moment. The atrium was pleasantly crowded before the opening performance of “Silent Night” by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell; a wide spectrum of glamorous attendees sipped drinks from the bar and watched singers from {…}
Photo credit: Raftermen “Toi toi toi, y’all,” intones the attractive, Southern-inflected t-shirt at The Atlanta Opera’s pop-up gift shop. An apt tagline for a company having outgrown regional status, still honoring its roots in this de facto capital of the American South. Like Atlanta—now the sixth most populous metropolitan area in the United States, having recently edged past Philadelphia and {…}
(Photo credit: Raftermen/courtesy of The Atlanta Opera) Atlanta Opera gave a skillful East Coast premiere of Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell’s “The Shining.” As most are familiar with the plot of Stephen King’s 1977 novel, “The Shining,” from the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film, I will not recount the storyline. However, it is important to mention the operatic version is based {…}