Reviews
Edmonton Opera Stabat Mater “musically powerful”
Edmonton Opera wrapped its 59th season with four intimate performances of an apt sacred work on the cusp of the Christian Holy Week. Artistic director Joel Ivany programmed Pergolesi’s 1736 treatment of the 13th-century hymn Stabat Mater to cap off his first full...
Pacific Opera Victoria Così fan tutte “this cast was a joy to listen to”
With Pacific Opera Victoria’s latest mounting of Mozart’s Così fan tutti (seen April 12), the company continues its long run of gathering excellent individual voices and melding them into glorious ensembles. Vocally, this Così was superb and made a great case for...
New Music Edmonton Le Désert Mauve Quebec Multidisciplinary Artist Symon Henry’s New Experimental Opera
New Music Edmonton (NME), founded in 1985, under a different name, by the Canadian composer Violet Archer, promotes contemporary composition in the broadest sense, and its mandate includes introducing Edmonton audiences to artists beyond the city’s local preserve. On...
Against the Grain Theatre Bluebeard’s Castle “A truly arresting take on the Bluebeard story”
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók wrote only one opera, Bluebeard’s Castle (A kékszakállú herceg vára). Since its premiere in 1918, it has become a 20th Century classic and a staple of the standard repertoire, one that’s regularly staged by opera companies around the...
Tapestry Opera / Obsidian Theatre Of the Sea “a very considerable achievement”
Of the Sea; libretto by Kanika Ambrose, music by Ian Cusson, premiered at the Bluma Appel Theatre on Saturday evening. It’s a co-production of Tapestry Opera and Obsidian Theatre and it has its origins in Tapestry’s 2018 LibLab which led to a co-commission from the...
![Metropolitan Opera Falstaff “Everything about [Rustioni’s] deft, graceful, shipshape account of this infinitely rewarding score seemed unobtrusively right”](https://operacanada.ca/wp-content/smush-webp/2023/03/Fals_1435_C-400x250.jpg.webp)
Metropolitan Opera Falstaff “Everything about [Rustioni’s] deft, graceful, shipshape account of this infinitely rewarding score seemed unobtrusively right”
Since its unveiling at London’s Royal Opera in 2012, Robert Carsen’s temporal transplant of Verdi’s Falstaff from the latter years of one Queen Elizabeth’s reign to the early years of another’s has delighted audiences in New York (2013), Amsterdam and Toronto (2014),...
Metropolitan Opera Lohengrin “musically this was indeed a classy show”
I didn’t much care for his Parsifal, and I liked his Flying Dutchman even less, but at the first intermission of Canadian François Girard’s new Metropolitan Opera Lohengrin (2 March) I had high hopes for its success. Tim Yip’s set was striking—what looked to be some...
Opéra National de Paris Peter Grimes “perhaps one of the best opera productions of the last decade”
Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, directed by Deborah Warner at the Paris Opera this season, was perhaps one of the best opera productions of the last decade. Contributing to this was the phenomenal alignment of major stars from Warner to the Canadian stage designer...
Pacific Opera Victoria The Birds “the large cast of principals was top-notch”
Walter Braunfels’s Die Vögel (The Birds) is a very odd duck. Part allegory, part buffo, part mythological fantasy and serious commentary on the hubris of man, it must have been the challenge of a lifetime for stage director Glynis Leyshon to wrangle this opera into...
Brott Opera La Flambeau “a fascinating world”
I wondered what I was in for when I read the front of the opera program: “A Modern opera about social equity, Vodou, and Zombies.” But as soon as the first act began, I knew that I had entered a fascinating world created by a gifted composer, an eloquent librettist,...
Voicebox: Opera in Concert Médée The Canadian Premiere
Luigi Cherubini’s Médée is the only opera from the Paris of the French Revolution to retain a place in the modern repertoire. It premiered in March 1797 in a transitional political environment as royalists started to regain traction in France while Napoleon was...
Calgary Opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs “The story is intense and effectively told”
Calgary Opera audiences are no stranger to new, modern operas. During the years the late Bob McPhee was the Artistic Director of the company, Calgarians were treated to a variety of new operas by American and Canadian composers; and such was the confidence the...