Reviews
Manitoba Opera Così fan tutte capping its 50th Anniversary Season with Laughter and Wit
Manitoba Opera (MO) capped its 50th anniversary season with laughter and wit this spring; its latest production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte cheekily billed as a “Canuck Cosi” more Canadian than a bottle of maple syrup or hockey Saturday night. Three performances held...
The Metropolitan Opera Champion “There wasn’t a weak performance onstage”
There’s a fistful of good reasons for seeing Champion. There’s the story, a real and strong one: the life of the sexually conflicted prizefighter Emile Griffith, haunted by his accidental killing of another boxer in the ring. There’s James Robinson’s direction, clear...
The Metropolitan Opera La bohème Nézet-Séguin “was greeted with the evening’s heartiest cheers”
In his not-quite-fourteen years at The Metropolitan Opera, that compact bundle of music-directorial energy known as Yannick Nézet-Séguin has taken his measured time with Puccini: a decade passed before his first Turandot, in October 2019, and another two years elapsed...
Amici Chamber Ensemble From Strauss to the Orient “Joyce El-Khoury’s soaring soprano was even more impressive than usual”
The 2022-23 season of the Amici Chamber Ensemble drew to a glorious close with From Strauss to the Orient, a strikingly beautiful concert of works by Richard Strauss, Maurice Ravel, and a group of Lebanese songs (likely unfamiliar to most in the audience). For the...
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...