Reviews
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...
Canadian Opera Company Salome “Ambur Braid gives an extraordinary performance in the title role”
“Oscar Wilde’s Salome was not worthy of you…it has a nauseous and sickly atmosphere about it…Wilde’s Salome, and all those who surround her, except that poor creature [John the Baptist], are unwholesome, unclean, hysterical, or alcoholic beings, stinking of...
Edmonton Opera Orphée+ Edmonton Audiences Applaud Ivany’s “expansive approach to programming”
Edmonton Opera’s Artistic Director, Joel Ivany, founder of Toronto’s innovative opera company Against the Grain (AtG), has brought one of his successful experiments in melding old opera with modern production options and narrative flexibility to his prairie audience,...
Canadian Opera Company The Marriage of Figaro “There’s no weak link in the ensemble cast”
It’s a shame Marcelo Buscaino wasn’t on hand for the opening-night curtain call of the Canadian Opera Company’s revival of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro January 27 because he surely deserves some credit for the success of a performance that had a cheering audience on...
Paris Opera The Marriage of Figaro “a true gem”
Paris Opera's production of The Marriage of Figaro by English director and video artist Netia Jones is a true gem and loses none of its brilliance as new singing stars take on the different roles. The cast I heard for the final and sold-out performance on December 28...
Toronto Operetta Theatre Die Fledermaus A “hugely entertaining take on Johann Strauss II’s enduring farce”
Toronto Operetta Theatre’s December 28 opening of Die Fledermaus was officially sold-out, the capacity audience enthusiastic about its hugely entertaining take on Johann Strauss II’s enduring farce. Gustav Mahler, an early admirer who gave the work considerable kudos...
Paris Opera Tosca Gerald Finley: “magnificent tone and varied nuance, endowing his character with more interiority and complexity than I’ve ever seen in this role”
Pierre Audi's production of Tosca, which premiered in 2014, has become a staple of the Paris Opera repertoire; and rightly so, it's a classic beauty. Puccini made his lyric tragedy site and time specific, and Audi respects this. We are in Rome in 1800 during the...
Royal Opera House Alcina Emily D’Angelo’s “art is unequaled in ‘Verdi Prati'”
Handel's 1735 opera Alcina is one of the most popular baroque operas in the repertoire and is featured somewhere around Europe or England every year, either in a festival or an opera house. The last decade has seen: Katie Mitchel's darkly satirical, Shades of...
ALBUM: Candide London Symphony Orchestra “Cunegonde’s “Glitter and Be Gay”…a coloratura extravaganza knocked off with aplomb by Archibald”
The recent hybrid CD/SACD release of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide on the London Symphony Orchestra’s own label is drawn from live semi-staged performances at the Barbican in London in December 2018. That production was, in turn, based on a 2004 production for the New...