Reviews
UofT Opera’s miniature shows offer “much to enjoy” despite staging limitations
This spring, in lieu of its usual run of a fully staged opera given four performances with different casts, UofT Opera offered “Opera in Miniature: A Festival of One Act Operas.” There were five performances over four days with one show repeated with a second cast. Of...
Edmonton Opera goes live with drive-in opera
Edmonton Opera, like many companies, has tried to stay in touch with its supporters during the pandemic by offering various virtual performances, but it has also drawn a smattering of its audience to its Jubilee Auditorium venue for some live concerts. Well, at least...
Aida with puppets & Radvanovsky at Opéra national de Paris
Opéra national de Paris's new production of Verdi's Aida, which premiered online on Feb. 18th, marks the Paris debut of the Dutch director Lotte de Beer, recently appointed director of the Vienna Volksoper. She angles the spotlight on the problematic stereotypes which...
Songs for Murdered Sisters: Eking Beauty out of Tragedy
In the midst of a brutal cold spell that left millions of Texans without power, heat, and water, Houston Grand Opera (HGO)—unsinkable survivor of Hurricane Harvey, which flooded its home, the Wortham Center, and closed it down for a year in 2017/18—streamed what’s...
L’orangeraie interpretation takes racist turn at Chants Libres
I can't believe that it's 2021, one week after the U.S. swore in its first woman and first person of colour Vice-President, and yet here I am reviewing an opera where a white director sees no problem with putting an all-white cast of singers in brownface makeup and...
Review: Vienna State Opera premieres Henze’s Das verratene Meer
The most prolific operatic composer of the postwar period, Hans Werner Henze's contribution to the music theatre canon includes some 30 works encompassing a wide variety of musical styles and literary topics. His 1990 opera Das verattene Meer is based on Yukio...
Review: Vancouver Opera Amahl and the Night Visitors offers the “actually there” experience
Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors was the first opera written specifically for American television, premiering on NBC on Christmas Eve, 1951. It became a Christmas Eve tradition until the mid-60s when, in a dispute, Menotti forbade its production and...
Review: Messiah/Complex joyfully proves beauty of a vast ‘Canadian’ experience
I feel I must preface this review with the confession that I have never--not ever--seen a holiday-season Messiah. I am grateful that Messiah/Complex, a filmed collaboration between the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) and Against the Grain (AtG) Theatre, seen Dec....
Review: Opera Atelier Something Rich & Strange puts new clothes on Baroque works
Despite repeated coronavirus lockdowns, social distancing rules and a climate of apprehension, Opera Atelier and its fearless co-artistic directors Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg were determined to continue their 35th season regardless. They made...
Review: Tapestry’s Love Songs “musically and dramatically rich piece of work”
Love Songs-A Saxophony is a collaboration between Tapestry Opera and New Music Concerts; a staged and filmed version of Ana Sokolović’s Love Songs for soprano and saxophone created in the Ernest Balmer Studio. The show aired on Youtube Live Nov. 28th but is it an...
Figaro at Oper Frankfurt: adapted for social distance
Saddled with reviving an Oper Frankfurt production not compliant with pandemic restrictions, Director Caterina Panti Liberovici and her team faced a nearly impossible task: in two weeks, re-stage and rehearse Le nozze di Figaro such that the characters never sing...
Aida: Against the odds at Teatro di San Carlo, Naples
Probably nothing could have nudged me out of my semi-confinement in Normandy and reluctantly onto my first plane since January, if it weren’t an invitation to hear Jonas Kaufmann as Radames in an outdoor concert performance of Aida given by Teatro di San Carlo in...