Reviews
Joyce El-Khoury “magnificent” in WNO’s Madama Butterfly
Welsh National Opera’s previous production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, by Joachim Herz, stayed in their repertoire for 40 years. The company’s brand-new production, unveiled this season, faces not only the challenge of comparison with a much-loved predecessor, but...
Gordon Bintner unleashes comedic skills in Oper Frankfurt’s L’italiana in Londra
Domenico Cimarosa. Heard of him? Try humming your favourite aria of his. Drawing a blank, right? The composer has barely stayed afloat in the wake of the masters who surround him. Working in the latter third of the 18th century, he sounds enough like Mozart to be...
La Monnaie’s “topical” The Time of Our Singing
Topical, trendy, thought-provoking. In a nutshell, that’s Belgian avant-garde jazz pianist and composer Kris Defoort’s opera, The Time of Our Singing, which was given its world premiere with eight performances before live, masked audiences at La Monnaie this September...
Soundstreams’ “cleverly constructed”Garden of Vanished Pleasures
Director Tim Albery has a track record of staging shows built around song. One thinks of Last Days staged at Toronto’s Hart House in 2014 or, more recently, Hell’s Fury with Russell Braun as Hans Eisler. His latest in the genre is Garden of Vanished Pleasures which...
Sondra Radvanovsky debuts her Lady in Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Macbeth
Everyone present wanted Lyric Opera of Chicago to have a triumph with its season opener—the first opera performance in the newly re-furnished Ardis Krainik Theatre after being dark for 18 months; the inaugural performance of Enrique Mazzola as the company’s new music...
MUO returns live with Berlioz, Bartók & Sokolović
There’s irony in the fact that one of the last public sightings of Manitoba Underground Opera (MUO) in the pre-pandemic, “Before Times” proved to be its concert recital, Lost Voices, included with its August 2019 summer festival titled Reflections of Ourselves. Those...
HOS’s The Leporello Diaries delivers musical magic
What do you get when you combine a beer tent, a former gravel pit, and hell? If it’s Highlands Opera Studio’s production of The Leporello Diaries: an Unsolved Mystery you are referring to, then the answer is musical magic. Never one to be stopped by challenging...
Chamberfest goes live with Jonelle Sills & Isaiah Bell
Ottawa’s Chamberfest, back after cancelling its 2020 edition, has been offering Ottawa audiences their first consistent dose of live, in-person concerts since Covid. Although leaner than in past seasons, this year’s Chamberfest—with new artistic director Carissa...
Review: ARIAS: Canadian Voices of Opera—documentary reflects today’s opera truth
V. Tony Hauser's new documentary, ARIAS: Canadian Voices of Opera, created with director Celine Chiturai, producer Cierra Wieja, and cinematographer/editor Nicolas Lehmann, is something we didn't know we needed. Hauser, known as...
ATG’s Sāvitri: A feast for the eyes and ears
A love story that not even death could thwart: providing opera fans a feast of music and colour, Against the Grain Theatre’s production of Gustav Holst’s Sāvitri beautifully conveys the love and devotion that this ancient story is known for. Filmed in Consecan...
A strange luxury: Ambur Braid stars in Oper Frankfurt’s intimate, in-concert Ariadne
Taped-off alternating seats and rows combined with strict vaccination and testing requirements so limit Oper Frankfurt's capacity that its nearly 1,400 seat hall morphs into an enormous living room where the audience becomes a character in the company's semi-staged...
VOICEBOX: OIC’s Adriana Lecouvreur: a convincingly intimate take
Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur has an implausible and convoluted plot and a performance history as a vehicle for superstar sopranos and tenors. As such, it might seem an odd choice for a company such as VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert (OIC) but their recently released (June...