Reviews
Opera Atelier’s The Resurrection is resplendent art in the face of adversity
George Frideric Handel’s The Resurrection is really an oratorio in name only. Discounting its liturgical basis, the piece has all the hallmarks of a baroque opera seria: dramatic characters, a clear—albeit skimpy—plot and a theatricality in the libretto that demands...
Emily D’Angelo earns ovation in ROH Clemenza
Mozart's La clemenza di Tito is currently undergoing a process of reappraisal by reinterpretation, the most radical in a flurry of recent productions being Peter Sellars' for the 2017 Salzburg Festival. That turned librettist Metastasio's "traitors" into "terrorists"...
Canadians create “highlight” of SFO’s The Adlers: Live at the Drive-In
San Francisco Opera (SFO), like so many musical organizations, has countered the pandemic closure by showering its audience with online recitals, concerts, lectures and celebrations. But SFO has done much more: large-scaled live performances. This spring on a...
Boris Godunov hybridized at Staatsoper Stuttgart
People just can’t keep their hands off Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. The parade of revisers starts with the composer himself who left us two distinct versions, the 1869 original and an 1872 revision. A vocal score with further changes was published in 1874. Next in line...
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....