Reviews
Review: COC’s Otello features “one of the best Iagos of the current generation”
Arrigo Boito, the redoubtable 19th-century Italian poet and Verdi’s best known librettist, skillfully distilled and adapted Shakespeare’s Othello for the operatic stage but also, unfortunately for us today, flattened it into a morality play. Gone is Shakespeare’s Act...
Commentary: Opera Atelier’s Idomeneo: Mozart’s neo-classical grand opera
There has been little if no question over the years that Mozart's opera seria, Idomeneo (1781), is considered to be the composer's masterpiece in the genre. But something new seemed to pop out at Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre on April 6 that I had initially missed...
Review: Against the Grain Theatre & Vivier’s Kopernikus: technology takes on ritual
Against the Grain Theatre (AtG) opened Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus: A Ritual Opera for the Dead on Apr. 5 at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille in a staging that featured a multi-disciplinary ensemble, roaming orchestra, and some very moving music. The work is one of the...
Review: Joyce El-Khoury in Welsh National Opera’s Roberto Devereux
Of course it is a gross simplification to say that Donizetti is all about the singing; but the focus is undeniably on beautiful, exciting and agile voices. And Welsh National Opera’s 2019 presentation of Roberto Devereux, which I saw in Birmingham on Mar. 8th,...
Review: Christopher Dunham embodies Don Giovanni for SOLO
On Mar. 2, Southern Ontario Lyric Opera produced a fully staged production of Don Giovanni. Under the artistic direction of maestro Sabatino Vacca, this relatively new company’s mandate is to promote “the magnificent world of operatic entertainment across Southern...
Review: Edmonton’s Mercury Opera La Bohème offers “emotional penetration”
Edmonton’s Mercury Opera prides itself on being a maverick enterprise, taking grand opera into alleys and subway corridors, arid barrens and inner-city parks. It once produced Puccini’s Il tabarro on a docked riverboat. Last year, Mercury Opera staged La traviata in a...
Review: Robert Gleadow in “thrilling voice” in Paris Opera’s Il primo omicidio
Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il primo omicidio (1707), recounts the first murder in the history of mankind. Cain and Abel are the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain, a farmer, becomes enraged when the Lord accepts the offering of his brother Abel, a shepherd, in preference to his...
Review: Vancouver Opera creates a “visually and vocally memorable” La Bohème
Every opera I have ever seen staged by the director/designer team of Renaud Doucet and André Barbe has been visually memorable and Vancouver Opera’s new La Bohème (seen Feb. 16th) is no exception. Interestingly, their production (originally for Scottish Opera and...
Review: Pacific Opera Victoria’s roaring 20s La traviata
It’s Valentine’s Day and what better thing to do than watch poor, consumptive Violetta Valéry take a risky leap into love with young Alfredo Germont, only to be forced to leave him by his hidebound father, then tenderly reconcile with her beloved mere minutes before...
Review: Canadian Opera Company tackles ‘paradoxical’ Cosí fan tutte
The final Mozart-Da Ponte collaboration, 1790’s Cosí fan tutte, o sia La Scuola degli Amanti (Women Are Like That, or A School for Lovers) is hard to stage effectively. Atom Egoyan’s 2014 production, revived on Feb. 6th at the Canadian Opera Company, doesn’t quite get...
Review: Die Walküre times two at TSO and LPO
Experiencing two concert presentations of Wagner’s Die Walküre within a week on two different continents presents a unique set of challenges. Along with the exhaustion of travel, how does one adjust to the diverse artistries of soloists, orchestras, and conductors?...
Review: Edmonton Opera’s Hansel and Gretel “enchanting and appropriately ghoulish”
There was a time when ‘opera’ implied a notion of music that unabashedly included the expectation of actual melodies, and Engelbert Humperdinck’s 1893 treatment of the macabre and ultimately triumphant fairy tale Hansel and Gretel is a marvel in that tradition....