Reviews
Review: L’Opéra de Montréal’s Das Rheingold offers a Steampunk Gothic aesthetic and a “formidable” Alberich in Nathan Berg
As the most compact of the Ring operas —clocking in at a trifling two-and-a-half hours— Das Rheingold can let smaller companies dip a toe into Wagner’s Nibelungen universe without committing to the scale and expense of the other works in the cycle. A case in point is...
Review: At Metropolitan Opera, Sondra Radvanovksy is the “most complete…Tosca of the past two or three decades”
There’s almost always a certain splashy excitement attendant on a new production’s opening night, but sometimes it’s the next season’s revival that delivers the greater musical and dramatic punch. That’s what happened with Metropolitan Opera's Tosca, unveiled on New...
Review: Wexford 2018 “yielded many an unexpected pleasure” while some elements “felt out of place”
I’m an unabashed admirer of verismo opera, but I freely admit having qualms when Wexford announced a pairing of Franco Leoni’s L’oracolo (1905) and Umberto Giordano’s Mala vita (1892) to open its 2018 festival. I knew Leoni’s gory Chinatown pasta pot from its vintage,...
Review: English National Opera’s Lucia di Lammermoor is “powerful, memorable and effective”
While David Alden’s production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor contains a few puzzling or unresolved aspects, it is powerful, memorable and effective. First seen at English National Opera in 2008, it has returned to London for a third run, having also been...
Canadian Opera Company’s Hadrian: commanding vocals and powerful symbolism
“The Empire holds its breath, awaiting orders.” These lines, sung early in the Canadian Opera Company’s world premiere of Hadrian (seen Oct. 17th), plunge us immediately into the opera’s primary conflict of an emperor torn between his duty to lead and the mourning for...
Canadian Opera Company’s Eugene Onegin: “dynamic as it is sparse”
Canadian Opera Company’s season-opening, Eugene Onegin (seen Sept. 30th), was thrilling in its portrayal of gut-wrenching conflict and pathos as well as touching in its many sensitive and warm collaborations between orchestra and singers. Tchaikovsky’s three-act...
Review: Pacific Opera Victoria’s Fidelio: superb cast—heavy-handed production
Pacific Opera Victoria’s season-opening production of Beethoven’s Fidelio is musically magnificent. From minor roles to major, the voices are superb, and the Pacific Opera Chorus—mostly young, all volunteer—is impressive. The Victoria Symphony, too, played with verve...
Review: Canadian Opera Company’s Hadrian offers “operatic alchemy” despite “unimaginative production”
At Canadian Opera Company on Oct. 13th, Daniel MacIvor and Rufus Wainwrights’ first collaboration, Hadrian, came to life as a fairly accomplished opera. It could have been a greater experience had it not been tied to an unimaginative production that appears to have...
Review: Canadian Opera Company opens its season with an “intelligently and unfussily staged” Eugene Onegin
Less is not always more, especially in opera staging and design, but director Robert Carsen and his creative team have achieved a pared down Eugene Onegin that is at the same time distilled and intensified. Besides Carsen, the contributions of set and costume designer...
Review: Opéra de Montréal’s “ultra-conventional” approach to Rigoletto feels out of place in #MeToo era
Is there a more problematic opera for the #MeToo era than Rigoletto? As yet another wealthy, powerful, privileged man sits in Washington accused of sexual assault, Verdi’s portrayal of predatory male entitlement and unpunished crime seems more distasteful and vexing...
Review: “Thought-provoking and very funny” new play-opera I Call myself Princess tackles cultural appropriation at premiere in Toronto
Jani Lauzon’s I Call myself Princess (seen Sept. 13th) skilfully weaves together two stories. The first is the historical story of Charles Wakefield Cadman, an ‘Indianist’ composer of the early 20th century. Together with his professional partner, the Cherokee...
Review: English National Opera’s high-energy production of Paul Bunyan an “immersive theatrical event”
The trouble with Paul Bunyan is that the music is too good. If Benjamin Britten hadn’t been bursting with creativity and bristling with technical accomplishment in 1941—and had he not revised the score and passed it for publication just before his death—W.H. Auden’s...