Reviews
Review: L’elisir d’amore, Vancouver Opera, Jan. 21, 2018
It has been nearly twenty years since L’elisir d’amore graced the Vancouver Opera stage, so the return of Donizetti’s ever-popular 1832 Tristan-und-Isolde-meets-Much-Ado-About-Nothing confection in this colourfully kinetic staging was eagerly anticipated. This...
Review: Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall, Jan. 21, 2018
When it comes to the live presentation of both orchestral as well as operatic works, the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall seems to exist in a league of its own. The service, which can be accessed on a one-time basis or via subscription, allows access to the...
Review: Christopher Alden’s didactic Rigoletto, Canadian Opera Company, Jan. 20, 2018
Christopher Alden’s production of Verdi’s Rigoletto originated in 2000 at Lyric Opera of Chicago where it was instantly retired after just one outing, not having found favour with that city’s conservative opera audience. Brought back to life by the Canadian Opera...
Review: Four Note Opera, Erato Ensemble, Vancouver, Dec. 9, 2017
What does an opera lover do on a raw December night in Vancouver, with no opera on the visible horizon until the new year? You grab at a ‘four note’ opera, as four are better than none! On Dec. 9 at the Orpheum Annex, Erato Ensemble presented Tom Johnson’s hilarious...
Review: Barbe & Doucets’ La belle Hélène, Hamburg State Opera, Dec. 31, 2017
One good parody deserves another. And so it was with the Hamburg State Opera’s revival of Barbe & Doucet’s 2014 production of Offenbach’s three act opéra bouffe, La belle Hélène (seen Dec. 31, 2017, the third of six performances, playing until Jan. 19)....
Review: Julie Boulianne in Massenet’s Werther, Oper Frankfurt, Dec. 30, 2017
Massenet's Werther (seen at Oper Frankfurt on Dec. 30, 2017), based on Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther written in Wetzlar near the author’s native Frankfurt, is one of those timeless operas which has enriched the coffers of opera houses the...
Review: Against the Grain Theatre’s BOUND, Toronto, Dec. 15, 2017
BOUND is Against the Grain Theatre at its best, blending old and new in an immersive operatic experience. With BOUND, Founder & Artistic Director Joel Ivany and Founding Member & Music Director Topher Mokrzewski have created a troubling exposition of an...
Review: Hänsel und Gretel reopens Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Children, hardly a revelation, are not easy to please at the opera. A small boy spotted at Covent Garden for Semiramide – four hours of epic Rossini tragedy – must have been glad of the toy dog he thought to bring. His seat was empty by the interval. Few operas breach...
Review: Premiere of Richardson-Schulte & Chattertons’ Shot, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Dec. 7, 2017
It was a tale of two D’Arcy McGees as the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra presented a double bill of Dermot Nolan’s play, It’s Morning Now followed by the premiere of HPO composer-in-residence Abigail Richardson-Schulte’s chamber opera, Shot, in The Studio at...
Review: John Adams & Peter Sellars’ Girls of the Golden West, San Francisco Opera, Nov. 24, 2017
During recent decades, John Adams has composed a range of highly successful operas, including the repertory standard Nixon in China (1987). The more surprise then when Girls of the Golden West—in its San Francisco Opera world premiere—proved, on the whole, ponderous...
Review: Handel’s Rodelinda, VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert, Nov. 26, 2017
Opera in concert or a minimalist staging? Despite the company’s title, Voicebox: Opera in Concert’s Nov. 26 production of Rodelinda was by no means a static presentation with six singers “parking and barking” in front of a small Baroque orchestra of eleven players....
Semiramide review – Rossini sounds sublime in Alden’s eccentric staging
Rossini’s great 1823 tragedy Semiramide, his last work composed for Italy before he based himself in Paris, was deemed a masterpiece in the 19th century, but fell out of fashion for much of the 20th. David Alden’s staging is the first at Covent Garden since 1887,...