Reviews
Philly Flute’s Fast and Furious Frills
The O17 festival has appropriated Barry Koskie’s acclaimed eye-popping production and cast it from strength with some of the finest young singers to be found on today’s opera stages. Mr. Koskie has co-directed with Suzanne Andrade and the pair has collaborated closely...
Review: Bandits in the Valley, Todmorden Mills, Toronto, Sept. 16, 2017
A new opera is taking audiences back in time at Todmorden Mills. Each weekend in September, Tapestry Opera’s production of Bandits in the Valley is performed in the historic buildings and forests of the Mills. It’s about an hour long with no intermission, and the fast...
At War With Philadelphia
At the renowned Philadelphia Museum of Art they presented War Stories, a double bill of Monteverdi’s brief madrigal Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda paired with the contemporary I Have No Stories To Tell You by composer Lembit Beecher and librettist Hannah...
Review: Acis and Galatea, Annex Theatre, Vancouver, Sept. 16, 2017
A new take on an old story Handel’s take on the Greek myth of Acis and Galatea received a refreshingly twenty-first century approach by re:Naissance Opera and Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre at the Annex Theatre in downtown Vancouver on September 16. Collaborating...
The Mozartists at the Wigmore Hall
For their opening concert, at the Wigmore Hall, they were joined by one of Classical Opera’s Associate Artists, soprano Louise Alder. Six months ago, one might have described Alder as a ‘rising star’ but recent accolades - including ‘Young Singer of the Year’ at the...
Pagliacci, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges review – Opera North’s ‘Little Greats’ series looks to be well named
Grand Theatre, Leeds The company’s season of short operas is less adventurous than its previous iteration, but there is little to fault in the execution For its autumn season, Opera North is reverting to a format first used in 2004 with a programme of “Little Greats”...
Mansfield Park at The Grange
I’m not sure how many of the audience at The Grange for the first of two performances of Jonathan Dove’s opera were Austen aficionados but the foot-stamping reception that the full house gave the composer’s newly orchestrated opera suggested that they thought he’d...
Figaro Getting Hitched on the Big Screen at Opera Philadelphia’s “Festival O 17”
Opera Philadelphia’s “Festival O 17” (September 14 to 25) – including a free reprise of the company’s recent production of The Marriage of Figaro, to be shown in HD on Freedom Mall Jumbo Screens, September 23, 2017. Opera Philadelphia is going out on the town this...
Turandot in San Francisco
The hype surrounding the Hockney retrospective just now in Paris, last year in London and soon to arrive at New York’s Met (November 27), and certainly the 2013 Hockney exhibition at SF’s De Young have kept this now 80 year-old icon of canvas painting at the center of...
The School of Jealousy: Bampton Classical Opera bring Salieri to London
Second, summer downpours having necessitated removal into the Church of St Mary’s, the nave of which was too small to accommodate BCO’s set, this performance at SJSS provided an opportunity to see the opera as envisaged by director/designer Jeremy Gray, in a simple...
Richard Jones’ new La bohème opens ROH season
Even before curtain-up, the gently falling snow was sparkling against the black night sky of late-nineteenth century Paris. This is a production which strives to balance ‘realism’ with romance: exquisite design details create verisimilitude, while the visible...
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream: Composer Moto Osada’s New Opera at the Japan Society
It is such stuff as dreams are made on. This week, the Japan Society in New York City plays host to the North American premiere of eminent Japanese composer Moto Osada’s opera Four Nights of Dream. Ironically, given the title, the run is for only three nights –...