Opera Theater Reviews

Review: LISE DAVIDSEN's 'Wesendonck Lieder” Highlights Met Orchestra Concert at Carnegie under Nezet-Seguin
by Richard Sasanow - February 05, 2024

The foray of the Met Orchestra under Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin into the concert hall the other night—Carnegie Hall to be specific, during its “Fall of the Weimar” series—was in some ways like a three-part meal that mixed the order of the courses. First came an appetizer (running less than ...

Review: CRUZAR LA CARA DE LA LUNA at Austin Opera
by Victoria Schwarz - February 04, 2024

Music by José “Pepe” Martinez, Lyrics by José “Pepe” Martinez and Leonard Foglia, Book by Leonard Foglia, Orchestration by David Hanlon, CRUZAR offers a deeply moving and acutely transparent experience....

Review: Edmonton Opera Re-Imagines DON GIOVANNI Through a Modern Canadian Lens
by Sarah Dussome - February 02, 2024

Opera’s most notorious ladies’ man has returned to The Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. This time, Don Giovanni prowls the streets of 21st century Canada, flaunting red carpet-worthy attire and spamming women with flirty texts.  ...

Review: THE HANDMAID'S TALE, English National Opera, London Coliseum
by Gary Naylor - February 02, 2024

Paul Ruder's opera, based on Margaret Atwood's celebrated novel, has, frighteningly, gained more relevance since its premiere in 2000...

Review: Audra McDonald in Concert with The National Symphony Orchestra at Kennedy Center Concert Hall
by Mary Lincer - January 31, 2024

Audra McDonald has (at least) four voices--Broadway, jazz, opera, blues--not to mention six Tonys. She brought them all (the voices, not the awards) to her two hour concert with the National Symphony Pops which repeats Wednesday evening, January 31. ...

Review: AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE: Three 20-Minute Operas at Kennedy Center
by Roger Catlin - January 23, 2024

What did our critic think of AMERICAN OPERA INITIATIVE: THREE 20-MINUTE OPERAS at Kennedy Center?...

Review: Kouyoumdjian-Vavrek ADORATION Is a Cautionary Tale at Prototype
by Richard Sasanow - January 22, 2024

Another year has come to an end for the Prototype Festival of new opera theatre-music theatre, under the banner of Beth Morrison Projects and HERE. For those of us who couldn’t make it to all the shows on display at various venues around town, it’s always something of a crapshoot: Which ones do you ...

Review: MANON, Royal Opera House
by Michael Higgs - January 18, 2024

Kenneth MacMillan's Manon is a haunting exploration of desire and sexuality, contrasting pompous extravagance with the poverty of the masses....

Review: No Heaven, Only Hell, in Huang Ruo's ANGEL ISLAND from Prototype at BAM
by Richard Sasanow - January 15, 2024

Huang Ruo’s artistically bold, viscerally devastating ANGEL ISLAND had its local debut the other night at BAM’s Harvey Theatre on Brooklyn’s Fulton Street, produced by Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) and BAM. Its New York premiere is part of the annual Prototype Festival of opera theatre-music theatre-...

Review: ELEKTRA, Royal Opera House
by Alexander Cohen - January 15, 2024

The Royal Opera House’s new production of Elektra could do with an extra pinch of Saltburn-esque depravity....

Review: When Akhmetshina's On Stage, Don't Fence The Met's New CARMEN In
by Richard Sasanow - January 06, 2024

Sometimes you hear a singer who embodies a role so completely that it’s hard to imagine her in anything else. That’s how I felt about the wonderful mezzo Aigul Akhmetshina, who’s singing the title role in the Met’s new production of Bizet’s CARMEN, which I saw at its second performance. Her portraya...

Review: OPERA ITALIA at Wroclaw Opera
by Natalia Jarczynska - January 06, 2024

What did our critic think of OPERA ITALIA at Wroclaw Opera?...

Review: Bullock, Tines, Costanzo, White Thrill under Conductor Reif in Chamber Version of Adams's EL NINO
by Richard Sasanow - December 25, 2023

The American Modern Opera Company (AMOC) continues showcasing a chamber version of John Adams's, EL NINO, beckoning back to Handel's MESSIAH, which played a few days ago at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. It showcased spectacular singing from Julia Bullock, Davone Tines, Antho...

Review: HANSEL AND GRETEL, Royal Opera House
by Michael Higgs - December 18, 2023

Antony McDonald's production simply oozes glamour and matches perfectly the opera’s quintessentially Romantic music. Eerie forests cast in twilight, cluttered huts, and old-fashioned costumes mix and mingle to give audiences a feeling of watching something straight out of the 19th century....

Review: THE LION, THE UNICORN, AND ME at Kennedy Center
by Elliot Lanes - December 11, 2023

Ten years ago, Washington National Opera (WNO) premiered a family opera about the events leading up to the birth of Jesus in a manger. This past weekend, The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me returned to Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater for four performances only. I reviewed the premiere, and it was as good...

Review: ODYSSEY: A HEROIC PANTOMIME, Jermyn Street Theatre
by Gary Naylor - December 10, 2023

Five opera singers are holding out for a hero...

Review: San Diego Opera Performs THE MIRACLE OF REMEMBERING at San Diego Civic Center
by Ron Bierman - December 08, 2023

What did our critic think of San Diego Opera Performs THE MIRACLE OF REMEMBERING at San Diego Civic Center?...

Review: Met's First TANNHAUSER of the Season Interrupted by Demonstrators
by Richard Sasanow - December 01, 2023

All that was missing were shouts of “food fight!” to turn last night’s performance of Richard Wagner’s TANNHAUSER—the first of the Met’s season—into a version of National Lampoon’s Night at the Opera, as climate activists interrupted the house debut of the great baritone Christian Gerhaher, and audi...

Review: CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA / PAGLIACCI, Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - December 01, 2023

Sensational staging and great music sung with such passion, but are changing mores transforming how we see the sad clown and his wicked revenge?...

Review: SIR BRYN TERFEL at Kennedy Center
by Elliot Lanes - November 21, 2023

Sometimes it doesn't take much to make a reviewer happy and have an excellent musical experience. Welsh Bass-Baritone superstar Sir Bryn Terfel with only two instrumentalists proved that in spades. Add to that the bonus of what seemed like NO, that’s right, ZERO amplification this past Sunday in th...

Review: Magical Realism of Daniel Catan's FLORENCIA EN EL AMAZONAS Spellbinds Audience in Met Debut
by Richard Sasanow - November 18, 2023

Just as the Met’s debut of Mexican composer Daniel Catan’s FLORENCIA EN EL AMAZONAS (FLORENCE IN THE AMAZON) began the other day, a member of the audience yelled out “Viva la ópera en español!” (“Long live opera in Spanish!”). And that was before a single note of the composer’s lyric, highly accessi...

Review: Edward Hopper Paintings Inspire LATER THE SAME EVENING by John Musto and Mark Campbell at Juilliard Opera
by Richard Sasanow - November 15, 2023

It’s amazing how much emotion John Musto and Mark Campbell have been able to cram in the mere 75 minutes of LATER THE SAME EVENING, a one act opera, which has been on view this past week at Juilliard Opera at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, on West 65 Street, down the block from Lincoln Center’s Alice ...

Review: JEPHTHA, Royal Opera House
by Alexander Cohen - November 09, 2023

300 years have passed since Jephtha, Handel’s Greek tragedy-infused oratorio, was heard at Covent Garden. Now a lustrous new production helmed by artistic director Oliver Mears begs the question: is it a lost classic? Or one to consign to the history books?...

Review: Comedy Tonight! MasterVoices Does THE FROGS, Or Why Isn't Sondheim at the Met?
by Richard Sasanow - November 07, 2023

MasterVoices, under Ted Sperling, found THE FROGS irresistible—and the result was a hit, or, as Shakespeare wrote in “Hamlet”: “A hit, a very palpable hit.” With its libretto by Burt Shevelove and Nathan Lane (and Nathan Lane again), it fit the stage of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theatre very nic...

Review: ROMEO AND JULIET at Kennedy Center
by David Friscic - November 07, 2023

The oft-told tale of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet which has been beloved throughout the ages and been interpreted and showcased in so many films, stage productions and even a ballet ---has been mounted by the Washington National Opera in an odd sort of manner. In composer Charles Gounod’s ...