La Campana Sommersa (New York City Opera)
This production was a co-effort with Fondazione Teatro Lirico di Cagliari whose orchestra joined forces with the New York City Opera Orchestra under the baton of Ira Levin who brought out every bit of...
View ArticleHeartbeat Opera: Butterfly
The artistic team responsible for this "Butterfly" made radical decisions and changes. Puccini’s original three acts of linear story – love and “wedding,” waiting, betrayal and death – are reorganized...
View ArticleAngels in America (New York City Opera)
By eliminating most of the extended fantasy elements of the play, they reduced the storyline to the domestic turbulence of two couples and a deservedly ugly portrait of Roy Cohn. Add in a visit by the...
View ArticleLa Fanciulla del West (New York City Opera)
The newly reconstituted New York City Opera opened its second full season with a shared production of Puccini’s rarely performed "La Fanciulla del West" created in collaboration with the Teatro di...
View ArticleThe Sorcerer (New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players)
This 1877 operetta, now celebrating its 140th anniversary, has been reduced to the nine major roles and the chorus has been eliminated. The result is a streamlined version that moves along at a steady...
View ArticleDolores Claiborne
King’s "Dolores Claiborne" would seem a strange choice for dramatization as the book is a monologue told entirely by its protagonist at a police interrogation over a murder on Little Tall Island off...
View ArticleThe Nubian Word for Flowers/Rainbird
The set for the opera was itself a living, organic phenomenon; it functioned as an additional character in the opera. IONE sat near the moveable stage-flats; her back was to the audience, yet she was...
View ArticleH.M.S. Pinafore (NYGASP)
Along with some contemporary updating which always gets a laugh, Albert Bergeret’s direction is sharp and shrewd and his conducting of Sullivan’s sprightly and animated score is equally assured as...
View ArticleJerry Springer – The Opera
"Jerry Springer - The Opera" is not for opera purists nor is for people who are easily offended by four letter words and other bad language of which there is a multitude. However, its irreverence...
View ArticleMaster-Pieces, A Chamber Opera
However, it’s not what we normally think of as an opera. And the performance, characterized by both moving strengths and disconcerting weaknesses, unfolded, awkwardly and interestingly … and then, at...
View ArticleBrokeback Mountain
While "Brokeback Mountain" impresses in its sincerity, it does not move which is a serious problem considering the romantic and tragic plot. Director Jacopo Spirei’s cast is in fine form as singers...
View ArticleThe Yeomen of the Guard
As for cast standouts, Greenwood excelled both musically and dramatically. His ringing, expressive vocals and crisp diction made him an audience favorite. And he created an effective character shift...
View ArticleExperiments in Opera: Modularias
Though vastly different from each other, all four operas dealt either directly or indirectly with time, with the ways in which the past -- personal, historical, mythic -- influences the present. Each...
View ArticleThe Pirates of Penzance 2018 (NYGASP)
In the plus column, it was easy on the eyes. Scenic designer Lou Anne Gilleland created agreeable though not particularly elaborate sets: a rocky stretch of seashore for the first act and a gloomy...
View ArticleRameau, Maître à Danser (Les Arts Florissants)
Unlike the company’s 2016 luxuriously staged "Les Fêtes Vénitiennes," also at the Gilman, "Rameau" was purposely staged by Sophie Daneman as if in a village square, simply but effectively, the...
View ArticleOwen Wingrave
Witnessing the LOTNY production makes one wonder why "Owen Wingrave" is not performed more often: it has a small cast of eight with juicy roles for all of the characters, evenly divided between men and...
View ArticleThe Mikado or, The Town of Titipu (NYGASP)
The framing device is not a completely elegant solution to the problem, but it gets the job done. Gilbert gets knocked out cold while examining the contents of the trunk. While incapacitated, he...
View ArticleSun & Sea
Performed by a cast of 15 singers and enacted in pantomime by numerous local volunteers all dressed in swimwear, Sun & Sea is a typical day at the beach in which we hear the thoughts of the...
View ArticleThe Garden of the Finzi-Continis
While Gordon has said in interviews that his model for the music was Puccini, in fact, the atonal orchestral score sounds more like operas by Gian Carlo Menotti, Carlisle Floyd and Dominick Argento....
View ArticleIntimate Apparel
The new opera, "Intimate Apparel" is a very impressive, accessible work. If it has a fault, it is completely humorless but then the original play did not include comic relief either. Unlike Ricky Ian...
View ArticleGoodbye, Mr. Chips
The production is a combination of film and theater techniques which keep reminding us that we are watching a dramatization: realistic sets (designed by Jacquelyn Scott) give way to scenes in which we...
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View ArticleH.M.S. Pinafore (NYGASP)
While Albert Bergeret’s old-fashioned production does not sparkle, it is a solid, steady ship that satisfies with all its jokes intact plus a few new ones like the hilarious drunken scene between the...
View ArticleLady in the Dark
Unfortunately, this is musical comedy and does not need operatic voices, Lawrence being famously a singer with a very small range, while Kaye came from cabaret and night club. With all of the leads...
View ArticleIceland
Composer/librettists O-Lan Jones and Emmett Tinley have created what they refer to as “a re-Creation Myth” in this fascinating interdisciplinary opera theater work entitled "Iceland." It is profoundly...
View ArticleTosca (Heartbeat Opera)
Just when you think you’ve seen an opera so many times you can’t imagine it being told anew along comes Heartbeat Opera with a riveting take on Puccini’s "Tosca." Director Shadi G. sets it as a...
View ArticleLady M (Heartbeat Opera)
Heartbeat Opera seems to have found the way to separate themselves from the rest of the pack of alternative opera companies here in New York. Their way is to inject the standard repertory of grand...
View ArticleIolanthe (MasterVoices)
MasterVoices concluded its 2022-23 season with a lovely concert staging performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s rarely seen comic opera "Iolanthe (or The Peer and the Peri)" staged and conducted by...
View ArticleAmerican One Acts, a double bill
The little OPERA theatre of ny has become known for its adventurous programing of rarely seen and heard operas in English including the New York premieres of Benjamin Britten’s opera for television,...
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