Opera Theater Reviews

Review: THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, Royal Ballet and Opera
by Gary Naylor - September 03, 2024

Mozart, music and mayhem in a tale of an outfoxed aristocrat brought down to earth...

Review: DIDO AND AENEAS, Pitlochry Festival Theatre
by Mary Baillie - September 02, 2024

In total transparency, I was apprehensive about this one because I’ve always associated opera with being outdated and inaccessible. However, director David Douglas has completely changed my mind....

Review: PAGLIACCI at McCaw Hall
by Erica Miner - August 12, 2024

The term has become familiar and beloved to opera lovers since the late 19th century. Seattle Opera offered Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, one of the most performed works of this genre, as its opening production of the 2024-25 season....

Review: YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, Opera Holland Park
by Franco Milazzo - August 08, 2024

Opera Holland Park close out another acclaimed season with a rollicking Yeomen Of The Guard....

Review: Bard's LE PROPHETE Makes You Long for 'Brevity' of Wagner's Ring Cycle
by Richard Sasanow - August 05, 2024

Saying that Giacomo Meyerbeer’s LE PROPHETE is long is like calling the Grand Canyon a pothole: It doesn’t begin to describe the experience, though they both sometimes have a rocky landscape....

Review: Teatro Nuovo Brings Bellini's CAPULETI-MONTECCHI to New York's Rose Theatre
by Richard Sasanow - July 27, 2024

If you want to see an opera based on Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet,” head for Gounod’s version of the piece. with its famous waltz and series of duets. Bellini’s I CAPULETI E I MONTECCHI is not it but that's what Will Crutchfield's Teatro Nuovo brought to town this week,...

Review: Rediscovering Uccelli's ANNA, Teatro Nuovo Again Proves It's Indispensable
by Richard Sasanow - July 24, 2024

An opera doesn’t have to be totally obscure to catch Will Crutchfield’s bel canto eye—but it couldn’t hurt. ANNA DI RESBURGO (ANNE OF ROXBURGH), the first of the two works on this summer’s schedule of the maestro’s company, Teatro Nuovo, certainly falls into that category....

Review: LA BOHÈME at Wolf Trap
by Emily Berger - July 20, 2024

Directed by John Caird and, for this revival, Katherine M. Carter, the production featured a talented cast of emerging opera stars, Studio Artists (many of whom were in featured roles), additional chorus members and the Children’s Chorus of Washington. This large cast filled the stage with excitemen...

Review: ACIS AND GALATEA, Opera Holland Park
by Michael Higgs - July 21, 2024

Opera Holland Park’s staging of Handel’s beloved Acis and Galatea is a smashing success that finds just the right balance between musical finesse and tongue-in-cheek comedy....

Review: IL SEGRETO DI SUSANNA / PAGLIACCI, Opera Holland Park
by Gary Naylor - July 18, 2024

Opera Holland Park delivers two short pieces - an ideal introduction to the form's unique capacity to bring emotional weight to any story...

Review: MADAMA BUTTERFLY, Royal Opera House
by Franco Milazzo - July 15, 2024

There’s a singular simplicity in Madama Butterfly that draws in audiences year after year, decade by decade like moths to a flame: a man loves and leaves a woman; she gives up everything for him. With a staging that mirrors that bare but powerful concept, Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier’s 2002 prod...

Review: COSÌ FAN TUTTE, Royal Opera House
by Franco Milazzo - July 08, 2024

Has opera found its own Ivo van Hove? Jan Philipp Gloger’s radical production of Così fan tutte continues until 10 July....

Review: CARMEN at Union Avenue Opera
by Steve Callahan - July 08, 2024

Saint Louis’ Union Avenue Opera is celebrating the start of it’s thirtieth year with a superb production of Bizet’s Carmen!  (Thirty years—that’s twenty-nine seasons.  Like everyone else Union Avenue was “dark” in 2020.)  Thirty years of ever-increasing excellence in this most challenging of musical...

Review: EDGAR, Opera Holland Park
by Gary Naylor - July 03, 2024

A curious opera that is beautiful and ugly all at once...

Review: TOSCA, Royal Opera House
by Franco Milazzo - July 02, 2024

Fronted by some fresh faces, Jonathan Kent’s cinematic take on the Puccini masterwork Tosca returns for its seventeenth run at Covent Garden. ...

Review: LA VIE BOHEME at Polish National Opera
by Natalia Jarczynska - June 21, 2024

This is my very first time at the Polish National Opera and as we all know, first times can be overrated. This is certainly not the case here....

Review: LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR at Artscape, Opera House
by Michelle B Lewis - June 20, 2024

This restaging of LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR is a fitting tribute to Cape Town Opera's 25 years of artistic excellence. Under Gobbato's direction, the production not only honours the company’s past but also looks forward to its future, showcasing the enduring power of opera to move and inspire. ...

Review: San Diego Opera Presents Andrea Carroll and Joshua Guerrero in Recital at Balboa Theatre
by Ron Bierman - June 14, 2024

About halfway into her two-hour plus recital with tenor Joshua Guerrero, soprano Andrea Carroll gave a well-earned compliment to their accompanist Stephen Hopkins for his technique and versatility. Both were challenged during the unusually varied program the two singers had fashioned....

Review: Audience Is 'Gaga' for Soprano Asmik Grigorian in Recital at Vienna State Opera
by Richard Sasanow - June 14, 2024

There was a buzz in the lobby of the opera house and scalpers galore outside the doors to the ticket office for soprano Asmik Grigorian’s recent sell-out concert at the Vienna State Opera. Clearly, it was a night that the audience was waiting for--this first recital at the house by soprano Grigorian...

Review: Trauma in Two Nights, as SALOME follows TURANDOT to the Analyst's Couch in Vienna
by Richard Sasanow - June 11, 2024

I couldn’t help but wondering whether the scheduling last week of two recent productions at the Vienna State Opera, Claus Guth’s TURANDOT and Cyril Teste’s SALOME, on subsequent nights had anything more than the availability of the stars behind it. After all, both portrayed the title characters as a...

Review: In Freud's Vienna, Grigorian Thrills as Anguished TURANDOT under Kober
by Richard Sasanow - June 09, 2024

Perhaps it’s only fitting in a town that’s known for art, music and psychoanalysis (and maybe a little whipped cream on the side), that the Vienna State Opera’s production of Puccini’s TURANDOT—with the stunning soprano Asmik Grigorian in the title role—features a traumatized characterization of the...

Interview: David Lefkowich of SUOR ANGELICA at Out Of The Box Opera
by Jared Fessler - May 29, 2024

What did our critic think of SUOR ANGELICA at Out Of The Box Opera?...

Review: TOSCA, Opera Holland Park
by Gary Naylor - May 29, 2024

Opera Holland Park open the season with a faithful revival of a much loved classic...

Review: THE MATCHBOX MAGIC FLUTE at Shakespeare Theatre/Klein Theatre
by Mary Lincer - May 25, 2024

What did our critic think of THE MATCHBOX MAGIC FLUTE at Shakespeare Theatre/Klein Theatre?...

Review: TURANDOT at LA Opera
by Andrew Child - May 22, 2024

A sharp blade wielded threateningly, forced perspective creating looming palatial walls, the rotting heads of failed suitors, and a princess literally shrouded in mystery quickly orient us within Puccini’s iconic fairytale....