Author: john_y

Once upon a time, Frankfurt Opera had the baddest ass reputation in Germany as “the” cutting edge producer of must-see opera.

For its world class Easter Festival, Baden-Baden mounted a Die Zauberflˆte that owed more to the grey penitential doldrums of Lent than to the unbridled jubilance of re-birth.

Bavarian State Opera’s recent staging of Der Ring des Nibelungen was often a restless, even reckless affair, but there is no denying its substantial musical assets.

With its staging of Alcina, Stuttgart Opera seems to set out to prove that George Friedrich Handel can be all ‘sexypants.’

With a visually beautiful and dramatically honest staging, Netherlands Opera has made as compelling a case as I would imagine possible for Rossini’s grand opera Guillaume Tell.

Netherlands Opera is surely to be numbered among the world’s most adventurous international companies.

Impresaria Francesca Zambello kept up her seemingly tireless process of rejuvenating the Glimmerglass Opera Festival with an ambitious, nay downright risky repertoire choice.

Forget about picking a desert island opera, I want Opera Theatre of St. Louis as my desert island opera company.