Author: Michael Milenski

Recalling a very dark moment in San Francisco’s history, Michael Korie and Stewart Wallace’s Harvey Milk Reimagined [for small operatic forces], arrived, via St. Louis, finally in San Francisco. This…

Minimalism in the Commonwealth of Virginia — an iconic opera in rarefied format achieved a powerful presence. Maestro Jorge Parodi’s orchestra of single winds, two horns, strings 3,2,1,2,1, piano, timpani…

It was only a matter of time — first a novella (1917), a pulp magazine series (1919-1954), a few high profile movies (1920, 1940, 1998), a TV series (1957), a…

Each early spring the Opéra national de Lyon imagines three operas within a vague thematic framework to comprise its Winter Festival. This year the theme is “Se saisir de l’avenir”…

The first a premiere, the second of recent vintage. Both constructed on count downs (the first, one hour, the second, two hours) — thus the Opéra de Lyon’s Winter Festival…

It was a fairly straight forward Rusalka, even though it took place at an on-stage Olympic style swimming pool, somewhere. Rusalka did kill the prince with a spear fishing gun,…

Any Calixto Bieito production is news, but it is great big news when he takes on the first installment of opera’s notorious four opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The…

Bellini’s tenth and last opera, I Puritani, took Paris by storm in 1835. Judging from the wild applause and standing ovation just now, it has lost none of its appeal…

Just when you thought DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) was dead, American stage director Peter Sellers brazenly enlisted 16 highly trained (various cool, pop styles) dancers of color from America, France…

The least performed of the Verdi oeuvre, not included in the Verdi canon, Giovanna d’arco (Joan of Arc) was given another chance just now on one of Italy’s famed Verdi…