Every farce needs doors, preferably at least three of them. They must be robust enough to be slammed, frequently, and for characters to revolve through at speed, communications thwarted, connections…
Category: Staged Operas
L’elisir d’amore delights at West Green House Opera
The grounds of West Green House in leafy Hampshire drew from director Victoria Newlyn an inspired staging of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. Situating this 1832 comic opera on a Mediterranean cruise…
Des Moines’ Porgy and Bess Marks a Milestone
How was Des Moines Metro Opera’s closing performance of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess a landmark event? Let me count the ways. First, it marked the successful completion of DMMO’s…
Frolicsome Fairies in Iowa’s Cornfields
With all the doom, gloom and dispiriting events dominating the news cycle, Des Moines Metro Opera served up a perfect antidote with a sassy yet classy staging of Benjamin Britten…
Acres of Consequence in Iowa
As a component of its Fiftieth Anniversary Season, Des Moines Metro Opera added to its already prestigious reputation with a compelling world premiere of Kristin Kuster and Mark Campbell’s A…
Des Moines Teases American Apollo
In a notable departure from the complete works presented in past festivals, Des Moines Metro Opera adventurously programmed a mere fragment of an intriguing “work in progress,” American Apollo. To…
A rare double bill of Delius and Puccini: moving melodrama from Opera Holland Park
Opera Holland Park has a tradition of bringing little-known verismo operas into the light and making them shine. In recent years, the company has excelled with stagings of Mascagni’s Iris…
Prom 7: an ‘interventionist’ Dido and Aeneas from David Bates and La Nuova Musica
We have no idea what the first performance of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas sounded like, we’re not even sure when it took place. All we have are possibilities, probabilities, and a few…
l’incoronazione di Poppea in Aix
It is hard to say which was more impressive just now in Aix’s tiny Jeu de Paume theater — the musical edition of the Monteverdi masterpiece realized by conductor Leonardo…
Moïse et Pharaon in Aix
Rossini at the hand of a non-Rossinian, stage director Tobias Kratzer, to the baton of a real Rossinian, conductor Michele Mariotti. At the downbeat it was pure Rossini, Mo. Mariotti…