Manitoba Opera capped its season on a high note with its latest production
of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, sung in the key of
goofiness that has inspired even a certain “pesky wabbit,”
a.k.a. Bugs Bunny’s The Rabbit of Seville.
Manitoba Opera: The Barber of Seville
Handel and the Rival Queens
From Leonardo vs. Michelangelo to Picasso vs. Matisse; from Mozart vs. Salieri to Reich v. Glass: whether it’s Maria Callas vs. Renata Tebaldi or Herbert von Karajan vs. Wilhelm Furtw‰ngler, the history of culture is also a history of rivalries nurtured and reputations derided – more often by coteries and aficionados than by the artists themselves.
Britten’s Billy Budd at the Royal Opera House
“Billy always attracted me, of course, the radiant young figure; I felt there was going to be quite an opportunity for writing nice dark music for Claggart; but I must admit that Vere, who has what seems to me the main moral problem of the whole work, round [him] the drama was going to centre.”
Cool beauty in Dutch National Opera’s Madama Butterfly
It is hard to imagine a more beautifully sung Cio-Cio-San than Elena Stikhina’s.
Kurt Weill’s Street Scene
Kurt Weill’s “American opera,” Street Scene debuted this past weekend in the Kay Theatre at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, with a diverse young cast comprised of students and alumni of the Maryland Opera Studio (MOS).
Handel’s Brockes-Passion: The Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican Hall
Perhaps it is too fanciful to suggest that the German poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747) was the Metastasio of Hamburg?
POP Butterfly: Oooh, Cho-Cho San!
I was decidedly not the only one who thought I was witnessing the birth of a new star, as cover artist Janet Todd stepped in to make a triumphant appearance in the title role of Pacific Opera Project’s absorbing Madama Butterfly.
The Maryland Opera Studio Defies Genre with Fascinating Double-Bill
This past weekend, the Maryland Opera Studio (MOS) presented a double-billed performance of two of Kurt Weill’s less familiar staged works: Zaubernacht (1922) and Mahagonny-Songspiel (1927).
Wexford Festival Opera’s award-winning Il bravo to be streamed on ARTE.tv
From 7 pm (CEST), this Sunday 21 April, ARTE, the European public service broadcaster, will stream one of last year’s Wexford Festival Opera productions, Saverio Mercadante’s Il bravo, which was recently named ‘Best Opera Production’ at The Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards. Il bravo will be freely available worldwide on ARTE’s digital on-demand culture channel, Arte Concert, as part of ARTE’s 2019 Opera Season, a special online service for lovers of classical music. The opera will subtitled in English, German and French.
Daniel Kramer to step down as English National Opera’s Artistic Director
Daniel Kramer is to step down as ENO’s Artistic Director at the end of July 2019 in order to focus on directing more opera and theatre full time.