First performed in Leipzig in 1930 within the shadow of the Weimar Republic, the clue to Brecht and Weill’s dystopian opera lies in its title. There was nothing in this…
Carmen at the Bastille
Stage director Calixito Bieito’s 1999 production of Carmen made its way to the Opéra Bastille in 2017, one year after its performances in San Francisco, and three years after its…
Delightful Divas Divvy Up Delectable Delicacies at Loudoun Lyric Opera in The Italian Lesson and Bon Appétit!
This weekend Loudoun Lyric Opera opened their charming production of Lee Hoiby’s The Italian Lesson and Bon Appétit!, a double-bill they named Baking with Divas. As opera on a small…
Eugene Onegin in Paris
Eugène Onéguine at the Opéra Garnier was an intimate exploration of the first opera in the Tchaikovsky operatic canon, directed by British actor Ralph Fiennes, an Onegin himself in the excellent…
Un ballo in maschera in Paris
Un Bal Masqué at the Bastille, the 41st performance of Belgian stage director Gilbert Deflo’s 2007 production (the sixth in this edition). This performance was the first with American soprano…
A Coney Island Cosi: ENO’s Oh-So-Busy Production
Relocation, relocation, relocation: Coney Island, Booklyn, is a long way from the Bay of Naples. But such is the setting for Phelim McDermott’s Cosi fan tutte; or is that Cosi…
Songs of Love & War
Laurence Cummings and the Academy of Ancient Music brought around half of Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals (Madrigali guerrieri e amorosi, 1704) to Milton Court. It was preceded by a…
A Revelatory World Premiere Recording of Edmond Dédé’s Morgiane, the First Complete Opera by a Black American
Delos partners with Opera Lafayette and OperaCréole to present the world premiere recording of the earliest complete opera by a Black American. The discovery of Edmond Dédé’s unedited manuscript of…
Blood and Gore in Hamburg: Richard Strauss’s Elektra
Do you want screams, blood-curdling cries, the unearthing of a buried axe, twisted minds messing with your own head? Richard Strauss gives it to you all in his Elektra. Those…
What Rome Wants, Rome Gets: Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto in Hamburg
In the grand scheme of things, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra weren’t the most erotic or passionate of all lovers in history, nor does their story of alignment stand out as…