Articles
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Alcina at Caramoor
Alcina at Caramoor
"This Alcina is not a profound work: it has none of the dramatic complexity of Monteverdi’s contemporaneous operas. But the music is extremely diverting. Caccini’s score works its own kind of sorcery, in lilting dance movements and eloquent recitatives. The composer’s setting of text is especially compelling: the vocal lines are characterful and expressive, and governed by the cadences of human speech."
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Rachel Willis-Sørensen: Four Last Songs
Rachel Willis-Sørensen: Four Last Songs
“Willis-Sørensen’s voice responds keenly to Strauss’s vocal writing. The top is its glory.”
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Così Fan Tutte at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Così Fan Tutte at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
"Director Tara Branham took a wildly intrusive approach to Così Fan Tutte, placing the work not in eighteenth-century Naples but in World War II-era England. It would be nice to report that this Così’s musical presentation helped redeem the dreadful production, but this was not the case. Conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson maintained tight coordination between stage and pit but offered her cast little opportunity for nuance: the music marched forward in fixed formation. Most of the singing was too loud, with the performers rarely aiming for dynamic levels below mezzo-forte."
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Tosca at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Tosca at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
"This intelligent production did not mine Tosca’s full theatrical value, largely because it was hard to believe in the passionate connection between Katie Van Kooten’s Tosca and Robert Stahley’s Cavaradossi."
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Susannah at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Susannah at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
"Given OTSL’s longstanding commitment to American opera, it is remarkable that it had never offered Susannah until this season. Patricia Racette’s production filled the lacuna, telling the sad, simple story plainly and effectively and making a thoroughly convincing argument for the dramatic validity of Carlisle Floyd’s 1955 opera."
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Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Treemonisha at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’s forty-eighth festival season included works by Joplin, Floyd, Puccini and Mozart.
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Earned Moment
Earned Moment
Joyce DiDonato & Jake Heggie join forces for the Met premiere of Dead Man Walking.
