In Review
Pinned posts
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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.
In review posts
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Tomasz Konieczny & Lech Napierala at the Kosciuszko Foundation
Tomasz Konieczny & Lech Napierala at the Kosciuszko Foundation
"With deft piano accompaniment, Konieczny brought to bear more legato than he had as the Holländer over an orchestra, and within the realm of the technically possible he observed the sung songs’ dynamic markings. But headiness and swift vocal maneuvering play little part in his voice's current make-up, which limited his effectiveness in some numbers."
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La Bohème at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
La Bohème at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
"Lorenzo Passerini conducting the Orchestre National de France conducted Puccini's score with melodramatic intensity, drawing electrifying playing from the orchestra. A few curious pauses were questionable, but generally this was a coruscating reading of the score. The brilliance of the bohemian’s music has rarely sounded more vivid."
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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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Hamlet at the Munich Opera Festival
Hamlet at the Munich Opera Festival
"Brett Dean has written a cogent work, orchestrally innovative and musically inventive, which pays a debt to the history of the art form. There are touches of Benjamin Britten, particularly in Hamlet's monologue and echoes of Donizetti in Ophelia's music, especially in her mad scene. Dean's highly expressive score has dramatic continuity as well. It is to librettist Matthew Jocelyn's credit that, every line in the opera is original Shakespeare."
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Woman at Point Zero at Linbury Theatre
Woman at Point Zero at Linbury Theatre
"Bushra El-Turk's opera offers only the rarest moments of light amidst the darkness, mostly provided by the initially wary but steadily increasing trust between the two women at its core. But the story possesses a considerable power, amply realized in the performances of Dima Orsho’s Fatma and Carla Nahadi Babelegoto’s Sama. Both singers are clearly committed to their roles and skilfully directed in Laila Soliman’s stark but effective production."
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Le Nozze di Figaro at Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
Le Nozze di Figaro at Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
"The advantage of casting a Mozart opera in a company with a fixed ensemble of singers, such as Munich‘s Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, who are used to working with each other day-in and day-out, cannot be overestimated. The Gärtnerplatz’s unity of purpose and complete understanding of each other made their new production of Le Nozze di Figaro, enormously satisfying."
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Roméo et Juliette at Paris Opéra
Roméo et Juliette at Paris Opéra
"The opera was cast from strength, headed by the star-crossed couple of French–Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig and French tenor Benjamin Bernheim. Dreisig’s silvery timbre projects sweetness as well as determination. This was a Juliette who knew what she wanted, and her performance of 'Amour, ranime mon courage' combined virtuosity and force, although her trills need work. Opposite her, Bernheim had an exceptional evening vocally. His Roméo was sung with loving attention to detail and perfect diction, as well as expansive, thrilling high notes."
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Hänsel und Gretel at Opera Holland Park
Hänsel und Gretel at Opera Holland Park
"Laura Lolita Perešivana’s Gretel offered a luscious, freely flowing soprano, and mezzo Charlotte Badham, as her stage brother, Hänsel, matched Perešivana perfectly in tone and expertly in childlike body-language. Their duets were musical and especially vocal highlights."
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Bound at Seattle Opera
Bound at Seattle Opera
"At the end of an opera season with several new or recent works in which social justice issues and storytelling pushed emotional buttons that music often failed to support, Bound was a refreshing change. Its story, in a libretto by Bao-Long Chu, is the true one of Diane Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant and straight-A high-school student in Texas who, working two jobs to support herself and her siblings, missed enough school to be jailed for truancy. Soprano Karen Vuong, shortly after a fine and glamorous Rusalka in Portland, looked tiny and crushed as Diane as she with great intensity lamented her state and conflicting loyalties in the most beautiful aria in any new or recent work."