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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Ariadne auf Naxos at Garsington Opera
Ariadne auf Naxos at Garsington Opera
"Director Bruno Ravella is a craftsman and the intricate conversational byplay between the characters in both halves of the piece was finely observed."
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The Queen of Spades at the Grange Festival
The Queen of Spades at the Grange Festival
"The outstanding achievement of the Grange Festival's 2023 season was the company premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades, given in a production by Paul Curran and conducted by Paul Daniel. Curran brought a commendably coherent overview to the piece while regularly focusing on smaller details that registered powerfully: the slow, steady disintegration of Eduard Martynyuk’s Herman was particularly well presented in the tenor’s stance and physical gestures."
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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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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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Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival
Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival
"Augmented reality reached the Bayreuth Festival this season. The festival originally planned to supply the entire audience for Jay Scheib’s new staging of Parsifal with specially designed glasses to experience the production’s three-dimensional moving images. Instead only 300 ticket holders received the glasses for each show. While Scheib offered a modern, well-thought-out reading of Parsifal’s text and music, the nonstop barrage of images threatened to turn the innovative aspects of this Parsifal into visual Muzak."