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February 2023

JANAI BRUGGER: SET TO SING MOZART, PUCCINI AND CARLISLE FLOYD


Lyric Opera Welcomes The Factotum • Seattle Opera’s Premiere: A Thousand Splendid Suns • Truth & Power: William Warfield • Dorothy Maynor’s Legacy • Clear Talent: Countertenor John Holiday • Woman of Iron: Dorothy Maynor • Sound Bites: Jonathan Johnson • Liner Notes: Donna Leon

February 2023 Cover Featuring Janai Brugger

Features

Graceful Strength
Cover Story February 2023

Graceful Strength

Soprano Janai Brugger stars as Susanna in this month’s new Nozze at LA Opera.


In Review

  • The Hours at The Metropolitan Opera
    North America February 2023

    The Hours at The Metropolitan Opera

  • Rigoletto at the The Metropolitan Opera
    North America February 2023

    Rigoletto at the The Metropolitan Opera

    On November 10, Bartlett Sher’s Weimar-inspired production of Rigoletto, which had its Met debut last season, returned to the company with an understated opening-night performance that featured the debuts of French tenor Benjamin Bernheim as the Duke, Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina as Maddalena and Italian conductor Speranza Scappucci leading the Met orchestra.

  • Atalanta at Juilliard Opera
    North America February 2023

    Atalanta at Juilliard Opera

    For Juilliard Opera’s production of Handel’s pastoral opera Atalanta, director Omer Ben Seadia made the canny decision to move the action from Arcadia to Bacchanalia, a modern-day Burning Man-type desert music festival.

  • Don Carlos at Lyric Opera of Chicago
    North America February 2023

    Don Carlos at Lyric Opera of Chicago

    Lyric Opera filled what has been a significant gap in Chicago’s opera experience with its first-ever mounting of Verdi's Don Carlos in its original five-act French version, and Rachel Willis-Sørensen's Elisabeth was something to hear.

  • La Traviata at San Francisco Opera
    North America February 2023

    La Traviata at San Francisco Opera

    Shawna Lucey's handsome new production of La Traviata, which opened at San Francisco Opera’s War Memorial Opera House in November and featured the memorable company debut of soprano Pretty Yende, registered as an unqualified triumph.

  • Orfeo ed Euridice at San Francisco Opera
    North America February 2023

    Orfeo ed Euridice at San Francisco Opera

    San Francisco Opera brought its fall season to a triumphant close with Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, presented in a riveting production by Matthew Ozawa and starring Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński, who never let the listener forget that his character is the world’s greatest singer. His voice is pure-toned, flexible and astonishingly robust, and his performance in the role demonstrated his gift for projecting intelligence and emotion in word and sound.

  • Alcina at the Royal Opera House
    International February 2023

    Alcina at the Royal Opera House

    Vocal values were mixed in the Royal Opera House's new production of Alcina, which opened on November 8 in Richard Jones's glamorous new staging. Soprano Lisette Oropesa sang the title role skillfully without quite producing the tonal richness and depth that might have drawn a full measure of empathy.

  • The Rape of Lucretia at the Linbury Theatre
    International February 2023

    The Rape of Lucretia at the Linbury Theatre

  • Armide at the Opéra Comique
    International February 2023

    Armide at the Opéra Comique

    The premiere of a new production of Gluck's Armide at the Opéra Comique was a musical triumph for conductor Christophe Rousset, leading his orchestra Les Talens Lyriques and the chorus Les Éléments, and Véronique Gens, who enjoyed one of the great successes of her career in the title role.

  • La Périchole at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
    International February 2023

    La Périchole at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

    Offenbach's Périchole returned in triumph to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in a new production directed by Laurent Pelly and conducted by Marc Minkowski, the same team that enjoyed enormous success at the Châtelet with the composer’s Belle Hélène in 2000 and Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein in 2005.

  • Don Giovanni at the Teatro Regio Torino
    International February 2023

    Don Giovanni at the Teatro Regio Torino

    Chiara Muti’s new production of Don Giovanni at the Teatro Regio—conducted by her father, Riccardo Muti, in one of his increasingly rare appearances in the opera house—was appropriately dominated by Luca Micheletti in the title role. The thirty-eight-year-old baritone has everything the part requires—charisma, stunning looks, endless vitality and a voice that is mellifluously seductive.

  • Alzira at Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège
    International February 2023

    Alzira at Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège

    In November, Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège provided a rare chance to see a staging of Verdi’s Alzira in a production directed by Jean Pierre Gamarra and conducted by Giampaolo Bisanti, the house's new music director. In the title role, Francesca Dotto never forced her lyric soprano beyond its natural limits, sketching in the frilly coloratura with lightly voiced accuracy, while allowing herself more force for her dramatic recitatives.

  • The Turn of the Screw at Curtis Opera Theatre
    North America, Online Exclusive February 2023

    The Turn of the Screw at Curtis Opera Theatre

  • Anthony Roth Costanzo & Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
    Concerts & Recitals, Online Exclusive February 2023

    Anthony Roth Costanzo & Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Recordings

JANÁČEK: Jenůfa
Opera & Oratorio February 2023

JANÁČEK: Jenůfa

Asmik Grigorian and Karita Mattila are devastating in Janáček’s blisteringly relevant work.