Living at the Opera

From Seen and Heard International By: Bernard Jacobson Vancouver Opera, soloists, cond. John DeMain, dir. Michael Cavanagh, scenic designer Erhard Rom, costume designer Parvin Mirhady, lighting designer Harry Frehner, projections designer Sean Nieuwenhuis, choreographer Wen Wei Wang, sound designer Andrew Tugwell, chorus director Leslie Dala, Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia, 13.3.2009 (BJ) If Vancouver [...]

L to R Robyn Rocklein as Elizabeth Proctor, Jennifer Beauregard as Abigale Williams and Seth Kershisnik as John Proctor in The Crucible. © The Opera Theater took a big risk this year as part of its series of presenting contemporary operas in English. After four years of successful modern productions – including a 2008 heartfelt [...]

From SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL OPERA REVIEW By: Harvey Steiman The current production of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess concluding its run at San Francisco Opera revels in the scope and scale of grand opera, the oversized emotions and big gestures, both musical and dramatic, that make the blood rush when opera takes wing. For the [...]

By James L. Zychowicz Reprinted with permission from Seen and Heard – Music Web’s Live Opera, Concert and Recital Reviews. Soloists, Chorus and Orchestra of Lyric Opera of Chicago, John DeMain (conductor) Civic Opera House, Chicago 29.11.2008 (JLZ) Production: Director – Francesca Zambello Set Design – Peter J. Davison Costumes – Paul Tazewell Lighting – [...]

By Harvey Steiman Reprinted with permission from Seen and Heard – Music Web’s Live Opera, Concert and Recital Reviews. Soloists, chorus and orchestra of Los Angeles Opera, Placido Domingo, conductor; Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. 7.9.2008 (HS) Cast: SETH BRUNDLE, Daniel Okulitch VERONICA QUAIFE, Ruxandra Donose STATHIS BORANS, Gary Lehman OFFICER/MEDICAL ANALYST/CHEEVERS, Beth Clayton MARKY, [...]

In an interview in the Tucson Weekly a week before the U of A Opera Theater’s first performance of Dominick Argento’s Postcard from Morocco on April 4th, Charles Roe, the program’s artistic director stated that although music director and conductor Thomas Cockrell was convinced that mounting Argento’s surrealistic work would be a good step for [...]

Arizona Opera ended its 2006/07 season with a tightly-knit, well-tuned presentation of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, his best known opera that has enjoyed numerous productions since its New York City Opera debut in 1956. The work is based on the Biblical account of Susannah and her Elders from the Book of Daniel, as it appears in [...]

When Charles Roe, the artistic director of the University of Arizona’s Opera Theater looked around for an opera to produce for the school’s 2007 spring production, he decided on Kirke Mechem’s 1982 work, Tartuffe. The director had heard the opera a number of years ago and was impressed by Mechem’s varied musical score and recognized [...]

When Charles Roe, the voice professor and director at the University of Arizona’s Opera Department decided to mount Mark Adamo’s Little Women, a piece Roe readily admits to having fallen in love with on first hearing, he may have had some second thoughts about producing the opera but certainly not with Adamo’s lucid, lyrical arcs [...]

The following comments on Ainadamar were written after a visit to the Santa Fe Opera in the summer of 2005. There must be a running debate in musical circles, particularly with audiences and music critics, as to whether Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar” is a theatrical musical piece or an opera. The performance on August 14th, 2005 [...]