2026 Glimmerglass Festival Review: Soaring Highs, Brash Lows

The opera company’s summer season featured impressive stagings of Mozart’s ‘Così fan tutte’ and Gregory Spears’s ‘Fellow Travelers,’ as well as grating versions of ‘Oklahoma’ and ‘Madama Butterfly.’

Heidi Waleson

Aug. 17, 2026 at 4:37 pm ET

A scene from ‘Oklahoma.’ GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL 50

Cooperstown, N.Y.

This year’s Glimmerglass Festival looked at America—on the occasion of its 250th birthday—through different lenses. Most arresting was the oldest opera represented here, Mozart’s “Così fan tutte,” given an acute updating by director Eric Einhorn and Kelley Rourke, who devised the brilliantly calibrated English adaptation of the libretto. Setting “Così” on an American college campus in the 1990s, the creative team delved into the mixed motives of everyone involved in the bet that will supposedly prove that all women are fickle, recasting its misogynist undertones into a believable atmosphere of adolescent insecurity and experimentation.

The six characters were seamlessly transformed into a pair of football players and their girlfriends, a trouble-making janitor and a dorm resident advisor; the chorus became the football team’s cheerleaders (“We are Spartans, true and tough” for “Bella vita militar”) as well as silent student attendees at the dorm Halloween party. There were plenty of sight gags—Alfonso (Kevin Burdette, a gifted physical comedian) plunged a toilet while singing an aria. But the opera’s serious musical moments were always given appropriate space to unfold, the emotional development of the four lovers was earned, and the final resolution—who ends up with whom?—was left, properly for this concept, unresolved.

James Rotondo’s clever two-level set allowed for different areas of the dorm; designer Beth Goldenberg went all out with the costume party (Fiordiligi and Dorabella were, appropriately, Alice and the White Rabbit; we also got a robot and a slice of pizza); Kate Ashton’s lighting was integral to the tonal shifts between comedy and seriousness.

Amanda Batista’s steely soprano rose to high drama in Fiordiligi’s arias (“I am woman, hear me roar” was one line). Mezzo Michelle Mariposa’s pert Dorabella softened eloquently in her Act 2 duet (“I give my heart gladly”) with Guglielmo; Gregory Feldmann captured Guglielmo’s confusion and resentment. Tenor Travon D. Walker brought out Ferrando’s susceptibility in the sweetness of “Whenever she’s near me” (“Un’aura amorosa”). The four were especially good in the opera’s many ensembles. Keely Futterer showed off high vocal comedy in Despina’s appearance as an EMT arriving to rescue the boys from their supposed alcohol poisoning at the end of Act 1. Joseph Colaneri was the exuberant conductor.

A scene from ‘Fellow Travelers.’ GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL 50

Equally striking was the newest work, “Fellow Travelers” (2016) by Gregory Spears, in a production that is part of a multi-year tour mounted for the piece’s 10th anniversary. A haunting love story of two men, their bond destroyed by the 1950s Lavender Scare targeting gay U.S. government employees, “Fellow Travelers” makes its impact through a stripped-down libretto by Greg Pierce (based on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel) and its singularly evocative score.

A brief, twisting woodwind figure in the chamber orchestra is a constant, tracking the rise and fall of the love affair of Hawkins Fuller (baritone Joseph Lattanzi), a state department employee, who seduces the eager young Timothy Laughlin (tenor Colin Aikins). At one moment, Minimalism-style repetitions in the orchestra and the text map the Catholic guilt and erotic passion at war in Tim’s heart; at another, they weave together multiple vocal lines into a madrigal-like texture to illuminate the conflicting views in an office or at a party. Then there’s the slow, somber poignancy of Hawk’s final aria, in which he recognizes the impossibility of the relationship, and paves the way to betrayal.

Kevin Newbury’s production, based on his original staging, matches the score’s potent economy. Vita Tzykun’s design, enhanced by Thomas C. Hase’s moody lighting and Devario D. Simmons’s period costumes, has six sets of file cabinets that reverse to form a kitchen or a bedroom. Mr. Lattanzi (who was in the original cast) captured the predatory and mocking façade that Hawk uses to hide his feelings; Mr. Aikins brought brightness and innocence to Tim. Ms. Futterer was touching as Mary Johnson, who tries to protect both men; other members of the strong cast included high soprano Kaileigh Riess as a spiteful office worker and Luke Harnish as Joseph McCarthy. Conductor Kelly Kuo captured the opera’s pacing but sometimes let the orchestra overpower the singers.

Unlike some recent stagings that have emphasized the dark undercurrents in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma,” Francesca Zambello’s slick new production was all primary colors, a paean to American frontier boosterism. Peter J. Davison’s set featured the typical house with a porch, barn and cornfield, even adding a little train that made a single pass across the front of the stage. Ken Billington’s lighting and Constance Hoffman’s costumes, which featured swirling flared skirts in different candy-colored plaids for the female chorus, added to the effect, as did Ms. Zambello’s direction, which emphasized thrust rather than sweetness.

As Laurey, Shereen Pimentel’s edgy Broadway belt grew wearing; her voice sounded too similar to the brassy nasality that we expected (and got) from Ado Annie, here played by Kate Morton. Michael Adams was a mellifluous Curly, Erik Nordstrom properly sinister as Jud, and Peter Murphy (as Will Parker) a better dancer than singer, though he had some issues with the sound design. Theater actress Holly Twyford was a standout Aunt Eller. The many dance sequences, choreographed by Eric Sean Fogel, were excellent. James Lowe’s brash conducting matched the production’s onslaught.

Ms. Zambello’s 2014 production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” directed in a revival by Joshua R. Horowitz, emphasizes the theme of American power: Most of Acts 1 and 2 are set in the U.S. Consulate in Nagasaki, making the Japanese supplicants. It also gives non-Asian chorus members a reason to be present at Butterfly’s wedding, though having a group of American ladies sing the invocation “O Kami! O Kami!” from song sheets seemed peculiar. Anita Yavich’s costumes were very much on point, especially the mixed Western and Japanese attire of the rich prince Yamadori.

As Butterfly, Eri Nakamura’s grating soprano had no bloom and a disconcerting wobble; tenor Eric Taylor’s Pinkerton was just loud; baritone Troy Cook did his share of bellowing as the American consul Sharpless; Ms. Mariposa was similarly assertive as Suzuki. They were matched and even outdone by Mr. Colaneri’s bombastic conducting. Everyone indulged in prodigious scenery-chewing, eschewing any subtlety that Puccini built into this tear-jerking piece in favor of all-around bludgeoning.

Santa Fe Opera 2026 Season Review: Potent Premieres and Reliable Revivals

The summer program features the American debut of Tobias Picker’s ‘Lili Elbe’ alongside satisfying stagings of ‘Rodelinda,’ ‘The Magic Flute,’ ‘Eugene Onegin’ and ‘Madama Butterfly.’

Heidi Waleson

Aug. 10, 2026 at 4:46 pm ET

Lucia Lucas and Sylvia D’Eramo in ‘Lili Elbe.’ BRONWEN SHARP

Santa Fe, N.M.

Tobias Picker’s “Lili Elbe,” which is having its American premiere at the Santa Fe Opera this season, is a multilayered work. Aryeh Lev Stollman’s skillfully crafted libretto is based on the story of the trans Danish landscape painter who began to live openly as a woman in the 1910s and died in 1931 after a series of gender-affirmation surgeries. Positive experiences—her early forays in female clothing; her loving relationship with her wife, the painter Gerda Wegener; and the support of their bohemian community in Paris—are counterbalanced by cruel rejection from some family members and the scathing portrayal of the medical professionals who exploit Lili’s desperation to be “a real woman” and a mother by performing experimental treatments including a uterus transplant.

The most successful parts of Mr. Picker’s score include atmospheric ensemble passages that evoke Lili’s inner longings, such as the chorus “Everything everywhere transformed” that celebrates her social debut as a woman—who has attracted a man—and suggests that the future will be magically smooth. The opera grows progressively darker, and other potent scenes musically probe the tale’s tragedy, including a vicious outburst by her mother and a nightmare—which includes choral Sprechstimme—as she begins to awaken in agony from one of her surgeries.

The title role was written for the trans singer Lucia Lucas, but her worn baritone made little of Mr. Picker’s vocal writing. Soprano Sylvia D’Eramo captured Gerda’s brightness and complexity. Other notable singers were mezzo Lindsay Ammann as Lili’s mother and bass Andrew Harris as the doctor. Conductor Roberto Kalb luxuriated in the rich orchestration.

Director James Robinson adroitly staged the swift changes of scene and mood. Allen Moyer’s set used conveyer belts to slide furniture in from the wings; Greg Emetaz’s misty videos included projections of Orpheus and Eurydice, a subtext in the work. Marco Piemontese’s striking period costumes conjured the artists’ milieu, and Marcus Doshi’s lighting evoked both festivity and the tragedy of the ending.

Meridian Prall and Lucy Crowe in ‘Rodelinda.’ BRONWEN SHARP

The most satisfying musical performance of the week was Handel’s “Rodelinda,” expertly shaped and paced by conductor Harry Bicket, the company’s music director, who knows how to make a modern orchestra—boosted by continuo instruments and recorders—sound like a period-instrument band. In this tale of an imprisoned queen, her supposedly dead husband, and her struggle against a usurper, brilliantly characterized arias succeed each other like jewels, ratcheting up the emotion. By the end of Act 2, when the separated spouses were finally brought together only to face death, their farewell duet was incandescent.

The stellar cast included Lucy Crowe (Rodelinda), whose expressiveness made up for some loss of clarity; countertenor Iestyn Davies, embodying both the vulnerability and explosiveness of her husband, Bertarido; and tenor Anthony Gregory, capturing the volatility of the usurping tyrant Grimoaldo. As Bertarido’s sister, Eduige, mezzo Meridian Prall had splendid low notes and agility; countertenor Hugh Cutting was exquisite as Bertarido’s faithful aide Unulfo, and William Guanbo Su brought a potent bass to Garibaldo, the real villain of the piece.

R.B. Schlather’s stark production, inspired by noir cinema, used blank walls, giant shadows, and a lot of darkness (Masha Tsimring did the lighting) as an effective backdrop for this intense emotional journey. Doey Lüthi’s Victorian costumes were a plus; so were acute directing choices, such as having the insecure Grimoaldo drink himself into a stupor during the farewell duet, thus accounting for his erratic behavior in Act 3.

Matthew Goodheart, Joélle Harvey, Josh Lovell and Sunghoon Han in ‘The Magic Flute.’ BRONWEN SHARP

Christopher Luscombe’s production of “The Magic Flute” wittily transformed Mozart’s Singspiel into a British pantomime, a closely related theatrical tradition. Sung and spoken in a smart, idiomatic English translation by Jeremy Sams, it became a sparkling comedy of archetypes—the questing lovers; the exemplars of wisdom and darkness; and, of course, the clown Papageno (Will Liverman, who enters riding an ostrich). Simon Higlett’s toy-theater set had side boxes, scene-changing flats, a flying boat for the Three Boys and a mummy case for the first entrance of Papagena (Jazmine Saunders). Robert Perdziola’s lively costumes included a classic Wicked Queen headdress for the Queen of the Night (Jeni Houser) and a top-hatted villain getup for Monostatos (Spencer Hamlin). Even the serious moments had hints of comedy, yet the bits were never overdone.

The singers embraced the madness with brio, especially Mr. Liverman, who invited audience participation, including a singalong. Joélle Harvey was a luminous Pamina; Josh Lovell a stalwart Tamino, even when the joke was on him. Alexander Köpeczi and Le Bu showed off weighty low notes as Sarastro and the Speaker. Mr. Bicket paced the orchestra buoyantly, matching the high jinks on stage.

Olga Kulchynska and Mattia Olivieri in ‘Eugene Onegin.’ BRONWEN SHARP

Two satisfying revivals completed the season’s program. In 2021, Covid-19 protocols meant that the chorus had to sing from the side of the stage in Alessandro Talevi’s fantastical production of Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin.” Fully integrated this time, they made the Act 2 name-day party exponentially more nightmarish for poor Tatyana, crowding the room along with the dancers sporting animal heads. As Tatyana, Olga Kulchynska restrained her rich soprano until the end of the Letter aria, but she and Mattia Olivieri (Onegin) ignited in their Act 3 duet. Iván Ayón-Rivas’s striking tenor made for an unusually acerbic Lensky; Ya-Chung Huang was a weirdly creepy Monsieur Triquet; Ms. Prall’s rich mezzo impressed as Filipyevna. Keri-Lynn Wilson was the stylish conductor.

Stephen Costello, Karen Chia-ling Ho and Sun-Ly Pierce in ‘Madama Butterfly.’ BRONWEN SHARP

Previously mounted in 2010 and 2018, the Lee Blakeley production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly,” with its elegant Japanese house (designed by Jean-Marc Puissant) and handsome costumes (by Brigitte Reiffenstuel), got realistic, unsentimental direction by Melanie Bacaling. Karen Chia-ling Ho brought a big sound and sincerity to the title role. Her Butterfly is no pathetic victim—having chosen Pinkerton, America and modernity, she finally accepts that they will destroy her. Stephen Costello was an assertive Pinkerton; Jarrett Ott a mellifluous, nuanced Sharpless; Sun-Ly Pierce a fine Suzuki without illusions. John Fiore’s conducting was serviceable. As in “Lili Elbe,” optimism and romance drain steadily over the course of the story, and here Rick Fisher’s lighting took the tale from the fairy-tale sunset of the beginning to the bleakness of the final tableau.

‘The Egyptian Helen’ and ‘Tolomeo’ Review: Marital Strife and Hidden Identities

At Bard SummerScape, Christian Räth directs an enigmatic staging of Richard Strauss’s myth-bending work; led by its new music director, Peter Whelan, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra brought Handel’s opera to Caramoor.

Heidi Waleson

July 28, 2026 at 4:05 pm ET

Hailey Clark and the company of ‘The Egyptian Helen’ at Bard. MARIA BARANOVA

Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Richard Strauss’s “The Egyptian Helen” (1928) defies any realistic interpretation, and at this year’s Bard SummerScape, Christian Räth staged it as a tortured psychological landscape that was fun to watch, if sometimes challenging to follow. In Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s libretto, the enraged Menelaus tries to kill his errant wife Helena on their journey home from Troy. He is forestalled by the sorceress Aithra, who tries to give the couple a happy ending, inventing a scenario in which a phantom Helena ran off with Paris while the real Helena has actually been asleep in Egypt for the past 10 years. The text includes an Omniscient Seashell, drinks that offer forgetfulness or remembering, ghostly apparitions, a magical couples’ retreat at the foot of the Atlas Mountains, and a desert prince who becomes obsessed with Helena.

At its heart, however, the opera is about marital acceptance and reconciliation, and it was affecting to see two excellent, powerful singers—soprano Hailey Clark (Helena) and tenor John Matthew Myers (Menelaus)—battling their way through a seemingly impossible situation. In staging Aithra’s magical manifestations, Mr. Räth and choreographer Catherine Galasso made their inner demons visible. Menelaus found himself repeatedly killing Paris (six male dancers in Trojan armor) and a phantom Helena (a female dancer); confused by a shadowy chorus in satin nightwear and shoes with red pompoms (Mattie Ullrich designed the costumes); or lost in a maze of mirrors. Tyler Micoleau’s lighting tended toward dimness, which intensified the sense of dislocation. Mr. Räth also collaborated on the scenic design (a gray interior in Act 1, a mountain range in Act 2) with Daniel Unger. Elaine J. McCarthy designed the projections.

Ms. Clark captured Helena’s intensity and determination to make Menelaus feel her love for him; Mr. Myers was poignant in his depiction of a strong man’s total confusion. As Aithra, Jana McIntyre’s bright soprano was insecure in the coloratura passages and grew harsh as the evening progressed. Baritone Blake Denson brought a dangerous ferocity to Altair, the desert prince; as Da-Ud, Altair’s son, killed by Menelaus, who thinks he is Paris, Shawn Roth displayed a sweetly lyric tenor that made for a nice timbral change. Deborah Nansteel doubling as the Omniscient Seashell and one of Aithra’s servants, and Catherine Creed as the other servant, ably filled out the cast. The singers of the Bard Festival Chorale were a game group, swarming all over the stage. Leon Botstein’s conducting of the American Symphony Orchestra was relentlessly loud and unsubtle, missing opportunities for shaping and transparency in what is ultimately a love story. “Helena” runs through Aug. 2, with a livestream on July 31 at 4 p.m.

A scene from the performance of Handel’s ‘Tolomeo, re d’Egitto’ at Caramoor. GABE PALACIO

Katonah, N.Y.

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the San Francisco Bay area’s venerable period-instrument ensemble, visited Caramoor on Sunday with Handel’s “Tolomeo, re d’Egitto” (1728). Conducted by its incoming music director, Peter Whelan—just the fourth in the group’s 45-year history—the orchestra was in excellent form, its stylish swing and careful balances buoyantly supporting the singers. With some judicious excisions of aria sections, the opera ran 2 1/2 hours with one intermission.

Handel wrote “Tolomeo” for a trio of 18th-century superstars, and the Philharmonia presentation scored with two out of three. Tolomeo, the deposed king of Egypt, is hiding out on the island of Cyprus disguised as a shepherd. He is lamenting the death of his wife, Seleuce, who is not actually dead but also on Cyprus, pretending to be a shepherdess and looking for him. Araspe, the king of Cyprus, and his sister, Elisa, are in love with these two exiles and determined to have them no matter what. Newly shipwrecked on the island is Tolomeo’s usurping brother, Alessandro, who is having second thoughts. Everything works out, eventually.

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (Tolomeo) and soprano Lauren Snouffer (Seleuce) were spectacular, their rich, matched timbres and onstage chemistry bringing the separated spouses to vivid life. Both displayed robust instruments with exceptional clarity, agility in florid passages, and moving sincerity in the many laments, which were ornamented with elegant subtlety. Their two duets—one of anguished farewell, the other of joyful reunion—were beautifully blended. As Elisa, Nicole Heaston’s bright, secure soprano was also impressive, but she missed the character’s deep malevolence—Elisa is prepared to kill to get what she wants.

Countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim sang Alessandro with a hooded quality and too much vibrato; he sounded messy, especially in the big register jumps of his agitated Act 2 aria. Bass-baritone Dashon Burton raged monotonously as Araspe.

James Darrah Black, the artistic director of Long Beach Opera, the show’s co-producer, supplied an occasionally inscrutable semi-staging that featured a chest covered with slabs of foam, some color-changing neon cylinders arranged in what looked like a tripping hazard, and four mirrored cubes. Character interactions were thoughtfully choreographed—though having Elisa paw Tolomeo made her seem flirty and desperate rather than dangerous. Still, the director’s contributions for the most part supported the underlying emotional drama, which, in lesser musical and theatrical hands, can be flattened into an evening of empty display.

Teatro Nuovo and Les Arts Florissants Review: Classic Bel Canto and Poignant Baroque

In New York, Will Crutchfield’s company celebrated 200 years of Italian opera in America with performances of ‘Il Don Giovanni’ and ‘Il Turco in Italia’; upstate, at Caramoor, William Christie’s French ensemble and select young vocalists delivered moving renditions of two Marc-Antoine Charpentier works.

Heidi Waleson

July 20, 2026 at 5:09 pm ET

Kresley Figueroa and Mattia Venni in ‘Il Turco in Italia.’ STEVEN PISANO

New York

This summer, Will Crutchfield’s Teatro Nuovo marked the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Italian opera in America. From November 1825 through September 1826, a troupe headed by Manuel García Sr., the famous singer (he was Rossini’s first Count Almaviva), composer and paterfamilias of a legendary opera family, gave 79 performances of nine operas (five by Rossini, two by García, one each by Mozart and Zingarelli) at the 2,000-seat Park Theatre in New York. Teatro Nuovo presented two of them at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater last week. As usual, Mr. Crutchfield took a scholarly approach, examining historical documents to determine what bel canto might have sounded like during that stay.

For its American premiere in May 1826, Mozart’s “Il Don Giovanni” (1787)—the oldest of García’s offerings—got a fresh look from its librettist, the 77-year-old Lorenzo da Ponte, who was then living in New York. Da Ponte created a streamlined version of the piece; his son Luigi contributed the English translation that Teatro Nuovo used for its projected titles. Some arias are cut; Donna Elvira’s Act 2 “Mi tradì” replaces her Act 1 “Ah, fuggi il traditor,” and there is no moralizing epilogue after the Don goes to hell.

Even more startling for modern listeners is the bel canto-style vocal ornamentation. Donna Elvira (mezzo Sedona Libero) got some particularly elaborate flourishes, fitting the character, who gyrates between vengeful fury and desperate love. The soubrette Zerlina is also a lot fancier—García’s daughter Maria Malibran, then 18 but already a superstar, sang the role in 1826. Here, mezzo Simona Genga displayed an impressively large, imperfectly controlled instrument. Soprano Elizabeth Novella was a monochromatic Donna Anna, and exaggerated rubato often made her impassioned outbursts sag. Ricardo José Rivera was a suave Don; Kevin Spooner and Noah B. Rogers were serviceable as Leporello and Masetto. Tenor Martin Luther Clark was bent on erasing Don Ottavio’s usual wimpiness, sometimes to excess; Daniel Mobbs was insufficiently scary as the Commendatore, despite help from the trombones.

Martin Luther Clark and Elizabeth Novella STEVEN PISANO

It was illuminating to hear the period-instrument orchestra—led by Geoffrey Loff, who also played keyboard—with its softer strings and prominent bassoons, though the continuo cellist struggled with coordination. The projections of period décor were charming, as was the slightly antiquated rhymed English text of the titles, but the undirected singers missed the energy of a fully realized performance.

Rossini’s “Il Turco in Italia” (1814) is an underappreciated gem. This romp about Fiorilla, a flirty young woman with a roving eye who is married to Geronio, a wealthy old Neapolitan, is packed with hilarious, fast-moving ensembles. Felice Romani’s libretto also has an unusual—rather meta—construction: It includes a poet who is trying to write an opera buffa and narrates the events, a nod to Mozart’s “Così fan tutte.”

The standout singers were bass-baritone Mattia Venni (Geronio), who sparkled in the speedy patter, and tenor Max Alexander Cook, who captured the wailing self-indulgence of Narciso, Fiorilla’s lover. As Selim, the visiting Turk who catches Fiorilla’s eye, bass Vincent Graña had pitch and rhythm issues, and the grating timbre of Kresley Figueroa’s big, agile soprano undercut her depiction of Fiorilla. Hans Tashjian (the poet), Sabatina Mauro (Zaida, Selim’s former beloved), and David Freides (Albazar, a friend of Zaida) ably filled out the cast. Leading the orchestra from the violin, Elisa Citterio maintained a speedy pace that did not always coordinate with what was happening onstage.

Les Arts Florissants JULIEN GAZEAU

Katonah, N.Y.

The Caramoor visit of Les Arts Florissants on Friday had a special frisson. The ensemble, a stylistic laboratory, essentially revived the forgotten French Baroque repertoire when launched by William Christie in France in 1979. Two of its early signature pieces by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, performed by 10 young singers from the group’s Le Jardin des Voix training program, made it clear that Mr. Christie’s profound musical and historical understanding of this repertoire is still being passed along decades later.

In “Les Arts Florissants,” an ebullient curtain-raiser, La Musique (soprano Camille Chopin) and the other arts offer a paean to the peaceful reign of Louis XIV. La Discorde (baritone Olivier Bergeron) briefly interrupts, but La Paix (eloquently voiced by soprano Josipa Bilić) has the last word.

“La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers” was a master class in the expressiveness of this repertoire, in which music is firmly welded to text. The young singers have clearly internalized its principles. In the title role, tenor Richard Pittsinger sang the grieving widower’s escalating pleas for the return of his wife with almost unbearable poignancy; soprano Sarah Fleiss was also touching as Proserpine, who intercedes for him with Pluton (bass Kevin Arboleda-Oquendo), as were the trio of sufferers in hell (tenor Bastien Rimondi, tenor Attila Varga-Tóth, and Mr. Bergeron) whose torments are eased by Orphée’s song. The glory of this little gem also lies in the frequent choruses, especially the ones in which the damned plead with Orphée to remain, and the magical sound of two violas da gamba, augmenting the nine-person chamber ensemble to express the ineffable power of his music.

Mr. Christie (who directed from the harpsichord and organ) has always used modern theater styles; here, Marie Lambert-Le Bihan and Stéphane Facco did the semi-staging with choreographer Martin Chaix. Four dancers were integrated with the singers in a smooth, physically expressionistic style. It wasn’t always clear when the chorus switched characters—from peace-loving Warriors to Furies in “Les Arts,” for example—since the 10 singers played all the parts, but some red ropes and agonized movement captured the torments of hell as vividly as the music.

‘Lalovavi’ Review: The Black Opera Project’s Glittery Debut

Composed by Kevin Day, the Cincinnati Opera’s Afrofuturist world premiere is a promising opening to its commissioning initiative.

Heidi Waleson

July 13, 2026 at 5:06 pm ET

Brittany Olivia Logan and Terrence Chin-Loy. PHILIP GROSHONG

Cincinnati

Last week, Cincinnati Opera gave the world premiere of “Lalovavi,” the first entry of its Black Opera Project. Over three years, this $6 million commissioning and production effort, sparked in 2019 by bass and company artistic adviser Morris Robinson, will feature three new pieces by black creative teams that focus on “the richness and complexity of the black American experience.”

“Lalovavi,” a first opera for both composer Kevin Day and librettist Tifara Brown, is an Afrofuturist fantasy with nods to the “Black Panther” movies. Its story also suggests “The Magic Flute” in reverse: A totalitarian patriarchal society is overthrown by a matriarchal band of outcasts grounded in love and the natural world; the young heroine, Persephone, defies her father and finds her true roots.

Set in 2426, 400 years after an unspecified global catastrophe, the closed city of Atlas (formerly Atlanta) is ruled with an iron fist by Titan (Mr. Robinson). Aided by Dr. Apollos (baritone Michael Preacely) he maintains community survival through eugenics, purging those with low levels of the strength-conferring Syndica gene. When his daughter Persephone (Brittany Olivia Logan) is found to have the immortality-conferring Tree of Life genetic mutation, which Titan covets for nefarious purposes, she flees the city to seek the Nunewaks, who are led by her long-lost mother, Niamara (Talise Trevigne). She is aided in her quest by Lucian (Terrence Chin-Loy), formerly one of Titan’s soldiers, and Dinah (Adrienne Danrich), her nursemaid and a secret rebel.

A scene from ‘Lalovavi.’ PHILIP GROSHONG

The opera unfolds more like a pageant than a drama. Mr. Day’s lushly orchestrated score, sweetly tonal throughout and full of harp riffs, is paced with a mellow sameness that even the frequent big climaxes can’t jolt into dramatic excitement or dangerous energy. With more than 2 1/2 hours of music, it is also too long. The prevailing aural color works best in the gentler sections, such as Niamara’s appealing aria, “Love, love, come to me.” Ms. Brown has also set much of the Nunewaks’ music in Tut, a secret 18th-century language of the enslaved, which is pleasantly singable. “Lalovavi” is Tut for “love,” which triumphs in the end.

Staged in the 2,500-seat Music Hall, the lavish production, directed by Kimille Howard, benefited from significant resources. Steven C. Kemp’s sets contrasted the forbiddingly gray and angular environment of Atlas with the riotously colored, luminescent trees and rocks of the world outside. Thomas C. Hase’s lighting played up the psychic differences between those two places. Kara Harmon’s outstanding costumes leaned into the Afrofuturist theme with radiant colors, sparkling metallics and three-dimensional construction—including giant wings for Titan’s ceremonial cape and the elaborate robe, headdress and puppet body of Ivavi (countertenor G. Thomas Allen), the cobra guardian of the Nunewaks. Tiara Jonescontributed the essential wig and makeup design. Chloe O. Davis devised writhing choreography for the six dancers who supplied some movement, in contrast to the mostly static chorus.

Talise Trevigne and Ms. Logan. PHILIP GROSHONG

Standouts in the solid all-black cast included Ms. Logan, a potent soprano who also looked splendid in her many costumes, including her final warrior outfit, and Mr. Chin-Loy, whose sweet tenor made his Act 2 lullaby an affecting moment. As Titan, Mr. Robinson often resorted to shouting; mezzo Zoie Reams was persuasive as Persephone’s sister Zipporah. Leading the Cincinnati Symphony, conductor Kevin Miller relished the sweeping, Disneyesque optimism of the score.

The two performances sold well—the second completely—and a large, enthusiastic black audience turned out, a significant achievement for an art form that often has difficulty attracting a diverse public. The next Black Opera Project titles include promising subjects and creators. The 2027 work, “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” is inspired by the life of the congressman and hero of the civil-rights struggle. In 2028, the company will present “Good Bones,” a collaboration between two Pulitzer Prize winners: Composer Michael Abels, known for his scores for Jordan Peele films, and playwright James Ijames, author of “Fat Ham.”

Aix Festival 2026 Review: Brilliant Strauss, Messy Mozart

A new production of ‘Die Frau Ohne Schatten,’ conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, proved a highlight of this year’s festival in Provence, France, in contrast to its incoherent stagings of two Mozart works.

Heidi Waleson

July 8, 2026 at 5:49 pm ET

A scene from ‘Die Frau Ohne Schatten.’ MONIKA RITTERSHAUS

Aix-en-Provence, France

The opening days of this year’s Aix Festival—which was planned by Pierre Audi, who died in 2025— ranged from brilliance to absurdity. On the plus side: A new production of Richard Strauss’s enigmatic “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” dreamed up by the 30-year-old wunderkind conductor Klaus Mäkelä and the singular stage director Barrie Kosky and starring a quintet of exceptional singers, at the Grand Théâtre de Provence.

Mr. Kosky embraced both the magical and psychological aspects of “Frau,” in which the Empress, a supernatural being, seeks a shadow in the mortal world in order to prevent her husband, the Emperor, from being turned to stone. In the first two acts, Michael Levine’s set had a magic-show quality: A black box at the center of the stage would rise to reveal scenic elements like the Emperor’s giant rocking horse or the crowded three-story dwelling of Barak the Dyer and his wife, built of metal tubes and festooned with drying fabric. The malignant Nurse conjures up a pack of monkeys, an octet of twirling black dresses, and a silver-painted dancer to seduce the Dyer’s Wife. But Mr. Kosky’s sensitive direction ensured that the show was about learning through trials what it is to be human. In the third act, set in a stark white box, the characters (all shadowless, thanks to Franck Evin’s skillful lighting) battle their negative instincts to discover tenderness and generosity.

Leading the Orchestre de Paris, of which he is music director, Mr. Mäkelä revealed the transparency in Strauss’s massive score while maintaining its energy and the dramatic propulsion of the story, letting the tension and anxiety of the conflicts relax and bloom into lyricism. Ambur Braid was revelatory as the Dyer’s Wife, rich-toned and theatrically complex. Vida Miknevičiūtė’s bright, plaintive soprano made the Empress’s final triumph especially powerful. Michael Spyres’s clarion tenor and Brian Mulligan’swarm baritone limned the Emperor and Barak; Nina Stemme’s register leaps brought the Nurse to ferocious life. Victoria Behr’s witty costumes—from the Emperor’s robes to the Wife’s casual shorts—completed the picture.

A scene from ‘Accabadora.’ JEAN-LOUIS FERNANDEZ

The world premiere of Francesco Filidei’s “Accabadora” was also worth the trip. Based on a 2009 novel by Michela Murgia, this intense 80-minute chamber opera is set in a Sardinian village in the 1950s, where an elderly woman, Tzia Bonaria Urrai, adopts Maria, a six-year-old from a poor family, as her “soul child.” By day, Bonaria is a seamstress; her other role is to help the dying out of the world with strategically placed pillows.

The libretto, by the composer and Manuelle Mureddu, efficiently condenses the novel using a chorus as both narrator and the village community. The choral writing, in Sardinian dialect, reflects the traditional canto a tenore, giving it an earthy, ritualistic flavor. The style blends remarkably well with Mr. Filidei’s modernist instrumental writing, a haunting, layered texture of squeaks and sighs, colored with celesta and accordion, that seems to breathe with the natural world and the troubled humans in it. Scenes are quick; the solo vocal writing (in Italian) is deft and expressive without being showy, stressing clarity of emotion.

Contralto Noa Frenkel was powerful as Bonaria; Rachel Masclet’s delicate soprano made her believable as the adolescent Maria (who grows to young adulthood over the course of the story). Four other singers played multiple roles and doubled as chorus members; baritone Lodovico Filippo Ravizzawas a standout as the angry Nicola, a young farmer whose death forces a confrontation between Bonaria and Maria. Lucie Leguay was the adept conductor, leading 17 musicians from the Orchestre de l’Opera de Lyon.

In the intimate Théâtre du Jeu de Paume, Valentina Carrasco’s mesmerizing staging evoked the mythic roots beneath the community rituals. Openwork textile weavings formed the backdrop (Ms. Carrasco and Mariangela Mazzeo did the set design); six silent elderly women dressed in black were everything from bread bakers to grape stompers to the Fates weaving—and cutting—the threads of destiny. Mauro Tinti created the period costumes, complete with sculpted black masks for the removers of the dead; Antonio Castro did the eerie lighting.

A scene from ‘Die Zauberflöte.’ JEAN-LOUIS FERNANDEZ

By contrast, the two Mozart works, performed in the outdoor Théâtre de l’Archeveché, were concept-driven and incoherent. “Die Zauberflöte,” a collaboration between director Clément Cogitore and conductor Leonardo García-Alarcón, posited an elaborate allegory about the end of childhood and the collapse of post-World War II optimism. In practice, it was confusing and often chaotic. We got child and adolescent avatars of Tamino and Pamina, who spoke the dialogue while the singers, in black, ducked behind screens (Alban Ho Van designed the minimalist set; Sylvain Verdet the stygian lighting). The principal scenic element was archival video assembled by Mr. Cogitore. For Act 1, it featured bombed-out European cites; for Act 2, we got the building of skyscrapers and suburbia in the United States. The production leaned into the patriarchal negatives of the Temple of Wisdom: Sarastro, blind and creepy, had fascistic leanings; Monostatos wore an NYPD uniform. Wojciech Dziedzic’s costumes took their cues from the video, including 1960s looks for the chorus in Act 2.

The singers were mostly upstaged by the visuals; only Ying Fang broke through with a forthright, gorgeously sung Pamina. Mr. Garcia-Alarcón, conducting his period-instrument orchestra Cappella Mediterranea, tended to push the tempi.

A scene from ‘Requiem.’ MONIKA RITTERSHAUS

Mozart’s “Requiem” a revival from 2019, was worse. Director Romeo Castellucci (also responsible for set, costumes and lighting), aided by choreographer Evelin Facchini, decided that this work about death was a celebration of life, complete with folk dances, trees and a stage gradually spread with dirt. Projected on the rear wall were entries dubbed an Atlas of Extinctions, starting with Trilobites and moving from species through peoples, languages, religions, art works, and institutions in modern Gaza. These were almost as distracting as the dancing. Toward the end, the valiant choral singers removed their clothes under black drapes and skulked offstage in a naked clump in near-darkness.

Conductor Raphaël Pichon, leading Pygmalion, his period-instrument orchestra and chorus, padded the “Requiem” with some additional Mozart works and Gregorian chants. One of those additions, a text setting of a movement of the “Gran Partita,” showed off some excellent oboe playing. Of the four soloists, alto Beth Taylor and tenor Duke Kim were the most impressive. But overall, the music was at odds with the unintelligible staging.

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Review: From ‘Streetcar’ to Shakespeare

The highlight of the company’s season is a production of André Previn’s ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’; also being presented are Adam Guettel’s musical ‘The Light in the Piazza’ and Gounod’s ‘Romeo and Juliet.’

Sara Gartland in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’ ERIC WOOLSEY

By Heidi Waleson

June 15, 2026 5:03 pm ET

Webster Groves, Mo.

Patricia Racette launched her first season as artistic director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis with a winner: She and the company’s music director, Daniela Candillari, breathed new life into André Previn’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”(1998). Its wordy libretto, faithfully adapted by Philip Littell from the Tennessee Williams play, is a bit too long. Yet unlike many operas that closely mirror their sources, Previn’s music adds serious depth and dimension to the characters and story in the tradition of Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmélites” or Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande.”

Previn’s complex, inventive orchestral palette, carefully shaped by Ms. Candillari, deploys jazz-tinged New Orleans brass and sinuous woodwinds along with subtle dissonances to map the tragedy of the fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois, destroyed by Stanley Kowalski, her sister Stella’s brutal, working-class husband. The vocal writing, even in the conversational sections, is distinctive, and Sara Gartland was revelatory in the punishing role of Blanche. Beneath the character’s flirtatious wiles, her powerful soprano brought steel to Blanche’s determination to live in her fantasy—a lost world of wealth and graciousness. The music seesaws brilliantly between Blanche’s dreaming arias, when time seems to stop, and her impoverished reality. Finally, the two states can no longer coexist, and she retreats permanently into delusion, murmuring “Whoever you are” to the doctor escorting her off to an asylum.

Andrew Boyce’s unit set evoked the French Quarter of New Orleans. The kitchen and bedroom of the Kowalskis’ claustrophobic two-room apartment were set against a rear wall of louvered shutters with a second-story wrought-iron balcony reached by a spiral staircase; a streetlamp marked the outdoor scenes. Kylee Loera’s mostly black-and-white projections strategically added atmospheric images, including the eponymous streetcar; Eric Southern’s lighting zeroed in on Blanche—in different colors—whenever she slipped into reverie. Amanda Gladu’s handsome costumes underlined the contrast between Blanche’s finery and the everyday wear of the other characters.

Ms. Racette’s sharply detailed direction kept the focus on Blanche and her gradual disintegration through tiny details—in Act 3, Blanche starts nervously playing with her hair—and bold statements. Stanley’s rape of Blanche was violent and explicit for a few seconds. Then the singers froze in place, the lighting changed, and the screaming orchestra and Ms. Loera’s projections of Blanche’s agonized face told the rest.

Soprano Lauren Snouffer was a sensual Stella, in thrall to her husband; David Adam Moore was all aggression and fierce cunning as Stanley, determined not to let anyone get the better of him. As Mitch, Stanley’s poker buddy who is attracted to Blanche, Bille Bruley’shigh tenor poignantly embodied a weak man trying to be strong.

A scene from ‘The Light in the Piazza.’ ERIC WOOLSEY

Ms. Racette is also experimenting with Broadway musicals, beginning this season with Adam Guettel’salluring “The Light in the Piazza”(2005). The book, adapted by Craig Lucas from a novella by Elizabeth Spencer and set in the 1950s, is the tender story of Clara and Margaret, her very protective mother, who are visiting Florence, where Clara and Fabrizio, a young Italian, fall instantly in love. Clara is developmentally disabled due to a childhood accident; Margaret’s efforts to keep her safe gradually give way to a fuller understanding of her daughter’s awakening, and the lovelessness of her own marriage. Mr. Guettel’s twining, urgent vocal music captures the complexity of the situation, encompassing the innocent, sincere mutual recognition of the lovers and Margaret’s sadness and guilt.

Broadway actress Kate Baldwinmissed Margaret’s profound emotional intensity; an intermittent Southern accent did not help. With her high, bright soprano, Katrina Galka was a persuasive Clara—you believed in her emotional blossoming; tenor Roy Hage needed to be more of a crooner as Fabrizio. Crossover expert Paulo Szot was stylish as Signor Naccarelli, Fabrizio’s father, and Kelly Guerrahad a fine Sondheim-esque number as Franca, Fabrizio’s embittered sister-in-law. Rob Berman was the capable conductor. The bare-bones production, designed by Cameron Anderson with costumes by Ulises Alcala, was efficiently directed by Crystal Manich.

Emma Marhefka and Leonardo Sánchez in ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ ERIC WOOLSEY

The season’s only classic opera title, Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet,” fared the least well. This feast of gorgeous tunes fell prey to a clunky English translation by Edmund Tracey and unidiomatic conducting by Ramón Tebar, making it dull rather than sublime. As Juliet, Emma Marhefka’slyric soprano was best in dramatic moments, such as Act 4’s poison aria; as Romeo, Leonardo Sánchez tended to overcook his tenor. Benjamin Taylor had some trouble with the many words of Mercutio’s “Queen Mab” aria; he was stronger in the duel scene. Bass-baritone Nicholas Newton was a solid, affecting Friar Lawrence. The chorus had good diction, which was not necessarily a plus, given the words.

Like “Piazza,” the very basic production—designed by Liliana Duque Piñeiro—had a decorative back wall and some columns that were moved around by costumed figures for scene changes. The appearance of an actual bed for the Act 4 wedding night was a surprise. Robert Perdziola’s period costumes, repurposed from OTSL’s 2005 staging, conveniently put the Capulets in red and the Montagues in blue, which was awkward when some of Romeo’s interloper friends had to briefly join in the Capulet ball to make up the numbers in the chorus. Keturah Stickann supplied the serviceable direction.

‘Vanessa’ Review: Heartbeat Opera’s Strident Samuel Barber

The New York company offers a stark, taxing adaptation of the composer’s 1958 work, which centers on a woman waiting for her long-gone lover’s return.

Heidi Waleson

May 18, 2026 at 4:28 pm ET

Inna Dukach as Vanessa. RUSS ROWLAND

Heartbeat Opera’s 100-minute adaptation of Samuel Barber’s “Vanessa”(1958) by company artistic director Jacob Ashworth, first presented last summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, came off as a relentless screamfest in the cramped Baruch Performing Arts Center. Trimmed of its subordinate characters and chorus, it was directed with minimalist fervor by R.B. Schlather—set against a white wall with a few chairs, extreme shadow-throwing lighting by Yuki Nakase Link and modern all-black costumes by Terese Wadden.

Gian Carlo Menotti’s gothic libretto felt weirder than usual. The wealthy Vanessa has spent her life in seclusion, waiting for Anatol, the lover who abandoned her 20 years earlier. His son, also named Anatol, a penniless adventurer, arrives and seduces her as well as Erika, her niece. Which woman will accept his obviously feigned love? In this streamlined, starkly realized scenario, the cracks in the opera’s emotional logic are glaring.

Dan Schlosberg’s seven-player arrangement of Barber’s technicolor orchestration, conducted by Mr. Ashworth, was clever but mostly loud with prominent trumpet and trombone, contributing to a musical performance that had just one gear: ferociously strident intensity. Soprano Inna Dukach’sscenery-chewing Vanessa seemed demented from the start, oversinging the role in the small space. She was matched by tenor Freddie Ballentine’sforceful Anatol. Mezzo Kelsey Lauritano’s Erika got a few lyrical moments, including her signature aria, “Must the winter come so soon,” which was briefly reprised—unnecessarily—to drive home the bleakness of the ending. Baritone Joshua Jeremiah’s sentimental Doctor was overwhelmed by the tornado of the love triangle; Vanessa’s mother, the Baroness (mezzo Mary Phillips), was even more cryptic than usual. Even the famous concluding quintet, “To leave, to break,” a bitter dissection of love, was noisy rather than poignant or profound.

‘El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego’ Review: Painters Reunited at the Met Opera

Gabriela Lena Frank’s work about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera is full of luxuriant color—visual and musical—in the company’s new production.

Heidi Waleson

Updated May 18, 2026 at 4:46 pm ET

Isabel Leonard and Carlos Álvarez MARTY SOHL / MET OPERA

New York

The lavish new Metropolitan Opera production of Gabriela Lena Frank’smagical “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” (2022), which opened on Thursday, demonstrates this opera’s richness and potential for interpretation. The original San Diego staging, which stressed Mexican folklore, was charming but static. In New York, director/choreographer Deborah Colker, who made her house debut with a flamenco-infused “Ainadamar” in 2024, vividly uses dance and scenic effects to conjure the porousness of the border between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Nilo Cruz’s eloquent Spanish-language libretto imagines a moment in the tumultuous romance of the Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: In 1957, on the Day of the Dead, when the departed can rejoin their loved ones for 24 hours, Diego tries to summon the deceased Frida. She resists, preferring to forget the intense physical and emotional pain of her life, but is lured by her longing to paint again. Ms. Frank’s unconventional, imaginatively orchestrated score maps their dreamlike journey as they ricochet through different planes of existence, and find resolution together in their love and their art.

The opera opens in the real world, as drably attired villagers assemble marigold- and candle-festooned Day of the Dead altars. Dancers strip an old flower seller of her cloak, revealing Catrina, the Keeper of the Dead. Adam Silverman’s lighting turns red; cracks appear in the floor of Jon Bausor’s set as Catrina pounds on it with her parasol to summon Frida; and dancers dressed as skeletons emerge from the crevices.

From then on, the realms of the living and the passed-on blur together. A blood-red tree descends, its skeletal branches and ropy roots suggesting veins and arteries. When Diego and Frida walk through a street market, the sellers are wearing carnival masks; in Frida’s house, a skeleton dances atop her canopy bed as she lies on it remembering her life, an image inspired by her painting “The Dream.” A murmuring, echoing chorus of the dead surrounds the central platform; they wear brilliantly colored, Mexican-inspired costumes designed by Mr. Bausor and Wilberth Gonzalez. Ms. Colker choreographs the singers as well as the dancers, creating a visual movement that matches the flow of Ms. Frank’s music, just as the set and costume colors echo its luxuriant hues.

Mr. Álvarez and Ms. Leonard MARTY SOHL / MET OPERA

A strikingly potent Frida, Isabel Leonard used her velvety mezzo to find the drama of the artist’s remembered torment as well as the undulating sensuality of her love for painting and colors. Baritone Carlos Álvarez was convincing as the troubled Diego, trying hard to keep up a macho veneer. One felt the underlying bond that transcended their conflicts. Soprano Gabriella Reyes brought both menace and comedy to Catrina, tossing off her coloratura laughter and rocking her costume of silvery bones painted on black and swathed in tulle. In his house debut as Leonardo, the dead actor who dresses as Greta Garbo and persuades Frida to find her art again among the living, Nils Wanderer displayed a robust countertenor, which was edgy at the top of his range.

The orchestra, adroitly conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, reveled in the otherworldly environment of the score. There are brief Mexican accents, such as the mariachi-style trumpets that precede the market scene. More often, Ms. Frank deploys an unusual combination of instruments, such as piccolos and celesta, or a motif—like the short, repeated pulse that sounds like a cry—to create a dreamscape that is all her own. The excellent Met chorus, a crucial and almost omnipresent element in the musical fabric, acted like another instrument in this brilliantly textured tapestry.

‘Sleepers Awake’ Review: Opera Philadelphia’s Refashioned Fairy Tale

A world premiere by Gregory Spears casts a veil of dream-like haunting over the story of Sleeping Beauty.

Heidi Waleson

April 24, 2026 at 5:18 pm ET

Jonghyun Park and Susanne Burgess STEVEN PISANO

Philadelphia

“Sleepers Awake” by Gregory Spears, given its world premiere by Opera Philadelphia at the Academy of Music on Wednesday, turns “Sleeping Beauty” on its head. In the familiar fairy tale, sleep represents something close to the curse of death; in this version, and in Mr. Spears’s haunting musical landscape, it is a state preferable to waking.

Mr. Spears concocted his libretto from the writings of the turn-of-the-century authors Robert Walser (translated by Ron Sadan) and Arthur Quiller-Couch, plus an English translation by Frances Cox of “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme,” a 1599 hymn text by Philipp Nicolai. (The hymn, though superficially about marriage, is actually about the resurrection into eternal life, which offers yet another level to an already multilayered concept.) The story starts where it usually ends: The Stranger (tenor Jonghyun Park) kisses Thorn Rose (soprano Susanne Burgess), the sleeping princess, waking her and her court from a century of enchanted sleep. No one seems pleased to be roused from dreams. They enact for their confused rescuer the story of the forgotten fairy at the christening, the curse and the spindle—and then go back to sleep. The cycle begins again, but this time the Stranger explains how he came to find the castle and mysteriously breach its defenses. Thorn Rose accepts him and everyone rejoices—but soon they all fall asleep again, suggesting that the cycle will repeat forever.

The accomplished Opera Philadelphia Chorus has the starring role in the 80-minute opera. In Mr. Spears’s hypnotic text settings and harmonies, the chorus becomes a kind of breathing atmosphere, echoing the lines of the individual characters and carrying them along with it into waking and sleeping. The opening setting of the “Sleepers, awake!” text starts out muddy, as though the singers are still half asleep and not quite on their parts. Words become a texture of stasis, as when “winding” and “whirring” are repeated multiple times to describe Thorn Rose’s climb to the turret where she finds the fatal spindle. The penultimate ensemble, as the crowd trips off happily to the wedding feast, is the brightest, perkiest moment of the opera, but suddenly the pitch drops, like a record player slowing down, and everyone sinks musically back into sleep.

Mr. Spears’s orchestration is similarly evocative of this timeless state, with rumbles, lush strings, and no high woodwinds. A pair of harps, placed antiphonally in boxes at opposite sides of the stage, plus a theorbo, offer an otherworldly descant, as do the sounds of the celesta and chimes. Percussion instruments—including a whistle and slap-stick—interrupt and startle.

Mr. Park’s ardent tenor brilliantly evokes the Stranger’s position as an intruder in this world as he insists, “Isn’t reality itself a kind of dream?” Ms. Burgess’s light soprano and plaintive vibrato suggest that Thorn Rose is not entirely convinced that awakening is a good idea, but she goes along with it. As the Court Poet, baritone Brian Major enlists the Stranger into the storytelling—their eerie duet as the voice of the evil fairy Carabosse is a striking musical moment. Four godmothers—Sophia Santiago, Annalise Dzwonczyk, Maren Montalbano and Robin Bier—step out of the texture as a close-toned quartet. Corrado Rovaris was the sensitive conductor.

The production, directed by Jenny Koons, doubles down on the mystery, not always helpfully. Jason Ardizzone West’s abstract set is a construction of curving ramps, accommodating much of the big chorus and festooned with night lights; a large disc hangs above a center platform, occasionally tilting and dipping. Yuki Link deploys dramatically colored lighting to accompany theatrical transitions, though the stage is often in shadow, making Maiko Matsushima’s monochromatic black and gray costumes for the workers, courtiers and townspeople of the chorus hard to distinguish. (The principal characters are dressed in color.)

No one lies down—the chorus members don delicate face veils and hold lighted candles to show when they are sleeping. Ms. Koons uses movement sparingly, in moments such as the arrival of the Stranger and Thorn Rose’s climb to the turret. Sometimes the movement makes a point—in the final dance, paired-off chorus members happily strut between the two reluctant lovers, who haven’t yet managed to hold hands, suggesting the fragility of their union.

While the stage pictures can be alluring, the effect is one of mood rather than storytelling. The production also tries to include the audience in its liminal state. We barely notice the beginning of the performance—a low, rumbling drone accompanies our arrival in the theater, and the actual music begins before the lights fully dim. The puzzling question of whether sleeping and waking are actually the same thing remains unanswered, but the powerful lure of sleep—soothing and with the promise of unknowing—is clear.