Monday night’s performance, the first in 18 months, featured the Met’s first-ever opera by a Black composer: a stage adaptation of the memoir by Charles M. Blow. By Heidi Waleson Updated Sept. 29, 2021 6:58 pm New York Opening night of the Metropolitan Opera on Monday was a major event: The country’s largest opera company returned …
Continue reading “‘Fire Shut Up in My Bones’ Review: The Met Comes Blazing Back”
In Chicago, a production that moves Verdi’s work to the mid-19th century from medieval times and a concert of Bizet’s classic. By Heidi Waleson Sept. 22, 2021 5:25 pm Chicago Lyric Opera of Chicago opened its 2021-22 season on Friday with a new production of Verdi’s “Macbeth” in its regular theater, with full orchestra and chorus. …
Continue reading “‘Macbeth’ and ‘Carmen’ Reviews: Bold Voices in the Windy City”
My short presentation on Josquin marking the 500th aniversary of his death:
The story of a Black police officer’s family struck by tragedy when their son is killed by a white police officer. By Heidi Waleson Sept. 14, 2021 1:09 pm Detroit Michigan Opera Theatre embarked on a new chapter of its history last year with the appointment, as artistic director, of Yuval Sharon, best known for genre-defying, …
Continue reading “Blue’ Review: Opera in the Age of Black Lives Matter”
This year’s festival moved outdoors due to Covid-19 and included ‘The Magic Flute,’ ‘Gods and Mortals,’ ‘Il Trovatore’ and ‘The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson.’ By Heidi Waleson Aug. 18, 2021 1:37 pm ET Cooperstown, N.Y. Francesca Zambello, the general and artistic director of the Glimmerglass Festival, knows how to improvise. With Covid-19 restrictions on live …
Continue reading “Glimmerglass Festival Review: Opera Under the Open Sky”
The Sante Fe Opera’s scaled-down summer season includes one world premiere and three classics, performed and produced to varying degrees of success. By Heidi Waleson Aug. 10, 2021 4:46 pm ET Santa Fe, N.M. With its open-air theater, Santa Fe Opera had a big advantage in the return to in-person performance this summer. Still, evolving pandemic …
For all its romance, Bard SummerScape’s indoor production of Ernest Chausson’s rarely performed opera resembles an action movie with an underlying message: Don’t let a girl into the boys’ club. By Heidi Waleson Updated July 27, 2021 4:21 pm ET Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. Some American festivals moved their staged operas outdoors this summer, but Bard SummerScape mounted …
Continue reading “King Arthur’ Review: Round Table Love Triangle”
In Opera Parallèle’s remount of Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer’s fact-based opera, the story of a perilous mountain expedition is presented using sophisticated animation. By Heidi Waleson July 19, 2021 5:39 pm ET “Everest,” an opera by Joby Talbot and Gene Scheer, made a powerful impression at its Dallas Opera world premiere in 2015. A taut, absorbing …
Continue reading “Everest-A Graphic Novel Opera’ Review: Drawn From Life and Death”
Boston Lyric Opera teams up with television professionals on an inventive project set in a supernatural motel. By Heidi Waleson June 2, 2021 4:37 pm ET Live opera performance with in-person audiences is gradually returning, with summer festivals putting on (mostly) outdoor productions and opera companies announcing indoor seasons for the fall. This is a happy …
Continue reading “‘Desert In’ Review: Opera Gets the Miniseries Treatment”
Three virtual walking tours from On Site Opera explore Black music and history in New York; the Tulsa Opera pays tribute in song to the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre By Heidi Waleson May 5, 2021 5:39 pm ET New York In normal times, On Site Opera stages works in locations that relate to their …
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