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. By 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 …
Continue reading “‘Vanessa’ Review: Heartbeat Opera’s Strident Samuel Barber”
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. By 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” …
Continue reading “‘El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego’ Review: Painters Reunited at the Met Opera”
A world premiere by Gregory Spears casts a veil of dream-like haunting over the story of Sleeping Beauty. By 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” …
Continue reading “‘Sleepers Awake’ Review: Opera Philadelphia’s Refashioned Fairy Tale”
The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s final work is an immersive, astonishing achievement, viscerally depicting a group of people affected in different ways by a school shooting. By Heidi Waleson April 8, 2026 at 5:27 pm ET Vilma Jää (above) and Joyce DiDonato (below) in a scene from ‘Innocence.’ MET OPERA New York Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence,” one of the …
Continue reading “‘Innocence’ Review: An Attack’s Aftermath at the Metropolitan Opera”
Following its split with the Kennedy Center, the company has ably adapted to George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, where it is presenting a gripping staging of Robert Ward’s version of the Arthur Miller classic. By Heidi Waleson March 23, 2026 at 5:01 pm ET A scene from the Washington National Opera production of ‘The Crucible.’ SCOTT SUCHMAN …
Continue reading “‘The Crucible’ Review: Washington National Opera’s Nimble Reset”
Harry Bicket and the English Concert presented the composer’s highly theatrical but little-known 1745 oratorio in an uneven but frequently arresting performance. By Heidi Waleson March 18, 2026 at 5:22 pm ET Harry Bicket and the English Concert at Carnegie Hall. RICHARD TERMINE New York The annual Carnegie Hall visit of Harry Bicket and the English Concert, the superb …
Continue reading “‘Hercules’ Review: Handel’s Musical Myth at Carnegie Hall”
Director Yuval Sharon’s company debut is an imaginative, expansive production headed by two top-flight singers, Lise Davidsen and Michael Spyres. By Heidi Waleson Lise Davidsen and Michael Spyres. MET OPERA New York In his 2024 book, “A New Philosophy of Opera,” the American director Yuval Sharon offered a radical vision for an art form that is often mired …
Continue reading “‘Tristan und Isolde’ Review: At the Met Opera, Wagner’s Vast World”
This world-premiere production of a work by Laura Kaminsky and Crystal Manich focuses on a group of students confronting the aftermath of a shooting. By Heidi Waleson Updated March 3, 2026 at 2:33 am ET Timothi Williams DAVID BACHMAN Pittsburgh One of opera’s superpowers is its ability to communicate rich layers of ambiguity through music. Laura Kaminsky and Crystal Manich’s “Time to …
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Jules Massenet’s classic work received a streamlined English adaptation from Heartbeat Opera, with musical-theater performers and a focus on the seamier side of the 18th-century setting. By Heidi Waleson Feb. 17, 2026 at 5:13 pm ET A scene from ‘Manon!’ ANDREW BOYLE Brooklyn, N.Y. Heartbeat Opera’s most recent adaptation of a classic work, which just concluded a …
Continue reading “‘Manon!’ Review: In Brooklyn, an Opera’s Underbelly Revealed”
Opera Philadelphia’s world-premiere production—with a libretto by Michael R. Jackson that follows its heroine across 10 decades, each one scored by a different composer—proved a remarkably successful experiment. By Heidi Waleson Feb. 11, 2026 at 3:23 pm ET Justin Vivian Bond STEVEN PISANO Philadelphia During its not quite two years of Anthony Roth Costanzo’s leadership, Opera Philadelphia has been …
Continue reading “‘Complications in Sue’ Review: One Woman, 10 Composers”
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