Santa Fe Opera Review: Rotten Relationships

In the company’s latest season, a revelatory production of Mozart’s ‘Così fan tutte’; an appropriately bleak take on Janáček’s ‘Jenůfa’; the world premiere of Poul Ruders’s slight, Brothers Grimm-inspired ‘The Thirteenth Child.’ ByHeidi WalesonAug. 7, 2019 4:30 pm ET Santa Fe, N.M. R.B. Schlather’s production of Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” (1790) was the revelation of this Santa Fe …

‘Das Wunder der Heliane’ Review: Love, Sex and Death

Bard Summerscape stages a production of the obscure, mystical 1927 work by film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. ByHeidi WalesonJuly 30, 2019 4:06 pm ET Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y. Each summer, as part of its one-composer focus, Bard Summerscape exhumes an opera from the repertory graveyard. The Austrian-born Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), the subject of this year’s examination, is …

‘The Black Clown’ Review: Performing Race

At the Mostly Mozart Festival, Davóne Tines and Michael Schachter’s adaptation of a Langston Hughes poem explores African-American history, identity and musical traditions. ByHeidi WalesonJuly 26, 2019 2:57 pm ET New York ‘The Black Clown,” given its New York premiere at the Lynch Theater at John Jay College as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival …

Blind Injustice’ Review: Stories of the Innocent

A new work at the Cincinnati Opera offers a powerful critique of the criminal justice system by focusing on the lives of six people who were wrongly convicted. ByHeidi WalesonJuly 26, 2019 3:30 pm ET Cincinnati ‘Blind Injustice,” given its world premiere by the Cincinnati Opera on Monday, started out as a community partnership project …

‘La Straniera’ and ‘La Gazza Ladra’ Reviews: New Corners of the Canon

With period instruments and an unusual orchestral setup, Teatro Nuovo’s productions of two obscure operas by Bellini and Rossini offer a taste of what once made these works so wildly successful. ByHeidi WalesonJuly 19, 2019 4:08 pm ET New York Teatro Nuovo, founded by conductor Will Crutchfield to apply historical performance practice to early 19th-century …