AndyManshel.nyc

The countertenor stars and sings in Charles Ludlam’s irreverent 1983 play about the legendary diva, directed by Eric Ting at New York’s Little Island.

By 

Heidi Waleson

Sept. 15, 2025 at 5:03 pm ET

Anthony Roth Costanzo in ‘Galas.’ PHOTO: NINA WESTERVELT

New York

The countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo has a seemingly endless appetite for work and risk—just last year, he took on the leadership of the faltering Opera Philadelphia and starred in a brilliantly eccentric version of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” in which he sang all the roles. An unusually deep and thoughtful passion for opera informs everything he does, so it seems appropriate that he is now performing at Little Island in the ultimate homage to the ultimate diva.

“Galas,” written by Charles Ludlam, is the lightly fictionalized story of Maria Callas; it was first presented in 1983 by Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company with the author as the star. Ludlam didn’t sing in the show; the aria snippets came from Callas recordings. Mr. Costanzo, of course, does. We get a little of “Vissi d’arte” and “Casta diva” and he has added more excerpts, such as Charlotte’s “Letters” aria from “Werther” and Desdemona’s “Ave Maria” from “Otello,” which fit seamlessly into the evening. (The “Ave Maria,” hilariously, is used to help the title character upstage the pope at her private audience.)

Mr. Costanzo sings everything with finesse and brio, as one might expect. The revelation is his strength as a speaking actor. Channeling her distinctive accent and carriage, he’s remarkably believable as Galas/Callas in her many incarnations. Sometimes demure, often fiery, he conveys her drive, perfectionism and heartbreak, all without slipping into caricature or camp. Critical to the illusion is his delicate build, which is swathed in some truly fabulous costumes by Jackson Wiederhoeft and capped with spot-on wigs by Amanda Miller and makeup by James Kaliardos.

The play itself, even in director Eric Ting’s well-calibrated production, hasn’t aged well. At 100 minutes, the show feels long; its slapstick comedy routines grow tedious; and the gay transgressive energy that was exciting four decades ago is now predictable and routine. Seven scenes cover significant beats in Callas’s life, including her meeting with Giovanni (Carmelita Tropicana), the brick manufacturer who would become her husband and manager; the Rome Opera performance of “Norma” that she left after the first act (“The voice is slipping”), causing a national scandal; her love affair with the Greek shipping tycoon here named Aristotle Plato Socrates Odysseus, aka “Sock” (Caleb Eberhardt); her lonely final years after he married Jacqueline Kennedy.

Jeremy Rafal, Mary Testa and Austin Durant PHOTO: NINA WESTERVELT

It’s enacted in a cascade of comedy, with Galas as the relatively sane linchpin circled by a cast of deliberately overacting supporting players. There’s Bruna (Mary Testa), Galas’s maid, a former opera singer who offers career advice and makes oracular pronouncements; the two representatives of La Scala (Austin Durant and Jeremy Rafal) who grudgingly offer her contracts and enunciate the last “la” of La Scala with stuck-out tongues.

Gender fluidity is in the mix: Trans actress Samora la Perdida is both a wildly swishy Pope Sixtus VII (Hahnji Jang, who did the non-Costanzo costumes, provided a striptease-ready white papal robe and high lace-up white platform boots) and the predatory journalist Ilka Winterhalter, who thrills at the hot tip that Galas’s extreme weight loss was deliberately induced by a tapeworm. Ms. Tropicana, short and bedizened with a glittery fake mustache, makes Giovanni the quintessential troll; spurned by his wife at a masquerade party on Sock’s yacht, he puts on a clown costume and chokes out “Vesti la giubba” from “Pagliacci.” Mimi Lien’s set—a gilded catwalk—emphasizes the play’s operatic theatricality. So do Jiyoun Chang’s lighting, complete with explosive flashes and colors, and the recorded musical interpolations—Verdi’s “Dies irae” and the Scarpia chords from “Tosca” ring out as Galas vows revenge on her enemies.

Samora la Perdida PHOTO: NINA WESTERVELT

The cleverest aspect of the show is how it quickly switches tone from quasi-realism to high melodrama and back again. Mr. Costanzo plays these eruptions with appropriately operatic flair—the open-mouthed, silent scream when the news of Sock’s death arrives is an indelible picture—yet even in Galas’s most outrageous moments, we feel her humanity. The play’s principal theme is her loneliness, and while her final speech—“What do I do if I have no career?”— has the inevitable deadpan punchline—“And there’s nothing good on television tonight”—we remember a poignant earlier statement: “I hate freedom. I don’t belong to anyone.” Galas’s (fictional) suicide is a fully theatrical moment, à la “Madama Butterfly,” yet as Mr. Costanzo strips off the kimono and the wig before plunging in the dagger, we get why these operas, even at their most extreme, resonate with reality.

The upstate New York opera company’s 50th-anniversary season stretches from Puccini to a world premiere, and shines in stagings of Sondheim and Stravinsky.

By 

Heidi Waleson

Aug. 13, 2025 at 5:00 pm ET

John Riddle (left) and the cast of ‘Sunday in the Park With George.’ PHOTO: BRENT DELANOY/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

Cooperstown, N.Y. 

The Glimmerglass Festival, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this season (through Aug. 17), changed the face of American opera. Along with its fellow summer festivals in Santa Fe and St. Louis, Glimmerglass pushed the opera world to explore new and forgotten repertory, the cultivation of young singers, and nontraditional stagings of classic works. Glimmerglass has tweaked its formula over the decades; still based in the purpose-built, perfectly sized (918 seats) Alice Busch Opera Theater, it is now headed by Rob Ainsley.

To mark the occasion, the designer John Conklin, a company institution with more than 40 Glimmerglass shows to his credit, came out of retirement to craft an overall set for the season. He died at age 88 two weeks before the season opened, but his typically spare, red-hued backstage concept was a reminder that Glimmerglass knows how to economize.

The summer’s two best shows made the best use of it. Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George” is about how artists see the new in the ordinary, and Ethan Heard’s seamless direction brought characters seated on the sidelines onto the stage as Seurat imagined his painting into life. In Act 2, unused standing flats became the backdrop for Greg Emetaz’s ingenious figure projections representing the 20th-century George in his frantic, juggling pursuit of patrons (“Putting It Together”). The second act of “Sunday” is often considered an inferior add-on to the perfection of Act 1; here, it was an essential twist, believably depicting how a successful but disillusioned artist finds his way back to inspiration.

John Riddle and Marina Pires, gifted musical-theater performers, were an intense pair as George and Dot/Marie; as the Old Lady, Luretta Bybee brought a touching frailty to “Beautiful”; the company’s Resident Artists (formerly known as Young Artists) filled most of the other roles in the large, lively cast. Beth Goldenberg’s costumes nicely differentiated the two eras; Michael Ellis Ingram was the astute conductor.

Aleksey Bogdanov and Adrian Kramer in ‘The Rake’s Progress.’ PHOTO: KAYLEEN BERTRAND/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

The company also shone in Stravinsky’s “The Rake’s Progress,” an enormously challenging score. The orchestra sounded crystalline and propulsive under conductor Joseph Colaneri, Glimmerglass’s music director, and the three leads were sensational. Adrian Kramer’s tenor grew bigger and richer as the eponymous Tom Rakewell sank ever-further into corruption; his clear enunciation of the brilliant English libretto by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman was especially welcome. Lydia Grindatto brought an unusually velvety middle and low register to Tom’s savior, Anne Trulove, which gave her extra weight. Baritone Aleksey Bogdanov’s commanding baritone captured both the suave façade and the diabolical heart of Nick Shadow. Deborah Nansteel was an unsentimental Baba the Turk.

Director/choreographer Eric Sean Fogel’s smart staging animated Mr. Conklin’s set with a dancing and singing chorus, employed by Shadow to create Tom’s reality and his downfall. An updated 1950s setting was suggested by hard-edged, color field images—Ellsworth Kelly-style—and Lynly A. Saunders’s clever costumes. Some chairs, a movable ladder/platform, and Robert Wierzel’s lighting did the rest. 

Mikaela Bennett (center) and company in ‘The House on Mango Street.’ PHOTO: KAYLEEN BERTRAND/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

Glimmerglass has offered some satisfying world premieres—the finest was Jeanine Tesori’s “Blue” in 2019—but Derek Bermel’s “The House on Mango Street” is not one of them. Its source is the revered 1984 novel by Sandra Cisneros, who collaborated on the libretto with the composer, but the book’s elegant mosaic of subtle, knife-like vignettes about growing up in a Latino neighborhood in Chicago has been expanded beyond recognition. The bloated result is a mawkish, didactic piece that tries to encompass everything from child abuse to gang behavior, guns, immigration, adolescent yearnings, and the writer’s responsibility to her community.

Mr. Bermel’s pastiche score incorporates Latin dances (with echoes of “In the Heights”) and rap (for the local boys and the girls who occasionally stand up to them). It is straightforwardly tonal, and there’s even a dash of Mahler in the interminable culminating sequence, a shamanic ritual that heals Esperanza (the protagonist) after she is raped.

Mikaela Bennett, a big-voiced soprano, was a sympathetic Esperanza; Taylor-Alexis DuPont was a spitfire Sally, a neighborhood teen with a complicated life. Most of the other characters in the large cast were played by Resident Artists; one standout voice in the texture was the resonant mezzo of Kendra Faith Beasley as Shamana 3. Nicole Paiement was the efficient conductor. Chía Patiño’s staging kept things moving around and inside the frameworks of two row houses; Erik Teague’s costumes evoked the neighborhood; and Mr. Emetaz’s projections cleverly shaped buildings and the like out of lines of type—Esperanza’s stories.

Michelle Bradley in ‘Tosca.’ PHOTO: BRENT DELANOY/THE GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL

It might be best to draw a veil over Puccini’s “Tosca.” The three principal singers were loud and unsubtle. With her heavy dramatic soprano, Michelle Bradley sounded ready to sing Brünnhilde and her pitch was uncertain at times; tenor Yongzhao Yu’s wiry, metallic timbre made for an unsatisfying Cavaradossi; and bass-baritone Greer Grimsley’s Scarpia was all brute and gravel. Mr. Colaneri’s orchestra blasted away with them.

The staging—the most elaborate of the four—matched their tone. Director Louisa Proske envisioned a contemporary setting in a troubled time; during the intermission, instructions on how to resist authoritarianism were projected on the black drop curtain. The Act 1 church was under renovation; its scaffolding and plastic sheeting were ripped down during the “Te Deum” to reveal a modernist Piéta that bled during the final chords.

Scarpia’s Act 2 lair was an ugly underground bunker. There was a lot of physical violence—Cavaradossi’s hand was smashed with a hammer during his first interrogation—though fortunately, the main torture still happened offstage. Tosca sang “Vissi d’arte” in the bathroom. She was unable to escape the bunker after killing Scarpia and spent Act 3 there as well (her reunion with Cavaradossi was imagined) and she shot herself with the gun purloined from Scarpia’s safe, her blood smearing the white tile wall. Tosca’s costumes—a bright yellow coat; a shimmering lamé concert gown—set her off from the rest of the cast in their grim attire, all designed by Kaye Voyce. Ms. Proske’s authoritarianism concept is intriguing, but without singers who could convey what’s at stake, it was assault without Puccinian pathos.

The summer program—featuring ‘Die Walküre,’ ‘The Marriage of Figaro,’ ‘La Bohème,’ ‘Rigoletto’ and ‘The Turn of the Screw’—offers largely standard repertoire enriched with subtle surprises and compelling performances.

By 

Heidi Waleson

Aug. 4, 2025 at 4:30 pm ET

Ryan Speedo Green and Tamara Wilson in ‘Die Walküre.’ PHOTO: SANTA FE OPERA/CURTIS BROWN

Santa Fe, N.M.

This summer’s Santa Fe Opera season, which runs through Aug. 23, skews toward standard repertoire, but there were surprises within that narrow compass. Director Melly Still gave Wagner’s “Die Walküre” a feminist gloss: Its women see clearly, while Wotan’s betrayal of his children, however agonizing and supposedly for the greater good, is the inevitable result of his lust for power.

The walls of designer Leslie Travers’s abstract environment are made of stretchy cords; shadowy figures lurk behind and slip through them. The past, present and future of the “Ring” universe exist simultaneously, and someone is always watching, whether it’s Fricka witnessing the meeting of Siegmund and Sieglinde, or Alberich jeering at Wotan. The Valkyries’ costumes (also by Mr. Travers) invoke powerful women like Joan of Arc and Madame Defarge, yet Wotan controls them—his black-clad soldiers drag them away when they try to protect the errant Brünnhilde. In the final tableau, two expectant mothers—Sieglinde and Alberich’s unnamed woman—stare at each other across Brünnhilde’s fiery bier, foreshadowing the conflict that requires two more operas to resolve. I’d be interested in Ms. Still’s take on those.

For his role debut as Wotan, bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green husbanded his resources into a careful portrayal; his savage chastisement of Brünnhilde in Act 3 hinted at future development. Tamara Wilson was a steely, efficient Brünnhilde, her static demeanor gaining some nuance after she shed her warrior garb. Tiny and intense, Vida Miknevičiūtė was the evening’s hit, her crystalline soprano giving explosive voice to Sieglinde’s long-crushed spirit. Mezzo Sarah Saturnino was a formidable, dogged Fricka. Jamez McCorkle brought a lyric desperation to the beleaguered Siegmund, but his tenor lacked the metallic core needed to sustain this punishing role. With his thundering bass, Soloman Howard’s Hunding was a man who lives by violence. The Santa Fe Opera Orchestra sounds better than usual this season, although conductor James Gaffigan’s sluggish pacing made for some longueurs.

Liv Redpath and Riccardo Fassi in ‘The Marriage of Figaro.’ PHOTO: SANTA FE OPERA/BRONWEN SHARP

Laurent Pelly’s production of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” is much improved over its first outing at the company in 2021, no doubt because Mr. Pelly was able to supervise the staging in person this time. (In 2021, Covid-19 meant he directed via Zoom.) Chantal Thomas’s revolving set, inspired by a clock mechanism, made its point about the intricate ensemble nature of the opera, while Mr. Pelly’s direction—and his handsome 1930s-era costumes—balanced humor with the seriousness of the issues at stake.

Riccardo Fassi was a deftly comic Figaro; Liv Redpath an exquisite Susanna. Ailyn Pérez, a late substitution as the Countess, sounded tight at first, but her soprano soon bloomed. With his dark baritone, Florian Sempey played up the Count’s disagreeable characteristics, making his final capitulation all the more striking. Hongni Wu was a delightfully eager Cherubino; Maurizio Muraro and Steven Colewere hilarious as Doctor Bartolo and Basilio, the Count’s enablers. Conductor Harry Bicket’s sprightly tempi complemented Mr. Pelly’s precise pacing.

Lightly updated to the 1920s, James Robinson’s touching production of Puccini’s “La Bohème” subtly emphasized the opera’s theme of poverty. Allen Moyer’s sets told that story: When their Act 1 garret reappeared in Act 4, most of the Bohemians’ few possessions were gone, no doubt pawned or sold, and the Café Momus, rather than a working-class hangout, was a fancy restaurant with chandeliers and patrons in evening dress looking askance at the shabby artists celebrating a fleeting windfall. Drunken veterans and an ambulance repurposed for prostitution suggested the grim aftermath of the war, while a cemetery glimpsed in Act 3 foreshadowed Mimì’s fate.

The lively ensemble cast featured Sylvia D’Eramo as a dreamy, fragile Mimì; Long Long’s solid Rodolfo; Szymon Mechliński as a voluble Marcello; and Emma Marhefka’sexuberant Musetta, who got the evening’s most fabulous costume, a black fur-and-feathers number designed by Constance Hoffman. Duane Schuler’s acute lighting—Mimì and Rodolfo have their first tryst by moonlight—and Iván López Reynoso’ssensitive conducting further enhanced the evening.

Soloman Howard, Long Long, Sylvia D’Eramo, Emma Marhefka, Szymon Mechliński and Efraín Solís in ‘La Bohème.’ PHOTO: SANTA FE OPERA/CURTIS BROWN

No new enlightenment was to be had in Julien Chavaz’s take on Verdi’s “Rigoletto.”Designers Jamie Vartan (sets) and Jean-Jacques Delmotte (costumes) suggested a Renaissance-themed carnival, with colored flashing lights on geometric cutouts and a brocade wallpaper design that was echoed in the burgundy costumes of the ensemble members, who formed a dancing chorus line during some of the arias. A legion of standing lamps served no particular purpose.

Michael Chioldi, a late replacement, powered his way through the title role. Elena Villalón was an appealing Gilda, convincing in her depiction of an innocent girl’s first (and fatally, last) love. Duke Kim was a properly callous Duke of Mantua, his leather jacket contrasting with the Renaissance tunics of his courtiers. Monterone’s curse was a high point, thanks to Le Bu’s thunderous bass-baritone. He was able to prevail over Carlo Montanaro’s noisy, unsubtle conducting, which frequently covered the other singers.

Jacquelyn Stucker in ‘The Turn of the Screw.’ PHOTO: SANTA FE OPERA/CURTIS BROWN

The season’s best show was “The Turn of the Screw,” highlighted by Gemma New’s incisive conducting of Britten’s eerie chamber orchestration, its spareness intensifying the opera’s atmosphere of ever-increasing dread. (It has, alas, the shortest run, with the last of its four performances on Aug. 5.) With her rich soprano, Jacquelyn Stucker captured the frightened, resolute Governess; tenor Brenton Ryan’shigh-class English accent and insinuating melismas made the ghost Peter Quint the embodiment of evil; Jennifer Johnson Cano’s staunch but clueless Mrs. Grose added to the Governess’s isolation.

There’s no ambiguity in Louisa Muller’s staging. The ghosts are present; the only question is whether they or the Governess will prevail in the struggle for the children—Flora (Annie Blitz) and Miles (Everett Baumgarten). Designer Christopher Oramcreated tall windows and distressed walls for Bly, the country house. All the locations—including the lake out of which the other ghost, Miss Jessel (Wendy Bryn Harmer), materializes—are inside. This added to the work’s claustrophobia, as did the black Victorian dresses of the three adult women and Malcolm Rippeth’s creepy lighting. Ms. Muller’s directing flowed through the scenes and orchestral interludes, constructing a seamless, terrifying arc from the Governess’s anxious journey to Bly to her final wail over the dead Miles and her walk into the lake, the last victim of Peter Quint.

The French ensemble made its New York debut with an immersive experience at the luxury department store Printemps and a concert at L’Alliance; at City Center, the local bel-canto company presented a nuanced rendition of Bellini’s ‘La Sonnambula.’

By 

Heidi Waleson

July 30, 2025 at 4:05 pm ET

A moment from ‘The Affair of the Poisons.’ PHOTO: KEVIN CONDON

New York

Last week brought operatic rarities to this city, beginning with the local debut of the Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra, an ensemble based at the palace outside Paris. Presented by Death of Classical, which specializes in unusual locations, the residency began on July 21 with an event at Printemps, a curated luxury emporium and outpost of the French department-store company that opened in the Art Deco building One Wall Street in March.

A performer at Printemps. PHOTO: KEVIN CONDON

For the three-hour experience, dubbed “The Affair of the Poisons”—a narrative based on a 1670s murder scandal involving Louis XIV, his mistress and witchcraft—guests wandered through the store encountering circus performers and actors offering vials of “poison,” all in period costume. The 31-musician orchestra, which played its brief set midway through, oddly leaped forward in time with 19th-century bravura pieces: Conductor/violinist Stefan Plewniak channeled Paganini in a speedy Polonaise from a concerto by Pierre Rode, and countertenor Franco Fagioli gave a vigorous rendition of an aria from Rossini’s “Semiramide.”

Other musicians situated elsewhere in the store—Adam Young, a viola da gamba player; Ariadne Greif and Dušan Balarin, a soprano/theorbo duo—stuck ably to the French baroque theme. Creatine Price, a drag artist, gave a creditable rendition of the sleepwalking aria from Verdi’s “Macbeth” in the two-story “Red Room,” its landmarked mosaic walls now setting off Manolo Blahnik shoes displayed like jewels. The overall narrative didn’t hang together; instead, the evening was an Instagrammable celebration of luxurious excess minus the promised investigation of the rot beneath.

Two nights later, the orchestra played an expanded concert at L’Alliance New York’s Florence Gould Theater, with Mr. Fagioli performing selections from “The Last Castrato: Arias for Velluti,” his new recording with the group. Mr. Plewniak’s clumsy conducting stressed excitement rather than finesse, and the period-wind-instrument playing was uneven. The arias were an intriguing collection of 19th-century bel canto showpieces mostly by such forgotten composers as Paolo Bonfichi.

Mr. Fagioli, who has extraordinary breath control, pinpoint pitch, and excels in brilliantly florid music, made a case for the works’ virtuosity, but with no texts supplied, they began to blend together. It was a relief to hear the instantly recognizable Sinfonia from Rossini’s 1813 “Aureliano in Palmira”—that non-obscure composer recycled it as the overture for his 1816 “Il Barbiere di Siviglia.”

Franco Fagioli and the Versailles Royal Opera Orchestra at L’Alliance New York. PHOTO: SAM ROPPOLA

On July 24, Teatro Nuovo, which specializes in historically informed performances of bel canto operas, presented Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” at City Center. The sizable period-instrument orchestra, sensitively directed by Elisa Citterio from the first violin chair along with Will Crutchfield, the company’s general and artistic director, at the keyboard, brought an unusually luminous aura to this simple but poignant tale of innocence denied and then restored. As Amina, who sleepwalks into a nobleman’s bedroom, causing an uproar in her Swiss village, soprano Teresa Castillo exuded sweetness, making her heartbreak when she is accused of infidelity all the more expressive; the explosive ornaments in her joyous final rondo felt well-earned. 

Tenor Christopher Bozeka found nuances in the jealousy of Elvino, her betrothed, though his high notes were sometimes strained—perhaps because he sang the arias in their original keys instead of transposed down, now a common practice—and his red shoes distracting. Bass-baritone Owen Phillipson was solid and lyrical as Rodolfo, the nobleman who vainly tries to persuade everyone of Amina’s innocence, and soprano Abigail Raiford’s sparkling coloratura gave Lisa, Amina’s frenemy, a lively edge.

The robust chorus ably represented the villagers, who whipsaw between belief and incredulity; the tiptoeing cadence of their description of the village ghost was particularly well-executed. Standout orchestral moments included many by the eloquent wind players and a pastoral trumpet duet in Act 2, performed with remarkable lyricism and finesse.  The minimalist staging, with backdrops of historical set designs, did not get in the way.

The college’s SummerScape festival stages Bedřich Smetana’s tuneful 1868 opera, which finds the title character imprisoned for murder even as he attracts the romantic interest of his victim’s sister.

By 

Heidi Waleson

July 30, 2025 at 4:11 pm ET

John Matthew Myers and Cadie J. Bryan PHOTO: MARIA BARANOVA

Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

This year’s opera rarity at Bard SummerScape, in Dutchess County, is Bedřich Smetana’s “Dalibor” (1868), running through Aug. 3, a tuneful Romantic work hampered by a creaky, static libretto that was translated from German into Czech. The title character, a 15th-century knight with a popular following, spends the opera imprisoned for killing a government official in revenge for the execution of his beloved friend, the musician Zdeněk. Milada, the official’s sister, first demands Dalibor’s blood from the king but then falls in love with him and plots his rescue—there’s a “Fidelio”-type adventure with Milada disguising herself as a boy to get into the prison. It doesn’t end happily. 

“Dalibor” is a sturdy vehicle for big dramatic arias, choruses and a colorful Wagnerian orchestration, complete with harp and violin solos to accompany Dalibor’s obsession with the dead Zdeněk and ominous, foreshadowing brass choirs. The American Symphony Orchestra was in excellent form under Leon Botstein. The two principal singers, late substitutions for European artists stymied by visa problems, acquitted themselves admirably—John Matthew Myers (Dalibor) with his enormous, clarion tenor and Cadie J. Bryan (Milada) with her sensitive soprano. The impressive cast also included the bright-voiced Erica Petrocelli as Jitka, who conspires with Milada to free Dalibor; the suave bass-baritone Alfred Walker as the conflicted King Vladislav, who condemns him to death, and the booming bass Wei Wu as the jailer Beneš. 

Director Jean-Romain Vesperini and designer Bruno de Lavenère devised an ingenious unit set: A pair of spiral staircases formed a double helix on a revolving central platform, and Étienne Guiol’s shadowy black-and-white images, projected on silvery hangings, seemed three-dimensional. Christophe Chaupin’s lighting accentuated the show’s overall darkness; Alain Blanchot’s handsome costumes nodded to the opera’s 15th-century setting without being too literal. An actor, Patrick Andrews, appeared as Zdeněk’s ghost, another reminder of Dalibor’s central motivation, and the onstage prop violin, which also plays a central role, was a vielle—a period-appropriate medieval instrument.

The New York company adapts the French composer’s classic in a production that proves theatrically inventive but musically uneven.

By 

Heidi Waleson

May 21, 2025 at 5:02 pm ET

John Taylor Ward and Rachel Kobernick PHOTO: ANDREW BOYLE

New York

Heartbeat Opera’s radical adaptations of classic titles can soar or fall flat, but one constant has always been music director Dan Schlosberg, whose ingenious maverick arrangements—such as February’s “Salome” for eight clarinetists and two percussionists—never fail to stimulate. Until now.

For its production of Gounod’s “Faust,” now playing at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, Francisco Ladrón de Guevara created a 10-musician arrangement that was coarse, un-French and, unusual for this company, sloppily performed under the leadership of violinist Jacob Ashworth, Heartbeat’s artistic director. Potentially interesting timbral choices—such as a harmonium—barely registered; the trumpet dominated the texture at its every appearance; and the percussive piano added to the generally bumptious atmosphere.

It was too bad, because “Faust” can use some rethinking, and director Sara Holdren, who created the two-hour adaptation with Mr. Ashworth, had some smart theatrical ideas. They savvily updated the tale of the aging professor who makes a deal with the devil to regain his lost youth, eliminated choruses, ballets and some recitatives and zeroed in on the characters and the temptations they face. Ms. Holdren’s new, contemporary English dialogue (“Dude, I’m working—no, I won’t do shots with you”), complete with expletives, streamlined the plot and deepened motivations. Siebel, a lovesick boy played by a mezzo in the original, became a female bartender who yearns for Marguerite. Valentin’s brotherly protectiveness of Marguerite read as overbearing from the start; he also seemed to suffer from PTSD when he returned from the war in Act 4.

Mephistopheles, dressed in a series of natty red outfits by Elivia Bovenzi Blitz, stood out as the devil amid the otherwise contemporary costuming, but his blandishments represented evils that the characters were already primed to do. Aided by two black-clad puppeteers, he just made those bad choices easier. Set designers Yichen Zhouand Forest Entsminger devised a collection of movable screens that could suggest the bar or Marguerite’s house, serve as backdrops for eerie shadow puppetry devised by Nick Lehane, or, suddenly translucent, reveal characters lurking behind them. Ms. Zhou also designed the lighting.

In this creepy depiction of the perils of modern life, women still, in theory, have the most to lose, and Faust’s devil-assisted seduction of Marguerite is the heart of the opera. But his apparent remorse over impregnating and then abandoning her, to say nothing of killing her brother, certainly does him no good. And in Ms. Holdren’s production, Marguerite, who ordinarily prays for salvation and finds it in death (she is in prison and set to be executed for killing her baby; in this version, she has had a miscarriage, which makes that even worse), gets a brief epilogue: She, Siebel and her neighbor Marta have a little backyard wine party—with the baby in a bassinet. This feminist reversal of the usual death-of-the-heroine opera scenario is heartwarming, if narratively inconsistent.

The adaptation retained nearly all of Gounod’s many hit tunes. Soprano Rachel Kobernick was a staunch Marguerite with good French diction, but she let loose and became exciting only in her fervent final plea, “Anges purs.” Bass-baritone John Taylor Ward was appropriately sly and seductive as Mephistopheles; tenor Orson Van Gay II was an unnuanced Faust. Alex DeSocio played Valentin as a brute with a vulnerable side, which worked in the context; AddieRose Brown’s velvety mezzo made Siebel’s “Si le bonheur à sourire t’invite,” her attempt to comfort Marguerite, a high point. Eliza Bonet (a suburban cougar Marta) and Brandon Bell (a barfly Wagner) ably rounded out the cast along with Rowan Magee and Emma Wiseman, the sinuous puppeteers.

The singers were not helped by the band; coordination and volume balances were frequently off. A few amusing touches—Mr. Ashworth playing licks on a mandolin, for some nostalgia, and the brightness of the xylophone, played by whoever happened to be free—could not make up for the overall roughness of the musical conception and execution.

Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).

The Virginia Opera and the Richmond Symphony presented Damien Geter’s new opera about the landmark Supreme Court case striking down bans on interracial marriage; at the Met, John Adams’s Shakespeare adaptation is much improved from its 2022 premiere in San Francisco.

By 

Heidi Waleson

May 14, 2025 at 4:09 pm ET

Flora Hawk and Jonathan Michie PHOTO: DAVE PEARSON

Richmond, Va.

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Virginia Opera teamed up with the Richmond Symphony to commission a work with a state-centric story. Damien Geter’s “Loving v. Virginia,” which had its world-premiere performances in three Virginia venues, including the Dominion Energy Center here last weekend, depicts the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision that struck down Virginia’s prohibition against interracial marriage. Following the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in previous years, Loving represented yet another important step toward the legal enshrinement of full civil rights for all Americans.

In Jessica Murphy Moo’s libretto, the title also represents the personal struggle of Mildred and Richard Loving, a black woman and a white man whose 1958 marriage (performed in Washington, where it was legal) put them at odds with their beloved home state. These quiet country people wanted only to live peacefully; instead, they were arrested, jailed and, after being compelled to plead guilty to a felony, forbidden to be in the state at the same time for 25 years. Several years later, unhappy in their urban exile in Washington, Mildred Loving finally asked for help, first from attorney general Robert Kennedy and then from the American Civil Liberties Union, where Bernard Cohen took their case.

The opera’s construction neatly demonstrates this tension. The Lovings’ story unfolds in counterpoint to a masked, eight-voice Law Chorus that robotically recites the rules they are breaking. In one of the most theatrical scenes, choristers representing employees at the Virginia Marriage License Bureau chant “Know the code.” It’s a rhythmic, catchy number that demonstrates how easily individuals can be swallowed up in process. (The Lovings’ marriage license is declared “Against the Code!”)

Ms. Moo’s language can veer toward windiness (“Cicadas electrify the air”; “We carry the weight of our histories”), and Mr. Geter’s solo vocal writing is less distinctive than his music for chorus and orchestra, which features arresting trumpet riffs at salient moments. But the Lovings are affecting and believable in their diffidence and their commitment to each other. The production, by Denyce Graves-Montgomery, once a noted mezzo-soprano, is tight and thoughtful, working with Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams’s minimalist set—two simple rear projections depicting the country and the city; movable elements including bleachers, desks, and a couple of doors and kitchen tables. Xavier Pierce did the apt lighting; Jessica Jahn the modest period costumes.

Flora Hawk was a poignant Mildred, albeit with a tendency toward shrillness in the upper registers of her soprano; baritone Jonathan Michie brought out Richard’s inarticulate frustration. As Cohen, baritone Troy Cook gave the young lawyer brash New York energy and confidence. Phillip Bullock and Melody Wilson were moving as Mildred’s parents; with her sumptuous mezzo, Alissa Anderson shone as Richard’s mother. Benjamin Werley’s high tenor was suitably noxious for both villains—the sheriff who arrests the Lovings and the judge who convicts them. Adam Turner was the capable conductor of the estimable Richmond Symphony in this suitably unpretentious work about modest people who catalyzed a seismic change.

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Gerald Finley and Julia Bullock in ‘Antony and Cleopatra.’ PHOTO: KAREN ALMOND/MET OPERA

New York

I saw the world premiere of John Adams’s “Antony and Cleopatra” at the San Francisco Opera in September 2022; at its Metropolitan Opera premiere on Monday, it felt like a completely different show. With 20 minutes trimmed from the score, the composer in the pit, and soprano Julia Bullock, the Cleopatra for whom the role was written, on the stage (she dropped out in 2022 due to pregnancy), this “Antony” had all the drama and pathos it was missing the first time around.

Mr. Adams adapted his libretto from Shakespeare’s play. In San Francisco, it seemed dutiful and flaccid; in New York, with the music organically driving the words and the heaving orchestra expressing the characters’ feelings, you could feel the poetry and theatrical propulsion of the original text. Scenes were carefully shaped and not allowed to run on. Under Mr. Adams’s baton, the Met Orchestra’s pinpoint clarity in this complex score, heightened by the tangy resonance of the cimbalom, a hammered dulcimer, made it an essential part of the story.

Most important, the relationship of the title lovers snapped into focus. Ms. Bullock’s charismatic acting and vivid range of vocal colorations captured Cleopatra’s mercurial allure; as Antony, bass-baritone Gerald Finley was more the virile warrior and less the washed-up soldier that he was in San Francisco. Each of their scenes together had a different energy: the sexy playfulness at the beginning; their joyous confederacy before the battle of Actium; Antony’s raging bitterness—and forgiveness—after each of Cleopatra’s betrayals; her howl of grief at his death. 

Their new strength rebalanced the role of Caesar (the forceful tenor Paul Appleby) in this power triangle. Previously, his youthful vigor stole the show; here, the complexity of the lovers offered a potent antidote to his naked ambition. Standout supporting singers included Jarrett Ott, who brought a robust baritone and sympathetic affect to his Met debut as the Roman Agrippa; as Eros, a follower of Antony, Brenton Ryan’ssweet tenor shone, especially in the quasi-comic scene where he informs Cleopatra that Antony has married Octavia. As Enobarbus, Antony’s lieutenant, bass-baritone Alfred Walker’s elegiac moments added texture to the tragedy, as did the husky low mezzos of the three supporting women—Taylor Raven (also a debut) and Eve Gigliottias Cleopatra’s attendants Charmian and Iras and Elizabeth DeShong as Octavia.

Elkhanah Pulitzer’s production, set in the 1930s, seemed more focused here, its period nods to Italian fascism and Hollywood glamour supporting the narrative rather than standing in the foreground. Mimi Lien designed the sets; Constance Hoffman the costumes; David Finn the lighting; Bill Morrison the projections. Annie-B Parson’schoreography brought a “Red Detachment of Women” energy to the military displays; the Battle of Actium was still unclear. Mr. Adams’s operas are written with amplification in mind and Mark Grey’s sound design needs some tweaks for good balance in the Met. But the piece is a keeper.

Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).

Claus Guth’s production of the Strauss opera at the Met emphasizes its heroine’s history of abuse in telling the tale of obsession and decapitation; at Carnegie Hall, Harry Bicket and the English Concert brought Handel’s epic of love and vengeance vividly to life.

By 

Heidi Waleson

May 5, 2025 at 5:08 pm ET

Peter Mattei and Elza van den Heever in ‘Salome’ at the Met. PHOTO: EVAN ZIMMERMAN/MET OPERA

New York

From its insidious opening clarinet solo, Richard Strauss’s “Salome” is a creepy, unsettling piece of theater, its story rooted in unhealthy sexual obsession. For his new production at the Metropolitan Opera, director Claus Guth dissects that malady, but his visualization is so chilly and clinical that we feel neither its heat nor its horror.

The production opens with the sound of a music box, a video image of a veiled child in white on a scrim, and an actual child ripping the arms off a doll. The scrim rises on an all-black room with Victorian design elements and rows of waiters in black livery; on an upstage platform, a shadowy group of black-clad figures wearing ram’s heads pursue a naked woman. (Etienne Pluss designed the sets; Olaf Freese the lighting; Ursula Kudrna the costumes.) When Salome (Elza van den Heever) sheds her demure black velvet, white-collared dress, she’s wearing a child’s white nightgown, setting up the conceit: All her life, Salome has been terrorized and sexually abused by her stepfather, Herod (Gerhard Siegel).

The point is clear, especially when the set rises and Salome descends into an all-white cistern to visit Jochanaan (Peter Mattei). The prophet, wearing a tattered loincloth and white body makeup, is chained in a corner; a child’s toys and rocking horse are also present. It’s the negative of the black room upstairs, and here Salome can be the aggressor rather than the victim. Mr. Guth suggests that the opera, culminating in Salome’s demand for the prophet’s head, is her liberation from the hideous darkness of her childhood.

A scene from ‘Salome.’ PHOTO: EVAN ZIMMERMAN/MET OPERA

The Dance of the Seven Veils makes the history explicit. Six girls of ascending heights represent Salome at different ages; they dance in turn for a Herod figure in a ram’s head, with the dances becoming increasingly sophisticated and disturbing. Ms. Van den Heever is the final dancer; she stabs the Herod figure with the stick he has used to threaten the others. Wishful thinking, perhaps, since the actual Herod applauds the performance. Salome’s real liberation occurs after her not very necrophiliac final scene with Jochanaan’s head—and, unusually, his decapitated body—in the cistern. When she again ascends the stairs, the black room is in ruins and it is Herod, not she, who falls dead.

The black-and-white monotony of the production was, unfortunately, mirrored by Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s monochromatic, almost uniformly loud conducting. There are myriad color subtleties in the orchestral score, but they were rarely apparent, and it was hard to feel the waves of tension and revulsion that give the opera its frisson and sultry luridness.

The conducting did not help the excellent cast. Ms. Van den Heever’s clarion Salome was often smothered in her middle and lower ranges. Peter Mattei was luckier, since he was downstage for Jochanaan’s one visible scene, and his offstage admonitions were amplified, giving presence to his warm, resonant baritone. Mr. Siegel was an intense, bedeviled Herod, his tenor unstrained in the character’s high tessitura. Michelle DeYoung stood out as Salome’s mother, Herodias; dressed in an orange dress and wig, she had the only color onstage, apart from the blood. The capable singers in secondary roles, including Piotr Buszewski as the unfortunate Narraboth, were theatrically hampered by their all-black costumes—it was hard to tell the soldiers (or waiters) from the squabbling Jews and the pious Nazarenes.

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Christophe Dumaux and Louise Alder in the English Concert’s performance of ‘Giulio Cesare in Egitto.’PHOTO: FADI KHEIR

Harry Bicket and the English Concert’s annual opera visit to Carnegie Hall on Sunday was a four-hour feast of vocal and orchestral luxury. Handel’s “Giulio Cesare in Egitto” is a parade of brilliant numbers, and Mr. Bicket assembled a stellar team of soloists, headed by Christophe Dumaux as Cesare and Louise Alder as Cleopatra. Everyone sang from memory and, along with some simple but effective staging touches and a few instances of sartorial splendor, this nominally concert performance felt more like theater than some actual theater does.

Mr. Dumaux’s vibrant countertenor is consistently strong throughout its range. His ease of delivery served his serious and playful moments equally, whether Cesare was brooding over the dead Pompey’s urn and the fleetingness of glory or trading elaborate riffs with lead violinist Nadja Zwiener’s songbird imitations. Cleopatra undergoes the opera’s greatest transformation—from flirtatious vamp to tragic heroine—and Ms. Alder’s soprano was the event of the afternoon, revealing new levels of richness and textural color with each aria. Both singers commanded the stage.

As the tormented Cornelia—her murdered husband Pompey’s head is delivered to Cesare in the first scene; three other characters immediately begin pursuing her—mezzo Beth Taylor lamented with fervor. Mezzo Paula Murrihy brought a supple, youthful earnestness to her son, Sesto, his father’s avenger. Countertenor John Holiday was a spiteful, swaggering Tolomeo, most impressive in his dazzling high register. He also had the most striking outfit, with a burgundy coat and jeweled, high-heeled Louboutin boots. Baritone Morgan Pearse (Achilla), countertenor Meili Li (Nireno) and baritone Thomas Chenhall (Curio) ably rounded out the cast.

Mr. Bicket and his orchestra—individuals and tutti—were as characterful and sensitive as the singers. The many outstanding obbligato moments included hornist Ursula Paludan Monberg dueting with Mr. Dumaux on the catchy, hunting-themed “Va tacito,” and cellist Joseph Crouch sweetly accompanying Ms. Murrihy’s simple “Cara speme.” For Cleopatra’s wrenching “Se pietà,” the entire orchestra seemed to be breathing with her and matching her dynamic control, the strings swelling and then narrowing to a delicate thread.

The staging bits and touches of humor—Mr. Pearse had Pompey’s head in a Macy’s shopping bag; Mr. Dumaux listened to Ms. Alder’s seduction aria from a seat in the audience—also kept the afternoon buoyant. The opera, after all, has a happy ending, and The English Concert clearly revels in its kaleidoscopic array of musical riches.

Ms. Waleson writes on opera for the Journal and is the author of “Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America” (Metropolitan).