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.

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.

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).

In upstate New York, director R.B. Schlather sought to wrestle Handel’s opera into modernity; in Brooklyn, Anthony Roth Costanzo offered a performance considering the high male voice that included an olfactory component.

Randall Scotting in the title role of ‘Giulio Cesare.’ PHOTO: MATTHEW PLACEK

By Heidi Waleson

April 21, 2025 at 5:15 pm ET

Hudson, N.Y.

Director R.B. Schlather’s operas in Hudson Hall are billed as no-frills projects, with talent and materials locally sourced as much as possible. They are popular, judging from the jammed-in, SRO crowd at Handel’s “Giulio Cesare,” which opened on Saturday. Production values were minimalist. The set, designed by Mr. Schlather, was two enormous black walls, painted with glitter and placed at an open angle, plus a catwalk through the center of the audience. Masha Tsimring’s lighting was dark; shadows were a major design element.

Mr. Schlather is working hard to goose this opera into modernity, and he succeeds in part. His show’s theme is violence and tyranny; Cleopatra’s seduction of Cesare (though it is also a political move) is secondary to the arrogance and viciousness of Cleopatra’s brother, Tolomeo, and his determination to mow down every obstacle in his path to the throne of Egypt. Achilla, Tolomeo’s henchman, follows his master’s lead; hence his wooing of Cornelia, whose husband, Pompey, he murdered on Tolomeo’s orders, is staged as an attempted rape. Terese Wadden’s modern costumes are shredded and discarded as the show goes on, and by the end Cesare and Cleopatra are streaked with mud. A small pit in the front of the stage serves as a grave for the dead and almost dead. On the minus side, the interpretive dances of the striking performer Davon were more distracting than illuminating, and between the stygian darkness and minimal direction, some of the scenes lacked visual interest.

Matthew Deming and Song Hee Lee PHOTO: MATTHEW PLACEK

Musically, matters were more problematic. The 12 players of the period-instrument band Ruckus, while energetic, were not always in sync with the singers, and some of the arrangement choices were jarring. Cleopatra’s sorrowful “Piangerò,” eloquently sung by Song Hee Lee, had an intrusive electronic drone sound for its continuo bass line, and band director Clay Zeller-Townson’s bassoon was sometimes oddly prominent.

The singers, many of them talented, seemed unsupported in their challenging vocal parts. Ms. Lee gained in strength as the evening progressed; her two lamenting arias were impressive, as was her agility in the ornaments of the celebratory “Da tempeste.” Meridian Prall’s velvety mezzo gave her Cornelia tragic gravity, and Raha Mirzadegan’spure, piercing soprano made her especially boyish as Cornelia’s son, Sesto, despite her amateurish costume and wig. Their farewell duet was a high point.

The other principal singers were less assured. Countertenor Chuanyuan Liu was entertaining but missed Tolomeo’s vocal edge, and as Cesare countertenor Randall Scotting lacked vocal presence with his muted top range. In the smaller roles, Douglas Ray Williams was a coarse Achilla; Rolfe Dauz a robust Curio; and Matthew Deming played Nireno as Cleopatra’s gay best friend.

Anthony Roth Costanzo PHOTO: JILL STEINBERG

Brooklyn, N.Y.

Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo doesn’t sit still. In addition to being a performer, producer, and the general director of Opera Philadelphia, he is now writing a book for a trade publisher about the history of countertenors and what it’s like to be one. Last week at National Sawdust, he offered a concert of the album that will accompany the book. Nothing about Mr. Costanzo is ever typical, so the 75-minute evening featured a 15-person instrumental ensemble and numbers ranging from a Monteverdi aria to a Frankie Valli hit to a Renaissance ditty with suggestive lyrics. It also had an olfactory component: Smells specially created by scientist and artist Sissel Tolaas were intermittently wafted into the space for a synesthetic experience.

It was an ambitious experiment, not quite jelled. Some of the pieces sounded under-rehearsed, and the amplification meant that every flaw and hesitation showed. But it also displayed Mr. Costanzo’s expressive range through an intriguing variety of genres, while his intelligence and unaffected charm made him an appealing narrator.

A frank tale of his first love affair led into an impassioned performance of Vivaldi’s “Sol da te mio dolce amore” with flutist Amir Farsimatching his virtuoso ornaments; discussion of the cultural ubiquity of the countertenor voice sent him him furiously rocking out in a Klaus Nomi number (“You Don’t Own Me”) and essaying authentic yodel-like vocal styling on a Hawaiian tune, “E Mama E.” (Dušan Balarin, the protean lute/theorbo/guitar player, was valiant on slide guitar for the latter.) He also reprised a bit of the all-Costanzo “Marriage of Figaro” that was staged last summer on Little Island, singing baritone and soprano in the Count/Susanna duet.

The most affecting number was “Laika,” written for him by Osvaldo Golijov, in which Leah Hager Cohen’s text adopts the voice of the Moscow street dog who was sent alone into space on the Russian Sputnik 2 in 1957, and died there. Mr. Costanzo brought her to life—by turns plaintive, frantic and resigned, his vocal leaps evoking the spinning of the capsule—floating over a mournful accompaniment featuring basset horn, bass clarinet and harp. In Baroque operas, the exotic castrati often portrayed nonhumans; so, Mr. Costanzo noted in his narration, a dog fits right in.

Dan Schlosberg supplied vivid arrangements in addition to conducting and playing keyboard; the brass and percussion players bloomed on the rock and pop numbers. Brandon Stirling Baker’s dramatic lighting, and the use of filament bulbs as design elements, heightened the concert experience. The smell component was very subtle. I got just an occasional hint of a rich, slightly vegetal aroma. It didn’t seem to heighten the experience at the time, but I do remember several of the numbers viscerally, so perhaps it worked.

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).

At the Detroit Opera, Yuval Sharon reimagined Mozart’s tale of infidelity for the age of artificial intelligence; at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barrie Kosky offered a fiercely expressive staging of Kurt Weill’s Weimar-era work.

By 

Heidi Waleson

April 14, 2025 at 4:57 pm ET

Olivia Boen in Yuval Sharon’s AI-themed production of Mozart’s ‘Così fan tutte.’ PHOTO: AUSTIN T. RICHEY / DETROIT OPERA

Detroit

Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” is always a challenge: How does a director interpret its superficially misogynistic story—on a bet, two unsuspecting women are manipulated into trading lovers, the assumption being that women are inherently fickle—in a way that’s palatable to a contemporary audience? For his new production at the Detroit Opera, Yuval Sharon, the company’s innovative artistic director, has riffed on the opera’s subtitle, “The School for Lovers.” Don Alfonso (Edward Parks) is a tech CEO, and the opera is staged as a product launch for his company’s newest AI models of perfect female lovers who are undergoing the fidelity test in real time.

The framing device uses video and additional spoken text. Addressing the audience, the microphone-wielding Don Alfonso grandiosely positions his AI beings as the answer to all of humanity’s weaknesses. The conceit is clever and apt—at first. The set, a clinical white box, created by the design collective dots, morphs from laboratory to simulated locations with the aid of misty projections by Yana Biryukova and Hana S. Kim and candy-colored lighting by Yuki Nakase Link. Fiordiligi (Olivia Boen) and Dorabella (Emily Fons), covered in white automaton sheathing and costumed, hilariously, in outfits inspired by male fantasy, start out moving in awkward jerks, robot-style. As they acquire deeper consciousness, their movements grow smoother and more human.

Thomas Lehman, Edward Parks and Joshua Blue PHOTO: AUSTIN T. RICHEY / DETROIT OPERA

Mr. Sharon’s detailed direction keeps the concept consistent and often entertaining. In one of the funniest scenes, Fiordiligi’s declaration of steadfastness “Come scoglio” is staged in a gym, complete with elliptical machines; for the aria’s finale, she hoists a giant barbell, one-handed, over her head and tosses it at the suitors. She is a robot, after all.

The robot idea also fits the music for a while. In Act I, the women’s protestations always seem largely performative, no matter the staging concept. It’s only in Act 2, when they start to surrender, that the music expresses deeper feelings. One interpretation of “Così” is that the new pairings are actually more authentic than the original ones and the joke, however mean-spirited, is a means toward growth for all four lovers. This staging allows for some of that development: We get the real anguish of Fiordiligi’s “Per pietà” as she confronts that change in herself in the empty white box, now a human cruelly tested in a laboratory.

But Mr. Sharon, wedded to his misogynist CEO Don Alfonso, who has more interpolated scenes—and becomes increasing unhinged—in Act 2, doesn’t come up with a satisfying resolution within the opera’s rich, if tricky, original framework. Instead, he jettisons a sizable chunk of the score and tacks on an abrupt new ending. It may be the logical conclusion of Mr. Sharon’s ideas about the intersection of technology and human mutability, but it isn’t “Così.” Worse, it feels like a total letdown.

Mr. Lehman, Ann Toomey and Mr. Blue, standing; Emily Fons and Ms. Boen, seated. PHOTO: AUSTIN T. RICHEY / DETROIT OPERA

On the plus side, the cast was excellent, particularly in their skillful navigation of the opera’s many vocal ensembles. Ms. Boen was electrifying in the two Fiordiligi arias; Ms. Fons brought a nicely contrasting brightness to the more fun-loving Dorabella. As the male lovers, Thomas Lehman displayed an eloquent baritone as Guglielmo and Joshua Blue’s tenor was a bit gravelly as Ferrando. Mr. Parks did a valiant job with his spoken CEO role as well as Don Alfonso’s sung contributions; Ann Toomey was a vocally underpowered but game Despina, the maid and Alfonso’s confederate. Conductor Corinna Niemeyer kept the pace lively.

Constanze Becker, Maeve Metelka and Tilo Nest in ‘The Threepenny Opera.’ PHOTO: RICHARD TERMINE

Brooklyn, N.Y.

In early April, New York audiences finally got the chance to experience the theatrical alchemy of the Australian director Barrie Kosky when his Berliner Ensemble production of Kurt Weill’s “The Threepenny Opera” visited the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Mr. Kosky, who spent 10 years (2012-22) as artistic director at the Komische Oper Berlin, has a gift for shaking up works that seem set in amber, delving deep into their hearts and those of the audience. For example, his anxious, dark “Fiddler on the Roof,” brought to Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2022, explored its theme of a community displaced while retaining its comedy.

His “Threepenny,” performed in the original German with supertitles, has that same polyphonic tapestry of darkness and light. There’s Weimar-style cabaret, with spangly curtains, follow spots, and the characters addressing the audience directly in eye-catching costumes. But these mostly criminal denizens of London must climb through a jungle-gym set and perch precariously in its niches before scrambling off. (Rebecca Ringst designed the set, Dinah Ehm the costumes, and Ulrich Eh the lighting.) It allows equal space for Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann’s harsh text—“The world is poor and man’s a s— / And that is all there is to it” is a typical lyric—and Weill’s seductive tunes.

Dialogue delivery was speedy and unsentimental, the singing direct and fierce, yet the music expressed underlying, impossible yearning. The arresting cast included Constanze Becker as Mrs. Peachum, elegant in a fur coat, drawling the “Ballad of Sexual Obsession”; Tilo Nest, tough as Mr. Peachum, her underworld-kingpin husband; Laura Balzer as Lucy Brown, trilling an operatic parody about poisoning her rival Polly (the ebullient Maeve Metelka); Bettina Hoppe as the rueful whore Jenny; Kathrin Wehlisch, in gender-bent casting, as the police chief Tiger Brown, Macheath’s old friend and one of his several betrayers; and Josefin Platt, wickedly crooning the “Morität” (“Mack the Knife”). Gabriel Schneider’s Macheath, a Don Giovanni who gets reprieved instead of sent to hell, ends with a spotlit cabaret turn while the others go off into darkness. The brassy seven-member band headed by Adam Benzwi on keyboards was overmiked into assaultive territory, but perhaps that too was the point.

Mr. Kosky’s first U.S.-based project was recently announced. A musical adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s story “Yentl the Yeshiva Boy” for the Fisher Center at Bard—with a score by Mr. Benzwi and book and lyrics by Lisa Kron (“Fun Home”)—it will be rooted in Yiddish theater traditions. It is several years away. In the meantime, American opera houses should be bidding for his services.

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 New York company recently opened two underpowered productions: Jake Heggie’s 2010 adaptation of the Herman Melville classic, and Beethoven’s tale of a political prisoner and his wife featuring the star soprano Lise Davidsen.

By 

Heidi Waleson

March 6, 2025 at 5:31 pm ET

A scene from ‘Moby-Dick.’ PHOTO: MET OPERA

New York

If “operatic” is a synonym for “big,” Herman Melville’s sprawling novel “Moby-Dick” should be ideal source material for the stage. Jake Heggie’s 2010 operatic treatment certainly took up a lot of aural and visual space at its Metropolitan Opera premiere on Monday, but there was an emptiness at its heart.

The composer and his librettist, Gene Scheer, pared down Melville’s gargantuan text—with its digressions into whaling ships, cetology, and philosophy—into a conventional narrative tracking Captain Ahab’s monomaniacal quest for revenge on the white whale that took his leg. Everything happens aboard the Pequod; there is just one whale hunt before the fatal finale, and one encounter with another ship (there are nine in the novel). Crucial character episodes are included: The friendship of the innocent young narrator (here called Greenhorn instead of Ishmael) and the pagan Polynesian harpooner Queequeg; the resistance of the first mate, Starbuck, to Ahab’s madness; the loss and recovery of the cabin boy Pip. They are strung together with big choral numbers as the sailors declare their fealty to Ahab and some orchestral interludes evoking the passage of time at sea.

Brandon Jovanovich (center) as Captain Ahab PHOTO: MET OPERA

But Mr. Heggie’s tuneful music fails to supply any underlying sense of danger and impending tragedy. Nor does it depict Ahab’s madness, even in his lengthy arias, which are set in large part to Melville’s own words. Unsurprisingly, the most effective moments are the quietest ones, such as Greenhorn’s almost a cappella, unmoored “Human madness is a cunning and most feline thing,” as he climbs into Queequeg’s coffin near the end of the opera. When Benjamin Britten made an opera out of one of Melville’s other great sea tales, “Billy Budd,” he captured its essence, not just its surface.

Leonard Foglia’s stark production, which was first mounted for the opera’s world premiere at the Dallas Opera and has been to numerous companies since, was satisfyingly expanded to fill the Met stage. Robert Brill’s set features heavy, dark masts, ropes and sails, along with a curved rear wall that becomes an effective canvas for Elaine J. McCarthy’s evocative projections. Her images of the sea and sky, and the lively animated line drawings of the Pequod, depicting it from different vantage points, provide the roiling movement that the music lacks, though the denouement—as Ahab and the ship have their fatal encounter with Moby-Dick—is visually vague. Gavan Swift’s lighting supplies some color; Jane Greenwood’s historically appropriate costumes do not. Mr. Foglia’s direction is largely static, other than a dance that turns into a fight in Act 1.

Mr. Jovanovich PHOTO: MET OPERA

With his forceful tenor, Brandon Jovanovich did the best he could with Ahab’s bland music, expressing the captain’s madness mostly through glares. Mr. Heggie gave him an opening cry, “Infinity!” that recalled the fervent “Esultate!” of Verdi’s Otello, setting us up for disappointment with what followed. The necessary peg-leg prosthesis did not make Mr. Jovanovich’s evening easier. Tenor Stephen Costello, the single holdover from the opera’s premiere, brought a wistful gentleness to Greenhorn; Ryan Speedo Green’s rolling bass-baritone made Queequeg the most straightforward character on the stage. Peter Mattei, who was to sing Starbuck, was ill; his replacement, baritone Thomas Glass, sounded pretty but callow, missing the complexity and gravitas of this character. As the cabin boy Pip, Janai Brugger’s radiant soprano shone in the otherwise all-male texture; she was touching in Pip’s demented scene with Captain Gardiner (Brian Major), who fruitlessly begs Ahab for help. As Stubb and Flask, Malcolm McKenzie and William Burden animated the lighthearted scenes with brio, and the Metropolitan Opera Chorus was at its stalwart best. Conductor Karen Kamensek ably sculpted Mr. Heggie’s grand orchestral statements, which occasionally disguised the fact that there’s little underneath them.

The spectacular Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, who is fast becoming the darling of the Met, has made several company role debuts in recent seasons. Last Tuesday, she essayed Leonore in Beethoven’s “Fidelio” in a revival of the 2000 Jürgen Flimm production, which felt undercooked in every respect. Ms. Davidsen’s gleaming instrument is always beautiful, but she seemed to recede here, underplaying the role of the passionate wife who disguises herself as a young man and takes a job in a jail in order to free her husband Florestan, a political prisoner. Her big aria “Abscheulicher!” lacked explosive fury; she sounded more like the awkward boy she is pretending to be than an avenging angel.

Susanna Mälkki’s conducting also missed the propulsive energy of this rescue thriller—it was smooth, deliberate and often slow. The most exciting moments of the evening belonged to David Butt Philip as Florestan, who displayed heldentenor power without strain. As Marzelline, the jailer’s daughter who has fallen in love with Fidelio (Leonore’s alias), Ying Fang’s bright soprano sparkled. René Pape was low energy as Rocco the jailer, playing the amiable paterfamilias; the harshness of Tomasz Konieczny’s bass-baritone worked well for the villainous Don Pizarro; Magnus Dietrich, in his house debut, was a nicely petulant Jaquino, Marzelline’s suitor; and Stephen Milling brought a weighty authority to Don Fernando, who arrives to save the day and put an end to tyranny. 

The production, designed by Robert Israel, updates the action to modern times. In the first scene, Marzelline and Jaquino are cleaning guns that are later collected by Pizarro’s soldiers, watched by the prisoners in three levels of cells on stage left; during the exuberant finale, soldiers hoisted the blood-streaked Pizarro onto a horse statue, suggesting that the new regime may well be as violent as the old. Gina Lapinski’s direction of the revival was haphazard—the busy activity of the Rocco-Marzelline-Fidelio scenes was hard to follow. Ms. Davidsen was also required to climb down a ladder from the very top of the stage into Florestan’s dungeon—she is visibly pregnant, and her extreme caution was notable. She returns next season in a new role and a new production, headlining Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” which may show her in a better light.

Ms. Waleson writes about 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).