Mary, Mary, quite contrary
Thea Musgrave’s Mary, Queen of Scots could learn to lighten up.
Matthew Travisano
Matthew is a San Francisco-based educator and actor. He has taught and lectured on the performing arts for more than two decades. He has trained a generation of actors in the greater Bay Area at both Oakland School for the Arts and Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, where he has also taught literature, composition, literary theory, and aesthetics. He holds a BA in English from UC Berkeley and a Master's in Teaching (MAT) from San Diego State University.
Man of the masses
Amartuvshin Enkhbat is superb in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra in San Francisco — even if the drama offstage is more persuasive than this new production.
Bang to whimper
Opera San José opened its season with a new production of Don Giovanni that embraced the opera’s challenges with youthful abandon, even as it was sometimes felled by them.
The kids are alright
Though, really, the young artists of the Merola Opera Program were more than alright in their annual showcase.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
American Bach led a stirring rendition of Handel’s Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, full of big questions and even bigger musical highlights.
Ma queer immortelle
San Francisco Opera hosts an exuberant tribute to queerness past and present.
Nun the wiser
Matthew Travisano has such doubts about Douglas Cuomo‘s opera recently seen at Opera Parallèle.
Hustle your bustle
Opera San José‘s La Traviata has all the buzz and energy of a world premiere.
Bach to Bach
An invigorating double bill at the San Francisco Symphony challenges how Bach “should” be performed.
By spirit alone
A sublime Reginald Mobley and the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra are a balm for troubled times in a program of baroque selections and spirituals.
The Italian connection
American Bach brings out the operatic side of Bach in a program featuring sparkling vocal talents.
Baroque in the Bay Area
Under the baton of Nicholas McGegan, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale proves they have a magic touch in a program of Rameau and Handel.
One is silver, the other is Golda
In an all-Mozart program with the San Francisco Symphony, Golda Schultz shows that her soubrette days are behind her.
The open wound that will never heal
In his new production that opens at San Francisco Opera this weekend, Matthew Ozawa is creating a Parsifal for the cancel culture age.
Act of contrition
The 25th anniversary revival of Dead Man Walking at San Francisco Opera is most moving in its quietest moments
Loving him isn’t the right thing to do
Matthew Travisano takes on Mimì’s Act III aria from La bohème — not that one, the other one — in the latest installment of the “Perspectives on an Aria” series
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).