Bird brain Bird brain

Opera at the Kennedy Center has been in hibernation this winter.

That which we call a Rosa That which we call a Rosa

Rosa Feola, hailed last year for her Gilda at the Met, brought a level of vocal refinement and elegance to Juliet that substantially elevated the night’s proceedings.

Moody ‘Blue’ Moody ‘Blue’

Originally scheduled for a D.C. premiere in spring 2020 but thwarted by the pandemic, Washington National Opera was finally able to present composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Tazewell Thompson’s Blue at the Kennedy Center last Saturday.

Moody “Blue” Moody “Blue”

The Glimmerglass Festival premiered a searing examination of race, identity, and the fraught relationship between communities of color and law enforcement. Blue, with a score by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Tazewell Thompson.

Meeting Rigoletto Meeting Rigoletto

I have a confession to make. I have been taking Rigoletto for granted.

Tree for the show Tree for the show

The late-mid 1730s were transitional years for Handel, to put it nicely.

Glass warfare Glass warfare

Saturday’s Washington National Opera premiere of a new version of Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton’s Appomattox had everything going for it but the opera.

Gaines and losses

Lyric Opera of Chicago has entrusted their new Macbeth to Barbara Gaines, Artistic Director of the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, whose work can be frustratingly inconsistent. She has directed the finest Troilus and Cressida and the finest King Lear that I have ever seen. Yet her recent work has been filled with wretched excess and effects…