Don’t tread on Marie
Boston Lyric Opera’s Revolutionary War-set Daughter of the Regiment prioritizes accessibility without losing its charm.
Boston Lyric Opera
Bloodless revolution
Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung at Canadian Opera Company deliver on fine performances even if Robert Lepage‘s production skimps on horror.
Lucky those people who are so anxious to believe
A high-drama Vanessa by the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers something to believe in.
Hold! Enough!
The timing for Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Macbeth this weekend was perfect for Halloween, though the show itself at the Emerson Colonial Theatre was decidedly less spooky.
Not a Marietta
We are a nostalgic sort, we opera lovers. Fortunately, Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, which arrived in concert form to Boston’s Symphony Hall last weekend, is all about nostalgia.
Meninas and meninos
Despite the practically unmitigated fiasco of the last Verdi concert opera performance seen in Boston, I approached Sunday’s Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras performance of Don Carlo at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre with much more optimism.
Aïda, harder not smarter
With Boston Lyric Opera’s largest opera production of the season already well behind us, the one-off semi-staged gala performance of Aïda held on Sunday at Emerson College’s Colonial Theatre to support the company’s vast education and community engagement apparatus, was a particularly enticing entry on the Boston cultural calendar.
Acting is rè acting
Boston Lyric Opera’s shows, of late, are often going to war with their texts.
Non son l’umile ancella
“[W]omen are interesting and important in real life. They are not an afterthought of nature, they are not secondary players in human destiny, and every society has always known that.” — Margaret Atwood, February 2017
The artist is present
And is this ‘Orpheus’ in the room with us right now?
Opening doors
Real estate is hot along the Acela corridor right now: as proof, Judith will have toured at least three castles in New York and Boston between this spring and last.
Let the children come to me
It says something about Boston’s opera scene that one of the most consistently ambitious events of the opera season is a one-off performance played by the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Ashes to ashes
Gioachino Rossini’s adorable adaptation of Cinderella famously dispenses with a slipper in favor of a bracelet to lead the Principe Ramiro back to his Cenerentola. If only this performance had benefitted from such a glittering guiding hand.
Scholarly pursuits
“What would you do if the world you knew was suddenly gone and you were thrown into the deepest abyss stripped of all humanity? Would you fight to remember who you were?”
Float like a butterfly
Phil Chan described his point of departure for reimagining Orientalist works as the question, “what else could this be?”
It has to be more than that
Before rehearsals for Madama Butterfly started, Phil Chan sat down with the box to chat about his production, opera’s cultural appropriation problem, and why the last thing he’s trying to do is cancel Puccini.
Open concept
In Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, which closed on Sunday after a nearly sold-out run—there are no doors.
Mountains of his words
The audience greeted the opening night of Omar with more genuine enthusiasm than I have ever seen at Los Angeles Opera.
If they could turn back time
Yuval Sharon at Boston Lyric Opera has brilliantly found an interpretative middle ground for La bohème by presenting the acts in reverse order.
A place in the shade
Next Wednesday is the composer’s 337th birthday, so Trove Thursday previews this spring’s most enticing Handel performance with two very different live versions of his delightful Serse,.
Shark in a tent
The great Dalai Lama once said, “whenever there is a challenge, there is also an opportunity to face it, to demonstrate and develop our will and determination.”
Comedy on the Calais Coach
Friday night Music Director James Conlon sold Die Entfürhung aus dem Serial to a tony crowd of Angelenos.
Sunset, Sunrise
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson from breast cancer.
In Bruges
They say that Boston, despite many cultural distinctions, ain’t no opera town, and for some decades—generations?—this has been true. But tides of change will break, even on the shores of the Hub.
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).