The wicked poisoner showed herself in fine form, full of purple passion and lusty music-making that would gladden the heart of any bel canto enthusiast or opera lover in general.
In an era when the Metropolitan Opera cannot cast an Aida, Trovatore or Forza consistently, New Amsterdam Opera managed to cast large, attractive and fully technically capable voices in all the cruelly demanding principal roles in I Vespri Siciliani!
New Amsterdam Opera’s concert version of Donizetti’s elaborate score La favorita, offered energy, panache and several top-notch young soloists.
For those who thought opera to be a rare enough commodity that there shouldn’t be duels, Saturday night in the Berkshires offered the odd rebuttal.
Wednesday brought Christopher Alden’s grimly dark and violent take on Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo at National Sawdust.
LoftOpera’s accurately but unpromisingly named Pergolesi & Vivaldi stumbled rather than soared.
LoftOpera’s Saturday night performance of Rossini’s Otello successfully appealed to the essential kinetic energy of the operatic art form.
How often do you hear Macbeth with four really good singers in its four big roles?
Ambivalent is how I feel about Cosí fan tutte.
An extraordinarily rich variety of opera happens locally, under the umbrella of New York Opera Fest.
LoftOpera offered an unusually satisfying, immensely entertaining production of Rossini’s scintillating portrait of an inveterate seducer.
Regina Opera almost completely fulfilled its mission Saturday afternoon with their production of Manon Lescaut.
An astute double-feature exposes all the complexities of female suffering embedded within two canonical works.
After two previous productions of Tosca in New York City this season (the Met’s revival of the controversial Luc Bondy version and NYCO Renaissance’s depressingly retrograde take), New Yorkers finally got a pleasing, if rough-edged, performance of the Puccini classic from LoftOpera.
LoftOpera gives performances of exceptional musical and theatrical polish in offbeat corners of Brooklyn.
LoftOpera is just one, though perhaps the liveliest, of many homegrown opera troupes in Brooklyn.
In just two years, Brooklyn’s LoftOpera has rapidly established itself as a bracing, essential addition to New York City’s musical life.
It could get loud. It often does, especially when the soprano is mere inches from your ears, pleading with the duke for the life of the poor boy (parentage unknown) who insulted her notorious dynasty.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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