Gregory Spears’s Sleepers Awake mystifies and delights at Opera Philadelphia.
Gregory Spears, whose newest opera Sleepers Awake opens this week at Opera Philadelphia, is reviving Romanticism
The dazzling and deeply moving Complications in Sue bodes well for Anthony Roth Costanzo‘s stewardship of Opera Philadelphia.
Global warming meets the cool factor in The Seasons.
Composer Philip Venables talks about queer utopias and bending gender and genre in The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions which opens at the Park Avenue Armory this week.
Opera Philadelphia’s Il viaggio a Reims in a nutshell: Hyperactive, confusing, and distracting from (and sometimes for) the singers? Yes. Imaginative, wildly entertaining, and musically rewarding? Absolutely.
A fine Don Giovanni at Opera Philadelphia rounds out the company’s inaugural season under Anthony Roth Costanzo
Opera Philadelphia announced today its 50th Anniversary 2025-2026 season, the second under the leadership of Anthony Roth Costanzo, but the first to bear his distinctive imprint.
Operettas always seem to be on the menu for New Year’s Eve, so Chris’s Cache joins in with a broadcast of Offenbach’s delicious La Grande-duchesse de Gérolstein featuring Stephanie Blythe in the title role.
The music was at every point dramatically compelling, without seeming cheap or manipulative.
Two opera houses, both alike in dignity (but less so in resources and international fame) launched their seasons this week, making similar out-of-the-box choices: new works on edgy, contemporary themes.
But pressing questions remains: Why? Who is this Figaro for?
Opera has always been Orpheus-obsessed.
Madama Butterfly is the opera of the moment.
Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack appeared at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater this past Thursday with pianist Keun-A Lee in a thoughtful and distinctly personal recital program presented by Vocal Arts DC.
Washington Concert Opera’s season opened with a triumphant performance of Gioachino Rossini’s rarely heard Ermione Saturday night at George Washington University in D.C., led by Antony Walker and a stellar quartet of principals in Angela Meade, Lawrence Brownlee, David Portillo, and Ginger Costa-Jackson.
David Devan may be leaving the company, but there can be no better living tribute to him than this extraordinary work, which in 90 minutes gives us everything we could want from a new opera
Okay, let’s get the silly jokes out of the way first. Around our house, we’ve been referring to this alternately as Merrily We Bohemians Roll Along, or Emèhob Al.
This is likely the best Giargiari Bel Canto competition year in my experience, evidenced in several important ways.
Rodrigo is a ball-breaking role, but Lawrence Brownlee makes the demands sound easy—tossing in additional high notes and audaciously decorating cabalettas as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Reunited and it feels so good!
Opera Philadelphia’s return to the stage after two years was greeted by a cheering crowd who clearly would have been happy to stay longer, but as director David Devan acknowledged, this was a step in a continuing trajectory.
Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres are two singers at the top of their game, as this concert showed, virtually peerless in music as punishing as it is pretty.
April is the cruelest month, the song tells us—but this year, it was a week later. Ghenady Meirson, Philadelphia’s master of Russian Opera and coach extraordinaire, died on May 8.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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