Calling from 2066, Brendan Latimer argues that the best way to save opera might be to just blow up the standard repertoire altogether.
Pacific Opera Project’s high-spirited revival of Fra Diavolo is both therapy and an escape.
Trouble in Tahiti and A Quiet Place in a performance recorded last fall in London
Annapolis Opera presented a celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s reflections on love, relationships, and marriage, pairing a fully staged production of Trouble in Tahiti with a collection of songs from other Bernstein compositions.
I’ve never liked the term “crossover.”
Although Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti is always categorized as an opera, the piece certainly has one foot planted firmly in his jazzy musical-theater style.
Sunny, lakeside Cooperstown presents a peppy, exuberant, winning production of West Side Story, the musical.
In recent years, Opera Paralléle has established a reputation for creative programming of contemporary opera in San Francisco. Persuaded both by the promise of an unusual Bernstein-Heggie double bill, and the unusual venue of SF Jazz’s Miner Auditorium, I had the pleasure of attending an excellent production this past week.
Norman Dello Joio, who was knocking about winning prizes for film and TV scores, composed The Trial at Rouen, his second opera on the subject, for NBC.
What to do with all those glorious short operas: play them alone or find companion pieces?
I received a package in the mail this afternoon from La Cieca, and eagerly tore it open. I knew that this was to be my parterre review assignment… rapture! It was a CD of an opera: The Brothers composed by… George Antheil? Who the fuck is that? After researching him for a bit, I got…
I’ve found myself procrastinating endlessly over this review. I’m always excited by the chance to hear recently composed operas, and have a weak spot for the American repertoire. So I had overly high hopes for Paul Salerni‘s Tony Caruso’s Final Broadcast. At first listen, I found myself underwhelmed, slightly off put by the blending of…
“In Leonard Bernstein‘s clever one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti, the heroine describes a gaudy movie musical as so much ‘Technicolor twaddle.’ If Tan Dun‘s new work The First Emperor (heard at the Metropolitan Opera on December 29) can hardly be dismissed as twaddle, it never attains the epic status to which it aspires.” Our publisher…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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