This weekend a new opera, Proving Up, proved itself indeed – a chamber opera worthy for the 21st century. Born out of a spirit of inquiry, Proving Up is mysterious, mesmerizing, startling in moments, and highly atmospheric. The work is less plot-driven than most traditional opera; it has earmarks rather of an extended tone poem.
Birthing Opera: The Next Generation of Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative
This coming weekend Washington National Opera will showcase its most vital work: insuring the future of the form by developing young creative talent through its American Opera Initiative (AOI), a process that includes getting short operatic gems up on their feet.
Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (review)
Stillpointe Theatre, a Baltimore-based company known for its sharp takes on the American musical, has just entered the field of opera and became one of the first out of the gate this year to celebrate Bernstein’s hundredth anniversary year with the composer’s Trouble in Tahiti. Seems like the project served as a reunion of some […]
Is WNO’s The Little Prince too sophisticated for children? (review)
The Little Prince returned to earth this past weekend, filling the newly renovated Terrace Theater at the Kennedy Center with a veritable feast of sound and sights. “Amazing!” pronounced Kiko, a first grader from Olney, Md, attending opera for the first time.
WNO’s Alcina casts its spell at The Kennedy Center (review)
Old things may become new. Handel’s opera, Alcina, which premiered in 1735 has done just that – quite magically so. Washington National Opera has dared to take on the classic sorceress for the first time, and it couldn’t have been better timed. “Witchy” and “witchiness” have come back into vogue as women choose to reclaim […]
The Magic Flute review. In Series in a new venue
Your mission: Venture to the land of Adams Morgan until you see a temple at 16th and Fuller. From Fuller turn right at Mozart Place, past the construction, into the auto-gated parking lot. Then look for the signs. Not enigmatic Dan Brown-ish signs, but actual printer paper taped here and there, with arrows, saying “Magic […]
New chamber opera Independence Eve from UrbanArias (review)
UrbanArias pulls off a seemingly impossible task with Independence Eve by Sidney Marquez Boquiren and Daniel Neer, a chamber opera of three scenes with two singers, which deals with race relations in the US from the recent past to the near future all within 70 minutes.
WNO presents a bold, modern Madame Butterfly (review)
In most productions, Madame Butterfly is unabashedly atmospheric in its romanticism. “Orientalism” carries us back to composer Giacomo Puccini’s time when the West imagined a fanciful Japan with geishas in pastel colors, a watery moon over stirring waters, a pinkish snow of cherry blossoms, and the like. Those of us who love this opera succumb willingly […]
Lucy, the latest short opera from UrbanArias (review)
UrbanArias has gone wild! The company that pushes boundaries, reconceiving opera that is short, smart and fast, has given us an opera about a chimpanzee. Luckily, the chimpanzee, which we learn could perform just about everything else (and she does smile and laugh,) does not sing.
Don Giovanni gets a youthful outing at Washington National Opera
Mozart would have been grinning at this youthful production of his tried-and-true opera that reached out to a new younger and diverse audience Friday night, March 17th. Washington National Opera’s Don Giovanni was Mozart as he wanted to be known: someone who delivered stories-in-song with popular appeal.
In Series stages an inspired update of Don Pasquale (review)
Gaetano Donizetti miraculously wrote seventy-five operas during his brief lifetime. But what makes Don Pasquale stand out as one of the funniest comic operas (opera buffa) ever written is that it is filled with exquisitely beautiful bel canto arias, patter songs, and melodramatic humor. Its unforgettable characters are a mix of good and evil. Yet, […]
Champion at Washington National Opera (review)
The air was electric at Kennedy Center Saturday night with the promise of a great fight mounted as opera on stage, and I had what amounted to ringside seats. Champion clearly had some heavy hitters, headed up with a score by the great jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard and a libretto by award winning […]