Opera
Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) by Alexander Zemlinsky. Libretto by George Klaren, based on Oscar Wilde’s “The Birthday of the Infanta.” Staged by OperaHub at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, through March 13. Free Reviewed by Helen Epstein For a truly worthwhile evening of music drama—free admission no less—get yourselves to the Boston…
Read MoreReviewed By Caldwell Titcomb The Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) initiated this week what it calls Opera Annex by moving out of its usual venue for its production of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw. The site chosen was the Park Plaza Castle, built in 1891 as a Boston armory.
Read MoreBy Caldwell Titcomb The Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) is currently offering Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” his last completed and finest opera, which had its delayed and unsuccessful premiere in 1875. According to Opera America, “Carmen” ranks No. 4 in the list of most performed works from the 1880s to 2005, surpassed only by Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly”…
Read MoreBy Caldwell Titcomb Note: Rusalka is transferring to the West End’s London Coliseum from March 28 to April 15, 2020. Czech opera is not often mounted in these parts. The two major composers were Bedrich Smetana (1824-84) and Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). The latter wrote ten operas, some comic and some tragic. Among Czech natives, the…
Read MoreBy Caldwell Titcomb The scientist Spalanzani (tenor Neal Ferreira) strikes an unlikely deal with the nefarious inventor Coppélius (baritone Gaétan Laperrière) in the BLO’s fine production of “Tales of Hoffmann.” One of history’s most famous and beloved French operas wasn’t written by a native Frenchman. “The Tales of Hoffmann” came from the pen of Jacques…
Read MoreBy James Marcus At its best, an opera about the death of Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca is a tour-de-force. Ainadamar, an opera by Osvaldo Golijov. (Deutsche Grammophon) For most composers, geography is destiny. Even Schoenberg — whose innovations were supposed to release music not only from its tonal prison but from the local idiom…
Read MoreThe Italian composer’s famous masterpiece “La Traviata” receives a production that is worthy of the opera’s enduring artistry. By Mark Kroll The Boston Lyric Opera has just begun a nice long run of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” and this is a good thing for Boston’s opera lovers. “La Traviata” finds Verdi at the height of…
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