Opera
A thoroughly charismatic Fairy Queen from start to finish, well-prepared, fulgently delivered, and received by a packed house with well-earned warmth.
Read MoreAfter experiencing, in seven days, Monteverdi’s three extant operas and his Vespers of 1610, I am in awe of BEMF and everyone associated with it.
Read MoreFanny Lou Hamer’s life and the political struggle, which gave us the Voting Rights Act, is the basis of Mary Watkins’ two-act opera.
Read MoreAn exciting month, and that isn’t hyperbole. A couple of North American premieres: a futuristic opera from MIT’s Tod Machover and poet Robert Pinsky and a drama tweaking The New Testament from Howard Brenton. Toss in iconic director Peter Brook staging Beckett, F. Murray Abraham as Shylock, and Car Talk:The Musical and you are talking about taking out the smelling salts
Read MoreBEMF’s Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs have, once again, produced a work of impeccable and imaginative scholarship for a production that’s not only historically informed, but musically, dramatically, and visually entertaining. Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell and Nahum Tate. Presented by the Boston Early Music Festival. At New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Boston, MA,…
Read MoreThe Boston Lyric Opera’s current production, adapted from the Scottish Opera, is updated, but this does no real damage. The three locales are properly preserved. And the three principal characters—opera diva Floria Tosca, her lover Mario Cavaradossi, and the lusting and villainous Baron Scarpia—hit their mark solidly. By Caldwell Titcomb. Some years ago the noted…
Read MoreWorking with Bernstein: A Memoir by Jack Gottlieb. Amadeus Press, 370 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Caldwell Titcomb A strong case can be made that the late Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) was the all-round greatest musician our country has produced—virtuoso pianist, composer of both classical and popular music, the most charismatic conductor of his century, acclaimed educator…
Read MoreReviewed By Caldwell Titcomb Opera Boston is winding up its season with a delightful production of Jacques Offenbach’s La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867). This operetta, one of more than 100 of Offenbach’s works for the music stage, followed closely after three of his most accomplished contributions: La Belle Hélène (1864), Barbe-Bleue (1866), and La Vie…
Read MoreReviewed By Caldwell Titcomb I was not able to catch Ariadne auf Naxos until the last of six performances that the Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) presented at the Shubert Theatre. By this time everything was clicking superbly—both the singers and the instrumentalists in the pit. What we got was a production that the BLO imported…
Read More