Fidelio: still political in 2018

Interview

"I hope people who know Fidelio already will be surprised and challenged to experience the opera in a new way. I hope newcomers to Fidelio will come away with admiration for Beethoven's beautiful music and appreciation of this story's powerful resonance today. I hope all audience members will take away questions and concerns that they continue to talk about and wrestle with."

Talking with singers: Nelson Ebo

Interview

"My desire for singing was within me when I was born. My father loved to sing and when I was a child I was always the loudest one (out of the 16 of us). I sang in my church choir and found a way to formalize my love of singing. When I was a bit older, I was given a cassette tape of the Three Tenors and started imitating them."

Intimate Brewery Room La Bohème A Revelatory Triumph

Review

But actually, this is the big revelation of the production: the show works better when the cast is allowed to treat the show's lighter moments like a comedy, because it only highlights how truly tragic their situation is when reality comes crashing back in.

Big Jim and the Small-time Investors: a story often told

Review

If the title sounds more like a riff on Dion and the Belmonts or Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, in a way, it is. Big Jim sings, or more precisely, croons, about getting rich by investing in his interactive "reality" fantasy goggles. His small-time investors hum along. Big Jim appears live to the audience but only on suggested video screens to his investors. They are the ultimate back-up singers.

Susannah is topical relevance, like it or not

Review

Susannah is the all-too-common story of a woman, accused and ostracized by her community, raped, and left with more questions than answers, and even less justice. Floyd's music, at once both modern and nostalgic, presents a challenge to its musicians that Nashville Opera's singers took on and largely conquered.

Orphée⁺: "How do we grieve in 2018?"

Interview

"The key is to employ all these elements to further enhance and heighten the experience of the drama - that is to say, these are not random tricks that have been selected for novelty's sake. Despite the number of collaborators, there is a unity of purpose behind every device, and I think they coalesce beautifully."

Out of Darkness: Two Remain is perfect for its time

Review

The second act follows the story of Gad Beck, performed by actor Tom Key. Gad, an older man, is preparing for bed when the ghost of his lover, Manfred Lewin, appears to remind Gad of the horrors, though Gad, who has held on to Manfred's book of poetry and his picture, had spent years just trying to forget it.

Lore Lixenberg is The Mother

Interview

"The satire and explosiveness is in the score, as Laurence is playing around with Witkacy's pure form and putting that into music. Also the performance is actually a staged concert that is often a financial decision for a company, opera is expensive, but has the benefit of really putting more focus on the score and the structure of the piece and in my opinion gives an opera performance a certain clarity."

Odyssey Opera's Giovanna D'Arco Bold and Flawed

Review

Of course, Verdi also uses park-and-bark arias and ensembles throughout the score (what opera of that time would be complete without them?), but there is enough musically interesting material going on throughout the whole that it becomes almost criminal that the music serves the libretto it does.

Classic for good reason: The Marriage of Figaro

Review

It was most heartwarming to see the relationship between Lois and Thomas Oliemans as Susanna and Figaro. Oliemans seemed to go for a more casual Figaro, not quite the charismatic showman that one sees in other productions (or in The Barber of Seville for that matter). His was an unobtrusive Figaro, more content to go along with the schemes of others than to make up his own.