Want to visit a battlefield, be among the fighters, and witness the stories taking place, while putting yourself in no more danger than crying?  Wolf Trap Opera makes it possible with their immersive production of Silent Night, a tale based on a most amazing thing that happened in 1914 during the first year of World War I: spontaneous truces broke out among groups of combatants who had only the day before been shooting at each other in close proximity.  These events became known as the “Christmas Truce”; this partial description is taken from a Britannica webpage: “On December 23 Ger ..read more

My, my Santa Fe Opera, you have outdone yourself, and that is quite a feat!  Oddly, despite its popularity, I had not seen a live production of Der Rosenkavalier (1909) by composer Ricard Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal, a team that had a run of big opera hits; I had seen Ariadne auf Naxos and Elektra by this team.  Somehow the snippets of Der Rosenkavalier I had seen in videos had not created an urgency in me to travel to take it in.  I did watch online more than once the first act with Renee Fleming in a Met Opera production; who wouldn’t watch Ms. Fleming?  ..read more

The Righteous premiered at Santa Fe Opera on July 13; the title made me wonder if the opera would be taking a position in the cultural divide by disparaging religious faith.  Rest easy, it hits close to home and takes its theme from the biblical story of King David, but it is human nature, not faith that is the target.  The Righteous is a complex drama with multiple threads and levels shrouded in beautiful music.  The opera views its characters through a lens of human understanding, even a forgiving lens, recognizing that as humans, we are tossed about by conflicts between our d ..read more

Shakespeare Opera Theatre is a small community opera with rising expectations.  Founder and Managing Director Lori Lind has created a bold and ambitious new blending of elements of Shakespeare’s play with Verdi’s marvelous music from his Macbeth.  Unfortunately, Friday night’s opening could have been titled “toil and trouble”.  It was beset with a witch’s brew of problems leading up to its debut.  Half of the cast and staff came down with illness or injuries.  The ensemble was unable to practice together for the five days preceding the premiere.  Many last-minute ..read more

Così fan tutte (1790) is an odd duck in the Mozart/Da Ponte’s great triple play that includes The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni; it was the last of their opera collaborations.  Così is the one I liked least on first viewing and that I now look forward to the most for seeing again.  On my first viewing, a Met Opera online video, I thought Così was a silly, unrealistic opera with a dismal ending, though with some good music and vocals; I was right, on one level.  Each viewing after that became more unsettling, causing me to ask myself what was going on.  I still look fo ..read more

If you had a clear, simple response to WNO’s premiere of their new production including a new ending of Puccini’s Turandot, I envy you.  For me, this visually and emotionally engaging Turandot engendered a range of feelings, many changing over the course of the performance.  Washington National Opera sold out most of their performances this season, but not before the first performance of each opera in the season.  Turandot sold out before the first of seven performances: that’s Hamilton-like popularity.  Why this happened is an interesting question.  Maybe Washington N ..read more

Opera Lafayette is an 18th century French opera company in present day, combining elements of the Paris Opera and the Opera Comique, often Americanized in presentation but always authentic in its approach to the music.  OL serves two metropolitan areas – Washington DC and New York City, while maintaining strong connections to performers and musicologists in France, even having performed at Versailles.  They are in the process this month of concluding their 2023-2024 season with their final production in DC and a festival including two of three productions from this season plus a gala ..read more

For Opera Baltimore’s concluding opera of the season, the company chose to present Mozart’s The Impresario, creatively expanded and personalized, in celebration of the company’s 15th anniversary.  In outline, Mozart’s work is a one-act German singspiel that tells the story, in comedic fashion, of a competition between rival sopranos for a role in an opera company.  Artistic and General Director Julia Cooke had made the decision to involve and empower the singers she employed to help develop their roles and relationships.  OB’s singers used the opera’s plotline to tell their char ..read more

Stars can elevate their team to overcome all obstacles, and sometimes not, as we found out in Sunday afternoon’s NCAA women’s basketball championship final.  Shortly after the game, for those who made it to GW’s Lisner Auditorium, the remainder of the afternoon was enlivened by superstar soprano Ailyn Perez who upped the game of a Puccini opera still trying to find its way home.  She, along with an excellent cast overall, backed by Conductor Antony Walker and the Washington Concert Opera Orchestra and Chorus, made it an evening and an opera to remember. Ailyn Perez as Magda in WCO’s ..read more

First, let’s adjust expectations.  Yes, Songbird was presented by Washington National Opera, but it is not an opera.  Without knowing its history, I doubt you would think of it even as an operetta, though it is based on an operetta by an opera composer, the link that drew it into WNO’s fold.  It is an in-your-face, high energy Broadway musical by way of Bourbon Street, a comic adult fairy tale produced in vaudevillian style.  What it mostly is, is high entertainment, impressive in the quality, attention to detail, and professionalism shining from every aspect – composition ..read more