Elizabeth Caballero as Florencia. Photo by David Allen. Daniel Catan’s Florencia en el Amazonas April 20, 2024 In 1996, when Daniel Catan’s opera premiered at Houston Grand Opera, he seemed to have no idea that he was leading a revolution. Neither did the critics. Although they paid due tribute to the composer’s impressive abilities, they described his traditional approach, reminscent of Debussy and Strauss, as “quaint.” Since then, a lot has changed. New works like Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Andre Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire wrested opera away from the musical ..read more

  Matthew Kropschot as Mooney. Photo by Dave Lepori. San Jose Stage Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen April 6, 2024 Hangmen takes us to a Manchester pub in 1965, shortly after the executioner/publican, Harry, has been involuntarily retired by the UK’s abolition of hangings. Harry (Will Springhorn, Jr.) is a little miffed by the situation, and expresses his vast array of opinions to a journalist, Clegg (Matthew Locke). The subsequent article turns Harry into a local celebrity. At first, quite frankly, the play seems like a bloody mess. The regulars are all yell-talking (the way drunks ..read more

Richard Thomas’s Jerry Springer the Opera 3Below Theater February 24, 2024 Seeing Jerry Springer the Opera is something like being dumped into a latrine and coming back out with a handful of diamonds. You’ll be richer for the experience, but you will need to do some laundry. And take a shower, you stinky fuck! Sorry. It’s just that this show is filthy, and it really revs up the potty mouth. Thomas makes it worse by taking the worst of these swear-bombs and turning them into little neoclassical ditties. My favorite is “What the fucking fucking fuck!” (You see, on the real Jerry they would b ..read more

Photo by David Allen   Opera San Jose February 17, 2024 The opening scene of Opera San Jose’s Rigoletto is so intense and perfect that it may lift you right out of your seat. It has a lot to do with Steven C. Kemp’s uber-masculine set, black pillars with blood-red draperies. And Mr. Howard Tsvi Kaplan’s costumes, dark with metallic inlays, which make the Mantuan court look like some badass medieval street gang. It has mostly to do with the jester Rigoletto and his boss-enemy, the Duke. Eugene Brancoveanu brings to the former a servile desperation with an underlying air of dang ..read more

In Michael J. Vaughn's new novel, Punks for the Opera, marketing wiz Marina Quantrill takes two surprising new connections and creates Punks for the Opera, a benefit for San Francisco Opera's community outreach program by four area punk bands. Halfway through the evening, things are not quite the blockbuster she was hoping for, but things are about to change... Snatcher takes the stage in very unexpected clothing. Macy wears crisp white breeches, a scarlet waistcoat over a Cramps T-shirt, and a black tricorner hat. Jane has a powdered wig, a foot tall. And Lily wears a pink 18th centur ..read more

  The Barber of Seville Opera San Jose November 11, 2023 It’s pretty rare to find an opera production that checks off absolutely every box, but Opera San Jose’s definitely got one. Their Barber is vocally scintillating, brilliantly funny, and madly entertaining. Beginning at the beginning, the overture just makes me smile. Regardless of certain (ahem!) animated connections, or the fact that it was appropriated from Rossini’s earlier opera, Aureliano in Palmira, those familiar, playful passages warm up an operagoer’s heart in the most delightful fashion. First thing, we’ve got a gang ..read more

Van Sciver’s GirondinesMission Opera October 29, 2023 Santa Clarita, CA A few months ago I had the pleasure of reviewing a CD, a new work from composer Sarah van Sciver and librettist Kirsten C. Kunkle. Girondines tells the story of six extraordinary women who took on the Jacobins during the violent chaos of the French Revolution. The most famous of these (perhaps infamous) is Charlotte Corday, whose bathtub assassination of Jacobin leader Marat was portrayed in the well-known painting by David. The work posits the notion that these women likely met and discussed the intense political issu ..read more

Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette September 9, 2023 Opera San Jose OSJ opened its 40th anniversary by bringing back R&J after a 17-year absence, and it’s a welcome return. The score is beautiful, pointing backward to Mozart, forward to Massenet, and despite its everpresence in modern culture (in both original and West Side forms), the story still offers poignant and infuriating moments. The production is also the first that Shawna Lucey has stage directed since becoming OSJ's general director and CEO. Her work in this production immediately establishes the primacy of dance-like movement. This ..read more

  Corey Bryant as Balaga Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 San Jose Playhouse April 29, 2023 To quote that other highly unusual 2010s musical, it would have been great to be “in the room” when someone came up with the idea for Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. “Let’s dramatize 70 pages of Tolstoy’s War and Peace using Russian folk music, musical theater ballads and electronic dance music.” Sure! Why not? A dozen 2017 Tony nominations later, it would seem that the crazy idea worked. The other meeting must have come at San Jose Playhouse, where someone ask ..read more

  Adrian Kramer as Cavaradossi, Maria Natale as Tosca. Photos by David Allen Opera San Jose, Puccini's Tosca, April 14, 2023 It’s amazing to see how a few seemingly minor details can have an enormous effect on an opera. OSJ stage director Tara Branham’s small innovations, combined with an energetic, blunt approach, led to a different and provocative Tosca. The opera’s opening is usually a mildly comic back-and-forth between the sacristan (a divinely grumpy Igor Vieira) and the painter Cavaradossi. Branham introduces a young lady with whom the painter is having a tryst. This prod ..read more