Opera San Jose Falstaff February 11, 2023 Chanae Curtis as Alice Ford. Opera San Jose’s production of Verdi’s final opera is a madly entertaining evening, thanks to a superb cast, a repurposing of Steven C. Kemp’s imaginative 2013 set design, and a high level of comic energy under stage director Jose Maria Condemi. All of which serves to underscore the brilliance of an opera that is probably not performed as often as it should be. It all begins with our titular character, of course, and baritone Darren Lekeith Drone is perfection. He carries the big man’s great lusty presence ..read more

Sunday in the Park with George San Jose Playhouse December 3, 2022 “Writing about music is like dancing about furniture.” * I would have loved to be in on that meeting between Stephen Sondheim, writer James Lapine and their producers, sometime in the early ‘80s. It would have been very “It’s a show about nothing!” Or “It’s a hip-hop biography of Alexander Hamilton!” Or, perhaps “It’s a musical about a painting!” You couldn’t have blamed the committee of angels for questioning the mental health of their artist friends. And perhaps it’s fitting, because Georges Seurat likely got the same reac ..read more

Opera San Jose Alma Deutscher's Cinderella November 12, 2022 “Act your age, not your shoe size.” – Prince It could be that the distinct advantage of being a prodigy lies in having developed the skills to create works of art without the usual baggage of dogmas, nay-sayers and cultural strictures. Which is one reason Alma Deutscher’s Cinderella is such a breath of fresh air. Deutscher simply looks at the musical options available to her - be they classical, romantic or bel canto - revs up that awesome musical brain and applies them to her story. The resultant opera is unapologetically beautifu ..read more

The Marriage of Figaro September 10, 2022 Maya Kherani as Susanna. Photos by David Allen. Opera San Jose's re-setting of Figaro into the 1890s British Raj of India works like a charm, thanks in no small part to a cast full of South Asian faces and an immaculate attention to detail. Of course, you'd have to give equal credit to the piece itself. Has there ever been a time or place when we haven't had class inequalities, marital infidelities, jealous spouses and horny teenagers? The performance's beginnings were not so promising. Our Susanna seemed oddly quiet, and the usually reli ..read more

In my latest novel, Mermaids' Tears, my twelve-year-old protagonist, Rusty, writes the title story as a way to console his older housemate, Autumn, who has lost her brother to suicide. Mermaids' Tears In the month of October, in the terminally charming town of Caramel-by-the-Waters, there was born a cute and sweet girl. Her parents named her October. Almost three years later, in the month of July, there was born a cute and spirited boy. His parents named him January. This would not seem to make sense, but the boy’s big ice-blue eyes reminded his father of winters in Wisconsin.  It’s ..read more

Amitai Patti as Don Ottavio, Adela Zaharia as Donna Anna. Photos by Cory Weaver. June 10, 2022 This production of Giovanni is the third in Michael Cavanagh's American House Trilogy, designed to cast a new light on the Mozart/Da Ponte operas, also including Marriage of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. Figaro was set at the birth of America, Cosi in the Great Depression, and Giovanni in a post-apocalyptic era. This latter is the result of private greed and natural disasters - sadly, all too likely. The setting provides many parallels to modern-day America. A womanizing oligarch wreaking havo ..read more

Teresa Castillo as Anita, Noah Stewart as Tony. All photos by David Allen. April 16, 2022 If West Side Story teaches us anything, it’s that idealistic young lovers are a danger to society. Our man Tony has the Sharks/Jets turf war down to a two-man fistfight (a deal any reasonable cop would take in a second), but then his girlfriend insists there be no violence at all, and what are the results? Dead bodies, everywhere. The performance of musical theater by an opera company is always an intriguing move, and sometimes the results are grand. In recent years, San Francisco Opera, brough ..read more

Carmen (Nikola Printz) and Don Jose (Noah Stewart). Photos by Chris Hardy. February 12, 2022 On the eve of the Super Bowl, the cast of OSJ’s Carmen seemed a little like a team that wasn’t quite ready for the kickoff. It was a shame, since the first act, with its population of tobacco ladies, soldiers and villagers, is usually bursting with energy. Perhaps, after two years without a full-length, live-audience production, it was a case of opening night jitters. Well. Things changed quickly in the second act, as the scene moved to Lillas Pastia’s tavern. It’s not that this opera ..read more

November 13, 2021 Nikola Printz as Dido, Efrain Solis as Aeneas. Photos by David Allen. Opera San Jose could not have picked a more perfect way to welcome back live audiences than Purcell's brief and love Baroque masterwork. Taken from the most famed section of Virgil's Aeneid, the opera offers a remarkably captivating account of the doomed affair between the Carthaginian queen and her Trojan suitor. Purcell's spare orchestration, played here without any exotic early-music instruments, gives a rare amount of space to some magnificent voices. Chief among these is mezzo Nikola Printz's ..read more

  Navigation Home Books Chrysalides The Year Lived Over and Over The Call The Light on His Feet Frozen Music Exit Wonderland All Visions of Blind Love Reviews What’s New Interviews Links DNA Ezine Review of East of the Cookie Tree by Michael J. Vaughn Michael J. Vaughn’s EAST OF THE COOKIE TREE, written with jauntiness and immediacy, presents us with a dizzying array of responses. What at first glance appears a carefree road trip in which Daniel Maryland, a professional actor, wending his way from San Francisco down to two weddings, one in Gilroy, California and another in Malibu wh ..read more