August 7, 2017 • 9:00 am 0
Alexey Dolgov (Pinkerton) and Lianna Haroutounian (Cio-Cio-San); photo by Jacob Lucas
My review for Bachtrack of the new Madame Butterfly production opening Seattle Opera’s season:
How well do we really know Madame Butterfly? So iconic that, for some, it’s the archetype of the art form itself, Puccini’s mega-popular opera has recently been coming in for renewed scrutiny.
Filed under: Puccini, review, Seattle Opera
February 26, 2017 • 6:03 pm Comments Off on Review: A Searing Katya Kabanova on the Seattle Opera stage
Melody Moore sings the title role in “Katya Kabanova” on opening night at Seattle Opera. (Jacob F. Lucas)
My Seattle Times review of the new Katya Kabanova* production at Seattle Opera:
Nearly a century after it premiered, Leoš Janáček’s “Katya Kabanova” has made it to the Seattle Opera stage for the first time. The Czech composer’s portrayal of a sensitive young woman desperately in need of an escape route from her repressive surroundings contains all the ingredients for a searing music drama.
*following the company’s English rendition of the title, sans diacriticals
Filed under: Leoš Janáček, review, Seattle Opera
January 17, 2017 • 8:00 am Comments Off on New Take on Old Favorite: La traviata at Seattle Opera
La traviata director Mika Blauensteiner, in rehearsal at Seattle Opera
This familiar story of Violetta, her love, and death is the world’s most-performed opera. With new staging that marks the North American debut of the German director Peter Konwitschny, Seattle Opera hopes to shed fresh light on Verdi’s 1853 masterpiece.
Filed under: directors, Seattle Opera, Seattle Times, Verdi
January 3, 2017 • 10:40 am Comments Off on Déjà vu?
I found the above image accompanying a review of The Cunning Little Vixen (aka Das schlaue Füchslein) from a Wiener Staatsoper production reviewed on Bachtrack.
Am I imagining things, or is this uncannily reminiscent of Seattle Opera’s so-called “green Ring” set?
Filed under: Seattle Opera, Wagner
October 18, 2016 • 8:16 am Comments Off on Hansel and Gretel at Seattle Opera: Laurent Pelly’s Cautionary Fairy-Tale
Sasha Cooke (Hansel) and Ashley Emerson (Gretel); photo by Philip Newton
Absurd as it sounds, there was a time in the early 20th century when Hansel and Gretel was regularly performed at the Metropolitan Opera on a double bill with Pagliacci. And its longstanding association with Christmas – Richard Strauss, after all, conducted the world première in Weimar on 23 December 1893 – has reinforced a general impression of Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera as a light entertainment, a candied appetiser in need of more substantial fare to balance it out if presented as part of a regular opera season intended for adults.
Filed under: review, Seattle Opera
October 13, 2016 • 9:30 am Comments Off on Marcy Stonikas and Seattle Opera’s Hansel and Gretel
My latest Seattle Times story:
Growing up in a Chicago suburb, soprano Marcy Stonikas was more musically active than the average American teen. She played in the high-school band, attended symphony concerts regularly, sang jazz and took part in musicals…
Filed under: Seattle Opera, Seattle Times
July 31, 2016 • 9:22 am Comments Off on High Notes and High Jinks: Lawrence Brownlee as Count Ory
Lawrence Brownlee; photo (c) Johnny Andrews/The Seattle Times
My profile of Lawrence Brownlee is out in today’s Seattle Times. The world-class tenor is back in town to star in Rossini’s Count Ory at Seattle Opera:
He’s in demand around the globe, a favorite of music lovers at the most prestigious venues for classical music.
But Lawrence Brownlee reserves a special fondness for Seattle.
Filed under: Lawrence Brownlee, Rossini, Seattle Opera, singers
May 9, 2016 • 8:20 am 1
© Philip Newton
My review of Wagner’s Dutchman at Seattle Opera has been posted on Bachtrack:
Though the legend of a seaman doomed to sail forever was already hackneyed by the time he took it up, it was through his idiosyncratic treatment of this material that Richard Wagner first found his authentic voice. “Do you fear a song, a picture?” sings the heroine Senta in her first confrontation with Erik, her hapless suitor.
But Wagner was well aware of the dangerous potential art possesses when the goal is no longer escapist entertainment. So is director Christopher Alden, whose production (originally created for Canadian Opera Company two decades ago) mirrors the young composer’s sense of thrilling new horizons beyond routine and convention.
Filed under: directors, review, Seattle Opera, Wagner
March 11, 2016 • 7:48 am Comments Off on Maria Stuarda at Seattle Opera: Donizetti Fever Rages on from Coast to Coast
My review of Maria Stuarda at Seattle Opera — where soprano Joyce El-Khoury has made a spectacular company debut — is now posted on Bachtrack:
Tudormania continues its invasion of America. Later this month at the Met, Sondra Radvanovsky will have added the third and final jewel to her Donizetti crown when she sings Elizabeth in Roberto Devereux. And across the continent, Seattle Opera has been presenting its company debut of Maria Stuarda (1835).
Filed under: bel canto, directors, Donizetti, review, Seattle Opera
January 18, 2016 • 9:23 am Comments Off on Arresting Aristos Make for a Fine Figaro
Shenyang (Figaro) and Nuccia Focile (Susanna)
(c) Jacob Lucas
The buzz around Seattle Opera’s new Figaro is that it offers audiences here their first chance to see company chief Aidan Lang in his guise as stage director. This production originated to much acclaim in 2010 at New Zealand Opera, which Lang helmed until 2013. The current season is his second since succeeding Speight Jenkins as general director at Seattle Opera.
Filed under: Mozart, review, Seattle Opera
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