Seattle Opera | MEMETERIA

October 18, 2016 • 8:16 am Comments Off on Hansel and Gretel at Seattle Opera: Laurent Pelly’s Cautionary Fairy-Tale

Hansel and Gretel at Seattle Opera: Laurent Pelly’s Cautionary Fairy-Tale

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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.

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Filed under: review, Seattle Opera

October 13, 2016 • 9:30 am Comments Off on Marcy Stonikas and Seattle Opera’s Hansel and Gretel

Marcy Stonikas and Seattle Opera’s Hansel and Gretel

1f0f060c-8ceb-11e6-804f-aed86649565b-1020x680 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…

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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

High Notes and High Jinks: Lawrence Brownlee as Count Ory

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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.

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Filed under: Lawrence Brownlee, Rossini, Seattle Opera, singers

May 9, 2016 • 8:20 am 1

Flying Dutchman at Seattle Opera

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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.

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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

Maria Stuarda at Seattle Opera: Donizetti Fever Rages on from Coast to Coast

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Joyce El-Khoury in the title role of Maria Stuarda; image credit: Jacob Lucas

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).

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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

Arresting Aristos Make for a Fine Figaro

Shenyang (Figaro) and Nuccia Focile (Susanna)
(c) Jacob Lucas

Aidan Lang, head of Seattle Opera, reveals his talents as a stage director in a fresh and engaging interpretation of Mozart’s comic masterpiece.

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.

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Filed under: Mozart, review, Seattle Opera

August 9, 2015 • 4:24 pm Comments Off on Seattle Opera’s Nabucco Falls Flat

Seattle Opera’s Nabucco Falls Flat

The cast and orchestra of Seattle Opera’s Nabucco. © Philip Newton

My Bachtrack review is now live.
(I think I managed to catch all the autocorrects that
were turning “Nabucco” into “Nabisco.”)

On paper, Seattle Opera’s new production of Nabucco sounded enticing. General Director Aidan Lang generated buzz about the ‘innovative staging concept’ we should anticipate for the company’s first-ever presentation of Verdi’s third opera. Seattle Opera had meanwhile undertaken a rebranding effort that included a design facelift of its website to emphasise large, bold visuals — with billboard-style tags announcing Nabucco: ‘BETRAYED’ ‘TWISTED’ “EPIC’.

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Filed under: directors, review, Seattle Opera, Verdi

May 20, 2015 • 9:49 am Comments Off on “Musik ist eine heilige Kunst”

“Musik ist eine heilige Kunst”

After Kate Lindsey’s superb performance as The Composer in Seattle Opera’s Ariadne auf Naxos, I just can’t get Strauss’s music out of my head.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal: “He who wishes to live must surpass himself, metamorphose, forget. And yet, persist, not forget, be faithful – that is what everyone’s dignity means.”

Filed under: Kate Lindsey, Seattle Opera, Strauss

May 18, 2015 • 8:55 am Comments Off on Seattle Opera: Buffing the Buffa in Ariadne

Seattle Opera: Buffing the Buffa in Ariadne

Kate Lindsey (The Composer) and Sarah Coburn (Zerbinetta); photo (c) Elise Bakketun

My review of Ariadne auf Naxos has now been posted on Bachtrack:

At the end of Seattle Opera’s previous production – a refreshing new staging of Handel’s Semele – the ill-fated heroine is burned by Jupiter’s glorious fire, but the god Bacchus emerges from her destruction: “born as my mother expired in the flames”, as Hugo von Hofmannsthal has the wine god explain in his libretto for Ariadne auf Naxos.

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Filed under: directors, review, Seattle Opera, Strauss

February 23, 2015 • 6:25 am 2

A Ravishingly Entertaining Semele Alights in Seattle

Brenda Rae (Semele) and Alek Shrader (Jupiter); (c) Elise Bakketun

My review of Seattle Opera’s latest production is now live on Bachtrack.com (Happy 330th, George Frideric!)

It’s amusing to imagine the pitch Handel must have used to convince the presenters of Covent Garden’s oratorio concert series for the 1744 Lenten season to back his latest creation. Why not schedule his theatrical treatment of a myth that portrays the head of the pagan gods setting his human mistress up in a pleasure palace? After all, the moral is clearly stated at the end: “Nature to each allots his proper sphere”. Still, you can’t send your audience home on a such a grim choral note, so all the more reason to end things with a cheerful ode to the powers of Bacchus!

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Filed under: directors, Handel, review, Seattle Opera

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