The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Month: April 2014

  • Cal Performances 2014-2015 Season

    August 12 2014: Yo-Yo Ma performs Bach’s Cello SuitesSeptember 13 2014: Eco EnsembleSeptember 25-28 2014: Mark Morris Dance Group Music Ensemble October 10 2014: Art Spiegelman and Phillip Johnston perform WORDLESS!October 11 2014: Afropop Spectacular: Bassekou Kouyate and the Krar CollectiveOctober 12 2014: Takács Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin, pianoOctober 16-19 2014: Australian Ballet performs Swan…

  • Opera Parallèle’s Les mamelles de Tirésias

    * Notes *Opera Parallèle has put together a double bill of Mahagonny Songspiel with Les mamelles de Tirésias at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Opera Parallèle has embedded the Poulenc between the second and third parts of the Weill. Director Brian Staufenbiel never lacks for ideas and connects the two pieces…

  • Opera San José’s Don Giovanni

    * Notes * Don Giovanni opened with two different casts at Opera San José over the weekend. The piece seemed a bit beyond the abilities of all those involved. Though Mozart sounds wonderfully effortless, the Sunday afternoon performance on Easter was both sincere and labored. It was probably a wise decision to cut “Dalla sua…

  • San Diego Opera Closure Delayed

    San Diego Opera's closure has been delayed to May 19, 2014. Carol Lazier, the former Secretary of the Board, is now the acting President after President Karen Cohn resigned along with 12 other Directors in a board meeting that lasted over four hours. UT San Diego | Official Site | Save San Diego Opera

  • Don Quichotte at San Diego Opera

    * Notes * The last performance of the 2014 season at San Diego Opera was the matinée of Don Quichotte on Sunday, April 13. This may well have been San Diego Opera's final offering, complete with a Save San Diego Opera demonstration outside and capacity attendance inside. The production is a revival of the one at San…

  • SFCM’s Postcard from Morocco

    * Notes * San Francisco Conservatory Opera Program is currently presenting Argento’s Postcard from Morocco. A co-production with Portland Opera, the set and costumes are entirely professional. The action takes place within a waiting room of a transit station, which has rows of chairs that are easily wheeled about. The concept behind the staging is…

  • Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans at PBO

    * Notes * The 2013-2014 season of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra ended with Vivaldi’s only surviving oratorio Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernis barbarie. The work features a few of the more unusual Baroque instruments. Violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock played viola d’amore in “Quanto magis generosa” and clarinetist Eric Hoeprich played a chalumeau in “Veni, veni, me sequere fida.” Both…

  • Eugene Onegin at Pocket Opera

    * Notes * Pocket Opera performed an English language version of Eugene Onegin yesterday at the Hillside Club in Berkeley. Donald Pippin is utterly charming, and his narration and translation of the text were both lively. The production is likewise cute and accessible. Though the playing was not entirely together and the musicians were far…

  • Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions 2014

    The 2014 winners of the Metropolitan Opera (pictured left) National Council Auditions are sopranos Julie Adams and Amanda Woodbury; tenor Yi Li; bass-baritone Ao Li; and bass Patrick Guetti. Four of these five are associated with the Merola Opera Program. Adams and Woodbury are Merolini this year. Yi Li was in Merola in 2012 and…