The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: Berkeley West Edge Opera
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* Notes *The production of Serse that recently completed a run at Berkeley West Edge Opera turned Händel's opera seria on its head, to amusing effect. Though I was reluctant to go to this, as I had just heard and seen a fantastic Serse in Houston only 7 months ago, the experience in El Cerrito was…
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* Notes *The production of Aaron Copland's The Tender Land at Berkeley Opera is both lively and heartfelt. The music was quite cute and rather transparent, and the thirteen musicians sounded together under Philip Kuttner. The singing was consistent and the acting was convincing. The chorus sounded nice during the party scene in Act II.…
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* Notes *Berkeley Opera's inaugural production at El Cerrito Performing Arts Theatre, Don Giovanni, is a great success. The new venue features an actual orchestra pit, a balcony, and 450 seats compared to the 328-seat Julia Morgan, where Berkeley Opera performed for the last 12 years. The second performance last night looked quite full, and…
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Berkeley Opera's new artistic director is Mark Streshinsky. Jonathan Khuner remains the musical director. Berkeley Opera's Official Site | Streshinsky's Official Site
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* Notes * The Ballad of Baby Doe opened at Berkeley Opera last Saturday. Jonathan Khuner's production, with sets and projections from Jeremy Knight, is sweetly simple. The video art included some rather silly red curtains that would fall after the many scenes, and there seemed to be a glitch near the end, but otherwise they were…
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* Notes * Yesterday’s matinée performance of Tosca ended Berkeley Opera’s 2008 season. The main conceit of the production, directed by Barbara Heroux, was an upstage pentagon screen on which images were projected. The images alternated between representing the physical scene and showing the internal state of the characters. The latter were invariably paintings from…
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* Notes * Berkeley Opera is midway through a run of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. The double bill makes for a short evening, a mere 2 hours and 10 minutes including an intermission. I was skeptical of the "unique multi-media staging," as both productions involved projections on an…
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April 25- June 8 2008: Figaro (Inspired by Mozart and Beaumarchais) at Berkeley RepMay 2-11 2008: San Francisco Opera‘s The Little Prince at UC BerkeleyMay 3-11 2008: Bluebeard’s Castle and L’enfant et les sortilèges at Berkeley OperaMay 9-25 2008: Queenie Pie at Oakland Opera Also, Sacramento Opera‘s Tosca closes tonight. This weekend, instead of going…
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* Notes * The 2008 season of Berkeley Opera opened last Saturday with a performance of the very silly opera L'Elisir d'Amore. The production is sweet, and the set only seemed to have two modes, one with one arch in the background and a few feet of stone wall, and another with three arches and…
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