The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Category: Opera Review

  • Ars Minerva’s The Amazons in the Fortunate Isles

    * Notes *My review of Ars Minerva's The Amazons in the Fortunate Isles at the Marines' Memorial Theater in San Francisco is up on San Francisco Classical Voice. * Tattling * A couple of francophones behind me in Row F Seats 1 and 2 of the orchestra on had a difficult time not talking throughout…

  • Opera Parallèle’s The Lighthouse

    * Notes *Opera Parallèle has opened yet another impressive production with Peter Maxwell Davies' chamber work The Lighthouse, which has a three performance run this weekend at Z Space in San Francisco. Scored for only about a dozen instrumentalists and three singers, the music is rich and vivid. The tense atmosphere of the narrative, which…

  • Opera San José’s Streetcar

    * Notes *Opera San José's 2015-2016 season ends with a musically impressive but dramatically wanting A Streetcar Named Desire (pictured left with Matthew Hanscom, Ariana Strahl, and Stacey Tappan; photograph by Pat Kirk), which opened last weekend. The orchestra has never sounded better and there is much fine singing, but the minimalist production is not completely…

  • SF Opera’s Svadba-Wedding

    * Notes *SF Opera Lab had its first new production premiere last night with Svadba-Wedding last night. The a cappella opera for six female voices by Serbian Canadian composer Ana Sokolović is the perfect scale for the Atrium Theater and director Michael Cavanagh's made use of the whole space. Sokolović's opera is pretty without being…

  • West Bay Opera’s Eugene Onegin

    * Notes *My review of West Bay Opera's Eugene Onegin is up on San Francisco Classical Voice. * Tattling * The Lucie Stern Community Center was secured for much of the performance on Sunday because Hillary Clinton was having an event there while the opera was going on. The general director of West Bay Opera…

  • Opera Parallèle’s Champion

    * Notes *Champion: An Opera in Jazz had an impressive opening last night in San Francisco. As always, Opera Parallèle, which co-produced the 2013 work with SFJAZZ, gave an impeccable performance as far as playing, singing, and production values. Based on the life of bisexual boxer Emile Griffith, Terence Blanchard's music has much to recommend…

  • Opera San José’s Carmen

    * Notes *My review of Opera San José‘s Carmen is up on San Francisco Classical Voice. * Tattling * The audience was very happy for this performance, though it was odd to note someone behind me on the orchestra level that was surprised the opera is in French.

  • Island City Opera’s Rigoletto

    * Notes *My review of Island City Opera's Rigoletto at the Elks Lodge in Alameda is up on San Francisco Classical Voice. * Tattling * I was surprised how fine the singing was in this opera and how many people attended.

  • SF Opera’s Il barbiere di Siviglia

    * Notes * A revival of Emilio Sagi’s busy production of Il barbiere di Siviglia (Act II pictured left, photograph by Cory Weaver) returned to San Francisco Opera after only two years. The proceedings last night did not come into focus until the finale of Act I, but the result was a definitive success, unlike much…

  • SF Opera’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

    * Notes *Let's not beat around the bush on this one, San Francisco Opera's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg  is very long and not for the faint of heart. Maestro Mark Elder's style is glacial, and while every single beautiful note is heard, it seemed tough on both the orchestra and the singers. Coupled with the…