The Opera Tattler

Reviews of Performances and their Audiences

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Category: Opera Review

  • SF Opera’s Dialogues of the Carmelites

    * Notes * Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites (Act II pictured, photograph by Cory Weaver) opened at San Francisco Opera last weekend after an absence of forty years on the War Memorial stage. The stark production from Olivier Py that features a lot of flat cut outs, shadows, and chalk was moving. The music and singing were…

  • SF Opera’s Eugene Onegin

    * Notes * Robert Carsen’s 1997 production of Eugene Onegin (Act II Scene 1 pictured, photograph by Cory Weaver) opened at San Francisco Opera this afternoon with a youthful cast of newcomers and the vibrant debut of conductor Vassilis Christopoulos. The overture sounded stately under Maestro Christopoulos, who had his U.S. debut with this performance. Not…

  • Antony and Cleopatra (Again)

    * Notes * I started going to San Francisco Opera in 1996, and over the years I've gained many opera going friends, with whom I've traveled to see operas all over the place, from Seattle to Berlin. It has been sad to not be able to attend performances for the last few years, so when my…

  • Opera San José’s Le Nozze di Figaro

    * Notes * Le nozze di Figaro (Efraín Solís as Figaro and Maya Kherani as Susanna in Act IV pictured, photograph by David Allen) opened at Opera San José last weekend with a joyous and very human production set in colonial India. I was skeptical about moving this piece from Seville to South Asia, as…

  • SF Opera’s Antony and Cleopatra

    * Notes * The world premiere of John Adams' Antony and Cleopatra (Act II Scene 3 pictured, photograph by Cory Weaver) at San Francisco Opera featured powerful voices and lushly textured music. The piece has a certain glittery yet dark quality to it, and the production leaned into that, to be sure. The libretto for this…

  • SF Opera’s Don Giovanni

    * Notes * Don Giovanni, the last installment of the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy directed by Michael Cavanagh, opened yesterday evening at San Francisco Opera. It was a joy to hear Maestro Bertrand de Billy conduct this beautiful music and there was much lovely singing. Post-apocalyptic future felt much like something out of Octavia E. Butler's Parable…

  • No Love Allowed at Pocket Opera

    * Notes * Last month Pocket Opera put on three performances of Wagner's No Love Allowed (Das Liebesverbot). I attended the delightful May 15 matinée at the Hillside Club in Berkeley. The English language production had a lot of charm and some beautiful voices, and though I did miss Pocket Opera's founder Donald Pippin's wry…

  • PBO’s Radamisto

    * Notes * Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and new Music Director Richard Egarr (pictured) ended the 2021-2022 season with Händel’s Radamisto last weekend at the Bing Concert Hall on the Stanford campus. The intimate venue proved unflattering, though there certainly was some lovely singing and playing. I attended the last performance of the run yesterday afternoon, and…

  • Opera San José’s West Side Story

    * Notes * West Side Story (Act I pictured, photograph by David Allen) opened at Opera San José last night in a sleek and effective production from director Crystal Manich. It was wonderful to hear Leonard Bernstein's music live with a fresh, youthful cast. Conductor Christopher James Ray kept the orchestra and singers together, though…

  • Opera Parallèle’s Sophia’s Forest

    * Notes *I was so pleased to be able to hear Opera Parallèle's latest offering, Sophia's Forest by Lembit Beecher, yesterday evening at Grace Cathedral. This 2017 chamber opera deals with the trauma of a nine-year-old immigrant child and features some very beautiful singing and creepy sound sculptures made from wine glasses and bicycle wheels.…