The Opera Tattler
Reviews of Performances and their Audiences
Category: West Edge Opera
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* Notes * Alban Berg's Wozzeck (ovation pictured, photograph by author) opened at West Edge Opera on Saturday in Oakland. The impressive production has the same director and conductor as the excellent Lulu from this company held at the Oakland 16th Street train station a decade ago and the same lead soprano. Director Elkhanah Pulitzer…
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* Notes * A new production of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (ovation pictured, photograph by author) opened at West Edge Opera on Sunday afternoon in Oakland. This French Baroque opera is based on the friendship between David and Jonathan in Old Testament and has some utterly beautiful music. Director Mark Streshinsky takes the love…
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* Notes * West Edge Opera gave the world premiere of Nicolás Lell Benavides' Dolores yesterday in Oakland. Set in 1968, the opera is about labor leader Dolores Huerta during the Delano Grape Strike. The piece is timely, moving, and, at times quite funny. The music has a lot of interesting textures, and Maestra Mary…
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* Notes * West Edge Opera performed an English language version of Brecht's The Threepenny Opera for a second time yesterday afternoon. The darkly funny piece features much bawdy humor with some fine singing, though somewhat marred by the location of the theater. What was clear right away was this is a play with songs rather…
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* Notes * Yesterday West Edge Opera gave the West Coast premiere of Missy Mazzoli's compelling Breaking the Waves. The bleak plot based on the film by Lars von Trier makes for good theater and the singing was powerful, especially from the lead, soprano Sara LeMesh. Set in Scotland in the 1970s, the dark narrative concerns…
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* Notes * West Edge Opera presented Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice last night at yet another new venue. Unfortunately, the space, once a repair facility for rail cars, is not acoustically suited for unamplified music. In the past decade, West Edge Opera has performed everywhere from a high school theater in El Cerrito to a Bart…
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* Notes * West Edge Opera's third production this summer is Luca Francesconi's Quartett, based on the 1980 play by Heiner Müller, which in turn is based on Les Liaisons dangereuses. Both music and drama here are utterly disturbing. The piece debuted at La Scala a scant seven years ago, but has seen great success, and…
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* Notes * Nomadic West Edge Opera is performing this summer in yet another alternative space, this time in Richmond at the Craneway Conference Center, once a Ford plant. The opening show is Debussy’s very wonderfully weird Pelléas et Mélisande. The music is utterly beautiful, the singing was very good, and the production sleek and inventive.…
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* Notes * West Edge Opera has found a new home at Pacific Pipe, an abandoned warehouse in Oakland this year, after the City of Oakland denied permits public events at the 16th Street Station, where the company performed the previous two seasons. Since I had a baby a scant 12 weeks ago, I decided to…
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* Notes * West Edge Opera opened its 2016 festival with The Cunning Little Vixen last night at the abandoned 16th Street train station last night in Oakland. While the orchestra could have been crisper under Maestro Jonathan Khuner, the beauty of Janacek's score comes through. Pat Diamond's production has a ton of charm and the…
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