March 5, 2016
Renee Fleming and Olga Kern in recital
A bevy of musical beauties
Sweeping onstage in a bright red gown and yards and yards of a...
opera
February 19, 2016
“Champion: An Opera in Jazz”
Terrence Blanchard’s musical eulogy
An older man sits hunched on a bed, holding a shoe. As he sings, his vibrant bass penetrating the surrounding darkness of the theater, he muses on the shoe and its missing mate. The shoe...
Eugene Onegin at West Bay Opera
Glorious concept, difficult theme
Last Friday, West Bay Opera opened Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theater. Centered on a man who can’t seem to engage in life but skirts the edges, this was not the usual opera fare – grand passions on a tapestry of grand music. Instead we had the straitjackets of society and the drifting purposelessness of a baritone, albeit set to Russian lushness.
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February 13, 2016
The Lamplighters present “Ruddygore”
Pink cheeked and diabolical
Ruddygore; or, The Witch’s Curse, premiered in London in 1887, and was the 10th of the 14 comic operas written by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan during their long collaboration. It was not an instant hit, and...
December 8, 2015
San Francisco Opera’s multiple visions of “The House of Usher”
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November 18, 2015
An entertaining five hours at San Francisco Opera’s “Die Meistersinger”
It was a good week for opening nights, including San Francisco Opera’s production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wagner’s only comedy, Die Meistersinger is an engaging story with complex characters that demands a cast of formidable...