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The new opera by Missy Mazzoli and Royce Vavrek draws on cult mindsets and conspiracy theories but smartly avoids sensationalism. 

Arab-American tenor Karim Sulayman devises a thoughtful pastiche that centers the perspective omitted from Early Modern depictions of the Middle East in music.

In his role debut as the Genoan Doge, the American baritone continues to burnish his bona fides as the premier Verdi baritone of his generation.

In this world-premiere work, which opens Opera Philadelphia's Festival O23, composer Rene Orth and librettist Hannah Moscovitch dramatize and deconstruct the true story of Nellie Bly's commitment to a mental asylum.

Yuval Sharon's La bohème for Opera Philadelphia proves a mix of great singing and disorienting navigation. 

Carl Orff's bawdy choral work shares a program with the sweet and sincere Credo, a rediscovered work by the American composer and arranger Margaret Bonds.

David T Little’s Black Lodge, with a libretto by legendary poet Anne Waldman, receives its world premiere at the Philadelphia Film Center.

Lawrence Brownlee further cements his status as the world's leading bel canto tenor with a blazing performance as Rodrigo, the unlikely central figure in Rossini's rendering of the Shakespearean tragedy.

The company returned to its home at the Academy of Music after three years with a brutalist take on Verdi's middle-career masterpiece.

Unstaged performances of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and George Walker's Lilacs highlighted musical inadequacies and deprived audiences of the creative productions they've come to expect from this company.

Stripped of melodramatic excess, soprano Patricia Racette and director James Darrah craft a portrait of a desperate, lonely woman that is uncomfortably, thrillingly human.

This musical setting of a poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper is the first of four digital commissions set to premiere this spring on the Opera Philadelphia Channel.

Director and star Johnathan McCullough gives a riveting performance as a young man scarred by his experiences on the battlefield.

This Requiem was a gift to Music Director Corrado Rovaris for the anniversary of his twenty years with the company.

Alessandro Talevi production for Festival O has sight gags and vaudeville tricks aplenty and features splendid voices in a fine cast. 

James Darrah stages Handel's sensual oratorio for Festival O, a feast of wonderful singing. 

Davide Livermore's production of La bohème is inspired by the Impressionist troves at The Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Barnes Collection.

Curtis Institute singers and orchestra rescue Mozart's Don Giovanni from being overwhelmed by pianos.

The director's world-renowned 1991 conception of Benjamin Britten's 1960 operaA Midsummer Night's Dream finally makes it to America. 

Costanzo supposed to be the unifying factor of the performance, but he wasn’t always able to surpass the numerous distractions. 

Chaotic staging detracts from imaginative pairing of Poulenc's songs with his one-act, one-performer opera. 

Top-notch singers and some sensitive direction almost make up for Laurent Pelly's frustrating Opera Philadelphia production. 

A remarkable opera about Alzheimer’s mesmerizes audience thanks to two extraordinary women “d’un certain age”.

Paul Curran's movie-Like Carmen for Opera Philadelphia

Written on Skin is a cold but effective opera full of musical and dramatic energy. Opera Philadelphia's new staging and talented young cast do it justice.

Hip-h'opera world première at Philadelphia's O17 Festival.

Mozart meets the movies as 1927's wacky production comes to Opera Philadelphia. 

Puts’ and Campbell’s fast and furious neo-Victorians launch Philadelphia’s Annual Opera Festival.

The world première of Breaking the Waves was a qualified success, with a powerful drama performed with commitment by strong cast and musicians.

Great performances by Lawrence Brownlee and Angela Brown in a fantasia on Charlie Parker's life and death.

Some very fine singing and beautiful, if sometimes confusing, visual effects in Opera Philadelphia's Don Carlo.  

Outstanding vocal performances and Oscar Wilde's own words don't save this new opera based on his incarceration at Reading Gaol. 

Visually and vocally beautiful, but the case for updating the setting of this story is not made.

Taking risks has mixed results in A Coffin In Egypt.

Bravo to Opera Phila for presenting a startlingly beautiful contemporary operatic work by Osvaldo Golijov, one that's vital in the evolving landscape of 21st century opera.

During Verdi’s bicentenary month and year, it’s fitting that Opera Philadelphia kicked off its 2013/14 season with the work that Verdi himself considers as having launched his own career – Nabucco. Written at a time when Italy longed to be free of foreign rule, Verdi’s name and the expression “Viva Verdi” became synonymous with Italian nationalism and unification.

Take four very talented performers. Throw in a score that pushes them to their vocal limits. Add an accordion and a fishing reel to the orchestra. Mix with a healthy dose of wry humor. Dot with ostrich features in Mary Kay pink. Simmer with sexual innuendo for two hours and eleven minutes.

A work crucial to the development and appreciation of opera as a relevant modern art form premièred on the East Coast to well-deserved acclaim at a legendary Philadelphia venue. From the first note out of the pit orchestra to the final strains of the last act, Silent Night, presented by Opera Philadelphia at the Academy of Music, was a tour de force – from conception to execution.

The plight of women trapped in plural marriage—one husband with multiple wives—glowed like a firebrand on the Perelman Theater stage on Sunday. Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Dark Sisters, in co-production with Gotham Chamber Opera and the Music-Theatre Group, is OCP’s final offering of the 2011-12 season.

For the first time in twenty-five years, the Opera Company of Philadelphia has mounted a production of Puccini’s first great opera, Manon Lescaut. The result was an inspired testament to thoughtful direction by Michael Cavanagh, gorgeous sets and costumes by John Pascoe, and several winning performances.

“What a funny kind of fairy tale we’ve gotten into!” proclaims one of the characters in Elegy for Young Lovers, Hans Werner Henze’s odd 1963 opera. The audience may sympathize. W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman’s libretto of an uninspired poet in search of a new muse is not standard operatic fare.

Combine a pleasing production, in a stunning venue (The Academy of Music), located on one of the most picturesque streets in Philadelphia – the Avenue of the Arts – with the marvelous music of Mozart, and you have the makings of a lovely winter afternoon.As I stepped into the street, I remember wishing more February days could have been like this one.

Some operagoers contend that Carmen, the fatalistic gypsy doomed to die, is unlikable. She antagonizes other women at the cigarette factory. She seduces men with abandon. She makes an inexperienced corporal of the guard fall for her, manipulates him into abandoning his military career for a life of smuggling, and then heartlessly turns him out like a pesky stray.

One great advantage of premiering an opera in the United States is that audiences can’t compare productions and casts of past performances and find you lacking. One major disadvantage is that the audience has little or no fluency with the work and may struggle to comprehend its meaning and significance. With the U.S.

Opera Company of Philadelphia (OCP) reached into the Philadelphia community with its remake of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet, the second of five shows in the 2010-11 season. In his OCP debut, Italian director Manfred Schweigkofler gave the company a chance to recast a Renaissance-era tale of two Italian families bearing ancient and deadly grudges as warring fashion houses in 21st century Verona.