Rising from the Ashes: Baltimore Opera Is Back!

Santa Fe Opera's colorful and beautifully sung The Golden Cockerel makes a case for more Rimsky-Korsakov opera in the repertoire.

Santa Fe Opera presented Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in Stephen Lawless’ mid 19th-century staging, a co-production with Barcelona's Liceu. Before the overture, General Director Charles MacKay came onstage to announce that Stephen Costello was ill and would be replaced by Joshua Guerrero, a graduate of the Los Angeles Opera Young Artist Program.

One of my favorite things about opera in concert is the absence of director’s concept. Don’t take me wrong: I do enjoy a well-directed opera production with a concept.

“Poetry and again poetry – tenderness mixed with pain; sensuality, a drama surprising and burning, and a rocketing finale.” This is composer Giacomo Puccini describing one of the world’s most famous operas, La bohème.

A group of excellent singers and the Orchestra of St Luke's led by Will Crutchfield succeeded in presenting a moving concert performance of Poulenc's gut-wrenching opera.

Matthew Richard Martinez reviews Los Angeles Opera's season-opening performance of Verdi's La traviata starring Plácido Domingo, Nino Machaidze, and Arturo Chacón-Cruz.