Long Beach Opera's curious take on Glass' Fall of the House of Usher

It takes some brashness (and perhaps just a little bit of megalomania) on the part of a composer to choose Macbeth, of all of the Bard’s plays, to set to music. As if one can ignore that in the hearts and minds of most listeners, Verdi had the first, last, and only word in musical adaptations of Shakespeare’s drama of bloody intrigue.

In an interview I had with composer Gabriela Ortíz last week, she confided that it was The Threepenny Opera – that cynical reflection of Weimar-era Germany – that was at the forefront of her mind while composing her latest opera. Comparisons to that Jazz Age work would seem to invite the expectation that Ortíz’s opera would also be suffused with its bracing fusion of “high” and “low” art.

El Palau de Les Arts cierra una temporada excelente reivindicando la modernidad del lenguaje musical de Turandot. 

La apuesta del Teatro de la Zarzuela por Christof Loy se revela acertada con una deslumbrante producción de El Gato Montés.

Una propuesta pintoresca que acercaba y alejaba a partes iguales a los espectadores en la noche del estreno, donde brillaron por encima de todo Sara Blanch y Adriana González.

En la línea de la Grand opéra, Thomas Jolly propone una escena de gran impacto visual para Romeo y Julieta, pero que no termina de funcionar en conjunto.