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.

Les Arts triunfa con una deslumbrante Salomé, a la par que terriblemente humana. 

El Teatro de la Zarzuela recupera una ópera bufa de Manuel García en la que la gitanilla de Sabina Puértolas enamora.

Andrés Salado dirige La traviata con buen equilibrio y riqueza orquestal, producción de la Fundació Òpera Catalunya en la que destacó Tina Gorina, por su naturalidad y dominio de la voz.

Laurent Pelly y Gustavo Gimeno dirigen una encantadora producción de La novia vendida en la que todos los intérpretes extrajeron la mejor esencia de la música de Smetana.