Seattle Opera's visually poetic and refined Madama Butterfly peeks back at Puccini's own first version of the opera, which was arguably more openly critical of the devastation wrought by imperialism.
“Love, love, love… that is the soul of genius,” said Mozart. In no other work does he demonstrate this affirmation more compellingly than in his forever-beloved opera, Die Zauberflöte.
After an absence of nearly a quarter-century, Humperdinck's evergreen returns to Seattle Opera in a winningly staged, musically sensitive production that looks beneath the fairy-tale surface.
The thrills of Tudor (pseudo-)history and bel canto expressivity combine in the second of Donizetti's “Three Queens” operas, Maria Stuarda, making its company debut at Seattle Opera.
Wagner famously idealized the concept of the “Gesamtkunstwerk”, a total work of art that incorporates many artistic media into a single piece. He would have appreciated Seattle Opera’s production of Götterdämmerung.
Seattle Opera’s Siegfried takes place in familiar territory. Mime lives in the part of the forest where the gods roamed in Das Rheingold, and the dragon has made its lair where Hunding and Siegmund fought in Die Walküre (there’s even a bloodstain on the rock, which the Wanderer touches regretfully).
After Sunday night’s breathtaking Das Rheingold, it was difficult to imagine Die Walküre could be more beautiful or committed. Seattle Opera outdid themselves with this second installment of the Ring cycle, which featured energetic playing and singing, gorgeous stage pictures, and devastatingly believable acting from all of the singers.
Some Ring cycles are based on ideological concepts; Seattle Opera’s current Ring cycle is based on a place. That place is the Pacific Northwest of the United States, home to such extraordinary natural beauty that stage director Stephen Wadsworth has deemed it fit for the gods.
