Performer: James Maddalena

An opening night of Gregory Spears' opera is more like a dress rehearsal in Boston. 

Muted portrayals dilute the danger of the work, but excellent singing saves the performance. 

Director Frank Kelly channels the inspired lunacy he displayed as a tenor to this production of Patience.

Between Baz Luhrmann’s recent film The Great Gatsby, Northern Ballet’s The Great Gatsby currently at Sadler’s Wells, and Elevator Repair Service’s circulation-testing, eight-hour Gatz at the Noël Coward Theatre last year, Londoners such as myself could be forgiven for feeling all Gatsbied out (in truth, Gatz could probably have achieved that by itself).

Read our review of Peter Sellars' production of Nixon in China by John Adams, in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.