Fractured legend of Camelia la Tejana jumbles reality and fiction

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.

Is there a more exciting opera company than Long Beach Opera in Southern California – or even anywhere west of Santa Fe? With the Dorothy Chandler’s house company and even local opera outfits seemingly content with just cranking out production after production of the same three Puccini operas ad infinitum and often ad nauseum, it’s heartening to see a company that views opera not as a dusty museum

Divorced from Cavalleria rusticana, English Touring Opera's contemporary take on Leoncavallo's masterpiece ticks all the boxes.

Mark Ravenhill directs a brutal, bloody Salome for Regents Opera at the spiritual home of British boxing, York Hall. 

Robert Carsen's staging of Handel's oratorio arrives, via Salzburg, in the city where Handel composed it in 1707. 

At the Metropolitan Opera, Innocence proves a gripping and perhaps divisive piece which feels real because it is a reflection of our reality, with no realistic hope of finding peace.