Opera section: Metro Weekly magazine, Washington, DC newspaper

Looney Tunes

Even if you first heard it from Bugs, Rossini's The Barber of Seville shows there's plenty of spirited fun to be had in opera

Published on September 17, 2009, 12:00am

Those of you raised on Looney Tunes might find it impossible to listen to Figaro's aria ''Largo al factotum'' from Rossini's Barber of Seville without having a flashback to Bugs Bunny torturing Elmer Fudd to snippets of the same. The Barber of Seville And clearly the Washington National Opera saw no point in denying the inevitable when staging their season-opener of Barber, as they played the cartoon itself for the folks at Nationals Park waiting to watch the one-off simulcast ...[more]

Deliciously Dire

There's much to savor about WNO's impressively well-crafted, imaginative and accessible 'Siegfried'

Published on May 7, 2009, 12:00am

Chances are you will not be seeing the Siegfried that opened this past Saturday night since the performance began with general director Placido Domingo's announcement that tenor Par Lindskog, in recovery from serious bronchitis, would not be singing until later in the run. However, the show had to go on and in an innovative move, Lindskog acted and mimed his Siegfried while fellow tenor Scott MacAllister sang it. Thus began a very novel but ultimately wonderful evening of Wagner. This ...[more]

Sea-Worthy

WNO offers unsurpassed excellence with the brooding 'Peter Grimes'

Published on March 26, 2009, 12:00am

As one familiar with England's wild and windy Norfolk coast, there is much that resonates in the Washington National Opera's production of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. Set in a post-war fishing village somewhere between Norfolk and the more southern Suffolk, set designer Robert Innes Hopkins' cluster of plain buildings amid a volatile sky nicely evokes this part of England's southeastern coast at its desolate best. And though this coast is now popular with cosmopolitan weekenders and dedicated ornithologists, even the ...[more]

Lady Killer

Though sung beautifully by soprano Renee Fleming, WNO's production of 'Lucrezia Borgia' fails to fully satisfy

Published on November 6, 2008, 12:00am

Despite the fevered grace renowned soprano Renee Fleming brings to the conflicted femme fatale of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, this is one opera that requires more than just a star turn in the title role. With a narrative that offers a Lucrezia who is by turns a loving absentee mother and the equivalent of a 16th century serial killer, any director has their work cut out for them. Evil Woman: Fleming Unfortunately, director John Pascoe, who gave us last season's fabulously ...[more]

Passion Play

Wildly colorful, full of dance and bare midriffs, Bizet's beautifully melodic opera is gasp-worthy and swoon-worthy

Published on September 25, 2008, 12:00am

With the Jumbotron extravaganza barely behind us, one must wonder, just a little, why the WNO did not chose this production of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers as its ''come hither'' to the public. Wildly colorful, short (relatively), full of dance and bare midriffs, this easy-reader of an opera seems far more accessible when compared to the visually stodgier, if admittedly more classic, La Traviata. Well, whatever the rationale for the ballpark, this version of Fishers is without doubt an excellent ...[more]

Stage Presence

Marta Domingo's solid staging of Verdi's no-holds-barred, dramatic tear-jerker needs no gimmickry to pack its punch

Published on September 18, 2008, 12:00am

Though one cannot but envy the idea of seeing an opera with beer, hotdogs and vast commodes on tap, it is also somewhat hard to imagine Verdi's classic weepy, La Traviata, played via jumbotron during the opening night simulcast at the ball park. Apparently it was fun and picnicky. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon and fully acknowledging the pitfalls of the expensive cocoon of an opera house, with its long lines at intermission for drinks and nose-powderings, ...[more]

Elektrafying

Helmed by a strong cast, Richard Strauss' 99-year-old opera, 'Elektra,' is an ode to the murderous slice and dice

Published on May 15, 2008, 12:00am

As anyone with a pulse knows, Hollywood -- both the A and the B list -- continues to outrage the arbiters of good taste with an increasingly flamboyant passion for blood; be it Sweeny Todd, No Country for Old Men, or Saw III, it is all about the blood. Sprays of it, rivers of it, even a fine mist of it will do. If you don't leave the theater feeling as if you've just taken a bath in hemoglobin, you ...[more]

High Note

Placido Domingo is joined by countertenor David Daniels in a sterling production of a rarely-performed work by Handel

Published on May 8, 2008, 12:00am

If you are a giggler or not immersed to the point of humorlessness in the traditions, quirky and otherwise, of opera, be strongly advised to avoid alcoholic beverages before seeing the WNO's production of George Frideric Handel's Tamerlano --at least until one of the two intermissions, that is. Don't get me wrong -- this is a most wonderful and well done opera, a fine example of Handel's baroque splendor. It's just that it has the teeniest of little surprises in ...[more]

Classic Verdi

The Washington National Opera's 'Rigoletto' has everything in place to deliver fuel-injected poignancy but for one subtle element

Published on April 10, 2008, 12:00am

When serving up poignancy, there cannot be contrivance unless it is intended. In any other form, its presence will dull and deflate the impact of the emotional revelation. Verdi's Rigoletto is an opera concerned first and foremost with poignancy -- Rigoletto's tender love for his innocent daughter Gilda, his daily humiliations as the court jester, his agony as he discovers that Gilda has been lost within the storm of his revenge. Everything about Verdi's score is designed to deliver this ...[more]

The Damned

Although wonderfully sung by the core ensemble, Washington Opera's 'The Flying Dutchman' feels a little under-rehearsed

Published on March 20, 2008, 12:00am

In a recent metro-area school production of Don Quixote, parents were shocked and dismayed when teenage members of the audience greeted a fellow classmate's performance with heckles and laughter. It wasn't the boy's singing or acting that drew the jeers (he was, in fact, very good), it was that he had been deemed ''too fat'' by his peers. It was, to use the in-vogue phrase, a ''teachable moment.'' But who will be doing the teaching? Flash forward to the Washington ...[more]

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