Metro Weekly

Opera

  • Heart of Bling

    By on March 7, 2013

    Feeling a tad lackluster in the set department, director/designer and costumer John Pascoe's interpretation of Puccini's Manon Lescaut seems to have lost some burnish since...

  • Cocksure

    By on September 27, 2012

    Offering plenty of curb appeal in the form of wit, slapstick, a libidinous thundering bass, damsels in distress, sword fights and a reasonably gratifying comeuppance,...

  • Queen for a Day

    By on September 20, 2012

    Timed perfectly for the Tudor fever generated by author Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and its sequel, the Washington National Opera's season-opener of Donizetti's Anna Bolena...

  • Beautiful Dreamers

    By on May 17, 2012

    If opera is your music for heartbreak and plots be damned, then Massenet's gorgeously overwrought Werther is for you. This is boy meets already-engaged girl...

  • Biblical Proportions

    By on May 4, 2012

    With a busy narrative, a biblically minded libretto, and a director who assumes a cogent, educated audience, the Washington National Opera's Nabucco isn't for those...

  • Review: Cosi fan tutte

    By on March 1, 2012

    When an opera is as much a staple in the repertoire as Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, it's hardly surprising when a director gets the urge...

  • Victorian Nightmare

    By on November 16, 2011

    A stylized Victorian nightmare with lashes of Sam Peckinpah realism and the odd sporran, David Alden's rendering of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor isn't for everyone....

  • Triumphant Tosca

    By on September 14, 2011

    A perfect balance between elegant austerity and a swiftly-rendered, passionate tale of hearts, pure and not so pure, the Washington National Opera's Tosca is everything...

  • The Glory and the Gloom

    By on May 11, 2011

    With Placido Domingo singing his last role as general director of the Washington National Opera, it's hard not to take the somber – at times...

  • Big Bad Bass

    By on April 20, 2011

    Matt Boehler photographed at Wolf Trap by Todd Franson ''There's nothing more gay than opera!'' exclaims opera singer Matt Boehler. ''We have fabulous divas wearing...

  • Iron Butterfly

    By on March 3, 2011

    As one of the most well-known and accessible of operas, admitting a passion for Puccini's Madama Butterfly isn't likely to win you any brownie points...

  • Sound, but No Vision

    By on September 18, 2010

    An austere production, perhaps appropriate to tough economic times both at the Washington National Opera and at large, Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera is more...

  • Ophelia Outing

    By on May 27, 2010

    It is perhaps especially true for opera that there is a reason that some are not often staged. In the case of Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet,...

  • Marital Bliss

    By on April 29, 2010

    Truth be told, most comic operas are funnier in theory than in reality. The buffo, over-rouged in a teetering wig, capers about the stage and,...

  • Looney Tunes

    By on September 16, 2009

    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...