Opera
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Heart of Bling
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...
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Cocksure
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,...
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Queen for a Day
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...
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Beautiful Dreamers
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...
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Biblical Proportions
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...
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Review: Cosi fan tutte
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...
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Victorian Nightmare
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....
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Triumphant Tosca
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...
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The Glory and the Gloom
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...
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Big Bad Bass
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...
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Iron Butterfly
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...
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Sound, but No Vision
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...
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Ophelia Outing
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,...
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Marital Bliss
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,...
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Looney Tunes
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...
