Viardot vs Grisi

Following a fourteen-year absence from the company’s repertoire, the Atlanta Opera revisits Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte through a revival of its co-production with Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, originally unveiled in 2010. For those keeping count, that was Tomer Zvulun second production for the Atlanta Opera, fresh from a successful debut the previous year in Wagner’s Der Fliegende Hollander and still three years shy of his ascend to his current post as the company’s General and Artistic Director.…

Piggybacking on its main stage production of Puccini’s La Boheme this past January, the Atlanta Opera opened its 2024-2025 season under the banner of its Discovery Series this past Wednesday with The Boheme Project, an alternating double bill of sorts, featuring an updating of Puccini’s classic to modern times, alongside performances of Jonathan Larson’s Rent at Pullman Yards.…

Founded in 1978 by Helen Knox and legendary American mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller, Pittsburgh Festival Opera began life as Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, running alongside the more established Pittsburgh Opera company and offering complimentary repertoire of the less standard fare (notably works by American composers) in the summer months.…

With ears fully saturated by Atlanta’s heavy dose of Wagner (rumor has it Waltrauto attended every performance of Die Walkure), I traveled to Mormon Country seeking the perfect palate cleanser in the form of Utah Opera’s production of Massenet’s Thaïs.…

With the ethereal afterglow of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream still lingering in the air, Atlanta opera goers prepared for the operatic event of the past…well, four decades. The unveiling of the company’s first production of the second opera in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, the cycle’s most popular work and a premiere that may surely expand the company’s artistic ambitions, loomed at the end of April.…

Heading towards the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center last Saturday to attend the opening of Atlanta Opera’s production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my anticipation mixed with a shade of dread. With the company’s recent designation as a Budget One company by Opera America last year, there has been (allegedly) renewed enthusiasm among local opera goers, alongside the occasional eye roll from neighboring regional hubs (again, allegedly).…

February 9, 2024

My love for Terence Blanchard goes back a long time, to a nervous young college kid hesitantly using his ID to enter a club for the first time. I was new to New York, and the Village Vanguard was showcasing a trumpeter whose name I recognized from his score for Malcolm X and his work on Cedar Walton’s Roots album.…

Absent from the Atlanta Opera’s repertoire for nine years, Giacomo Puccini’s eternal La Boheme graced the stage of the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center once again on Saturday, January 20^th. Though well received by the nearly sold-out audience, the opening night performance inspired a disparate and puzzling reaction in me, ultimately demanding my attendance to the presentation held the following Friday.…

Missing from the Atlanta Opera repertoire for almost a decade, Verdi’s Rigoletto returned the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center this past Saturday, opening the Atlanta Opera’s 2023-24 season of mainstage productions. As in the case with the previous presentation of Verdi’s middle period masterpiece which took place in March of 2015, this production of Rigoletto (a co-production between the Atlanta Opera, Houston Grand Opera and the Dallas Opera) is conceptual, though this time around it goes further than its predecessor in its attempt to recreate some of the effects that the composer may have originally had in mind. …

Following the success of Moravec’s The Shining, The Atlanta Opera unveiled the next offering in its dark and moody 2023-24 season this past Saturday at the Cobb Energy Center’s stage with the premiere of Michael Shapiro’s Frankenstein: The Movie Opera. Unlike the case of Moravec’s uneven offering, Mr.…