Viardot vs Grisi

Frequent readers of this blog may have noted a certain “pandemic induced anxiety,” shall we call it, which more often than not limited this writer from dabbling beyond the local opera company’s offerings. Comfort zone, accessibility and the safety of familiarity has kept me mostly state bound ever since we got sent home back in March of 2020, but vibrant performance art schedules becomes a feature of the post-lockdown world once again, I hearby declare a newfound hunger to venture outside self-inflicted isolation (reassured by official reports of the pandemic’s diminishing threat of course,) and vow to make a concerted effort to once again cover the great regional opera companies that grace our country.…

This past Saturday evening, the Atlanta Opera company bid farewell to its 2022-2023 season this past with a performance of historic significance. For the first time in its history, before a sold out audience, the company unveiled Wagner’s Das Rheingold in a production designed to showcase the opera within its context as the first installment of Wagner’s monumental tetralogy.…

Absent from the stage of the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center since 2012, Atlanta Opera audiences welcomed back Mozart’s Don Giovanni this past Saturday with open arms, and for good reason. Mozart’s version of Don Juan, a perennial classic in the repertoire, has a guaranteed home in the operatic stages the world over, and Atlanta is no exception.…

There was palpable electricity in the air this past Saturday, as the Atlanta Opera unveiled its 2022-23 mainstage season with the first of four performances of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, a production originally intended to open the 2020-2021 season but was one of the many casualties of delays associated with the Covid pandemic.…

Under the banner of its acclaimed Discovery Series, the Atlanta Opera welcomed its 2022-2023 season last weekend with an acclaimed staging of Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle. The production, the brainchild of stage director Daisy Evans and conductor Stephen Higgins, premiered last November at London’s Theatre of Sound to glowing reviews, and makes its American premiere with these performances at Kennesaw State University’s Bailey Performance Center.…

It may come as no surprise to visitors to this site when we say that the pandemic has been rough on your friends Newoutpost. Short of become carefully reacquainted with the offerings of our local company (The Atlanta Opera), our return to polite society has been slow.…

Last Saturday night the Atlanta Opera unveiled the third stage production of its 2021-22 season, the company’s comeback season following the prolonged pandemic-related hiatus, with a performance of Rossini’s comic masterpiece, Il barbiere di Siviglia. Though pandemic statistics in our city and state continue to trend favorably, safety for staff and patrons remains a prime focus with the Atlanta Opera, and as it was at the time of the season’s opener last November (Handel’s Giulio Cesare,) proof of vaccination or a negative antigen test are still required to enter the Cobb Energy Center.…

Welcome back, stranger!

Last weekend, the Atlanta Opera made its much-anticipated return to mainstage productions at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre and opened its 2021-22 season with a first for the city: Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Aside from a selection of Handel and Hasse arias featured at a Spring Gala Concert back in 2007, and a full staging of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in 2009, the Atlanta Opera has rarely been known to champion early music, thus the prospect of such premiere proved enticing enough to force many (including myself) out of their pandemic accommodations of choice.…

Fueled by the recent announcement of its 2020-21 season, which is surely to be remembered as a game changer for the company, The Atlanta Opera’s second ever production of Richard Strauss’ Salome opened to thunderous applause this past Saturday. For this second effort, the company took great pains to give the daughter of Herodias and princess of Judea her due importance and created for her an entirely new production from the ground up.…

As the warm applause greeted the curtain of the Atlanta Opera’s season opening production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola this Friday, November 8th, glittery confetti showered on Angelina as she unfurled the final phrases of her celebrated aria (and arguably the only number keeping the opera active in the repertoire) “Non piu mesta”.…