Viardot vs Grisi

Fresh from giving the neighborhood trick or treaters a halloween that will, hopefully, haunt their dreams for the remainder of the year, we ventured to Boston this past weekend for our first visit to Odyssey Opera. The young company, already causing stirs with its bold and daring choice of repertoire, devotes its seventh season to the exploration of the Tudor dynasty in opera, and ushers in November with (of this we are fairly certain) the American premiere of Giovanni Pacini’s Maria, Regina d’Inghilterra. …

The Atlanta opera closes its 39th season, one of its boldest and most far reaching to date, with Verdi’s perennial favorite middle period work, La Traviata. For Tomer Zvulun, it must feel a bit like a victory. Now in his 6th year as Artistic Director for the Atlanta Opera, Mr.…

To welcome spring, newoutpost ventured west for the opening night performance of Nashville Opera’s production of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann on Thursday, April 4th. Despite being one of the biggest musical capitals in the United States, opera lags behind the more obvious musical genres in Nashville, and part of the company’s donation drive outlines becoming a medium tier regional outfit by 2020 as a prime goal in its printed literature.…

Absent in our city since its Atlanta Opera staging at the Civic Center in 2004, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin returned to Atlanta this past Saturday, this time on the stage of the Cobb Energy Centre, and was enthusiastically received. The new production, a joined effort shared by the Atlanta Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Seattle Opera, and Michigan Opera Theatre, is comprised of period appropriate sets and costumes which set the right atmosphere for Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece to properly unfold.…

As the small gathering of protesters held their ground outside the theater, an historic tableau greeted the Atlanta premiere of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking this past Saturday. On the stage of the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, holding hands with the cast and the production team was the composer himself, as well as the real Sister Helen Prejean.…

There’s a moment in Bellini’s Norma that never fails to punch me in the gut. As the opera reaches its final ensemble, the Druid High Priestess Norma, who by now has confessed her crimes to her people and has accepted her fate, turns to her father and tells him that she has borne children with the enemy and begs for their lives.…

Last weekend, the Minnesota Opera closed its 55th season with its first production of Massenet’s unjustly underperformed opera, Thais. Newoutpost’s ties with the mid-western company are strong (this blog, in fact, debuted with their production of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda back in the winter of 2011), and coupled with our desire to take part in this significant musical event, we embarked in yet another brief musical pilgrimage to beautiful St.…

To close the month of April and welcome May, the Atlanta Opera presented one of its most compelling casts and offered a memorable reading of Bizet’s immortal masterpiece, Carmen.

In a bold decision, the company handed the direction of this revival (the production premiered in our city in 2012,) to director Brenna Corner, a member of the Atlanta Opera Studio.…

Capitol City Opera, in its most ambitious production to date, presented Verdi’s La Traviata this past weekend. Your friends at newoutpost attended the final matinee performance on Sunday March 25, and though the overall impression of the performance was uneven, we can report that there were moments of lovely music making to be heard throughout the afternoon.…

Following the successful Parisian debut of his Lucie di Lammermoor at the Theatre de la Rennaissance in August of 1839, Gaetano Donizetti moved swiftly to establish himself in the nineteenth century’’s most prestigious musical capital by announcing four additional premieres in the city of lights.…