Classical Music Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 7

BWW Review: THE MAGIC FLUTE at Des Moines Metro Opera
by DC Felton - March 10, 2022

I love seeing in the arts when a company takes a classic work and reimagines it for a modern audience. This often allows for more imaginative and innovative production that brings a brand new audience to your company. As they begin their 50th Season, Des Moines Metro Opera brings Wolfgang Amadeus Mo...

BWW Review: DON JUAN at Wroclaw Opera
by Natalia Jarczynska - March 09, 2022

A romantic burlesque turns out to be an abstract path to nothingness through perverse vanity. Must see....

BWW Review: WRITTEN IN STONE at Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater
by Mary Lincer - March 07, 2022

The Washington National Opera has gathered a company of first rate singers for a portmanteau of four, one-act operas called Written in Stone. Unfortunately, their fine skills and exceptional voices cannot make silk purses out of scores, libretti, and orchestrations that evade aesthetics, emphasize n...

BWW Review: Lise Davidsen Soars Over Naxos in Strauss's ARIADNE at the Met
by Richard Sasanow - March 04, 2022

I flipped over Lise Davidsen when she made her Met debut in QUEEN OF SPADES—the voice, the acting, the overall subtlety--but I was still unprepared for the performance she gave as the Prima Donna who became Princess Ariadne of Crete in Strauss’s ARIADNE AUF NAXOS. She was altogether divine....

BWW Review: La Jolla Music Society Presents THE DOVER AND ESCHER QUARTETS at Baker-Baum Hall At The Conrad
by Ron Bierman - March 01, 2022

The La Jolla Music Society has been bringing some of the world’s best string quartets into the Baker-Baum Concert Hall at The Conrad. With a little over 500 seats and acoustics that allow you to hear off-stage whispers, it’ a setting that could only be improved upon if the performing quartet visited...

BWW Review: AN EVENING WITH DIANNE REEVES at Colorado Symphony
by Jon Bee - February 23, 2022

I suppose it’s true you can always find our way back home, especially if home is where the heart is, as they say. For Denver’s own Dianne Reeves making her return to Boettcher Concert Hall, it feels like Dolly Levy has come back to Harmonia Gardens. ...

BWW Review: San Diego Opera's MOZART'S COSI FAN TUTTE at San Diego Civic Center
by Ron Bierman - February 17, 2022

I admire the plucky inventiveness of the San Diego Opera. On an annual budget of roughly three percent of New York’s Metropolitan Opera, it has managed to mount a consistently appealing and entertaining variety of productions, traditional and contemporary, in both good times and plague times. The la...

BWW Review: ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE at Tagney Jones Hall
by Erica Miner - February 14, 2022

Bold new production of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s iconic rendering of the classic Greek tragedy...

BWW Review: Audra McDonald and Dr. Phillips Center Make History with Duke Ellington's BLACK, BROWN & BEIGE
by Aaron Wallace - January 27, 2022

It's not every day that Audra McDonald stands twenty feet in front of you and says, 'Tonight, we are all a part of history.' Then again, it's not every day that music history gets made in Orlando - real-deal, textbook-worthy history - so when it does happen, I reckon Audra McDonald is as eager to be...

BWW Review: Symphonic Return To Bid Farewell to John Varineau at An American in Paris!
by Brian Hilbrand - January 20, 2022

I was fortunate enough to get to head down to DeVos Hall for the first live event I have been to there in over two years, the last being to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the week the tour was put on pause due to Covid.   I was very excited to come back for a very special event, to not only h...

BWW Review: THE NEW YORK POPS featuring Kelli O'Hara brings Carnegie Hall BACK HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
by Lin Markz - December 22, 2021

With only 3 days of rehearsal, Ms. O'Hara doesn't disappoint...

BWW Review: THE WASHINGTON CHORUS A CANDLELIGHT CHRISTMAS at The Music Center At Strathmore / Kennedy Center Concert Hall
by Ken Kemp - December 17, 2021

A Candlelight Christmas is a warm and welcoming way to spend a holiday evening, with something for everyone to enjoy....

BWW Review: A JOYFUL NOISE at Carnegie Hall
by Joanna Barouch - December 11, 2021

Under the direction of their superb artistic director and conductor, Tony Award winner Ted Sperling, MasterVoices’ 100+ members presented “A Joyful Noise” as their 80th Season opener. T...

BWW Review: THE LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY PRESENTS LEONIDAS KAVAKOS AND YUJA WANG at the Balboa Theatre
by Ron Bierman - November 14, 2021

Although they don’t fill stadiums violinist Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Yuja Wang are classical music’s equivalent of huge pop stars. Wang is the better-known of the two partly because of the attention she’s garnered by dressing like one, surely more conservatively than Lady Gaga and Cher, but stil...

BWW Review: The Dessoff Choirs Premiere CONSIDERING MATTHEW SHEPARD
by Marakay Rogers - November 09, 2021

The famed Dessoff Choirs, conducted by Malcolm J. Merriweather, presented the first New York production of Craig Hella Johnson’s acclaimed choral work...

BWW Review: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG at the Metropolitan Opera
by George Weinhouse - November 01, 2021

For the first time in almost seven years, the Metropolitan Opera has revived Wagner's DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG.  Considered by many to be Wagner's masterpiece, today's matinee performance gave credence to that opinion.  The production is that of Otto Schenk with scenery by Gunther Schneider-Si...

BWW Review: The San Diego Opera Presents STEPHANIE BLYTHE IN RECITAL at the Balboa Theatre
by Ron Bierman - October 26, 2021

The imposing mezzo soprano Stephanie Blythe is known for her roles in Wagner, Verdi and Stravinsky. Why would she begin a Balboa Theatre recital for the San Diego Opera with Johnny Mercer’s 'Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive?” Here’s what she said in a recent interview, “I’ve been a great fan of Johnny ...

BWW Review: SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY at Rady Shell, Jacobs Park
by Ron Bierman - October 16, 2021

The Jacob's Masterworks Series has been the centerpiece of the San Diego Symphony's concert season for many years. But the pandemic put the series on hold and delayed the launch of Rafael Payare's first full season as music director and conductor. The opening of the outdoor Rady Shell has allowed th...

BWW Review: AMERICAN CLASSICAL ORCHESTRA with RACHELL ELLEN WONG at Damrosch Park At Lincoln Center
by Joanna Barouch - September 29, 2021

A wonderful way to start the season, 'Reunion' is a great name for this concert!...

BWW Review: RIGOLETTO, Royal Opera House
by Gary Naylor - September 17, 2021

Rigoletto delves deep into the human psyche to ask questions both through its subject matter and its melding of music and voices...

BWW Review: THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY PERFORMS TCHAIKOVSKY at The Rady Shell
by Ron Bierman - September 15, 2021

Classical music is supposed to be serious, difficult to understand, intimidating, right? Who are all these people laughing at what the conductor says, ordering bottles of wine, jumping up to applaud, even, gasp, clapping between movements. Was I amongst Philistines? Had I trustingly followed Waze to...

BWW Review: PAGLIACCI at Lyric Opera of Chicago
by Maria Nockin - September 01, 2021

Lyric Opera of Chicago announced that registration is now open for audiences to secure a free link to screen its new, original film production of Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, made at the Lyric Opera House. Audiences can now secure a free, on-demand viewing of this verismo production. More information ab...

BWW Review: TOUR DE PARIS WITH ALEX ROOSE at St. John's Church, Adelaide
by Barry Lenny - August 31, 2021

A musical tour of Paris in the Baroque period....

BWW Review: PROM 17: VIKINGUR ÓLAFSSON, Royal Albert Hall
by Sophia Lambton - August 15, 2021

Tightly-buttoned Bach met a bombastic Shostakovich in this demonstration of four radically different works that came across as either under- or expressly overstated....

BWW Review: SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY'S OPENING CONCERT AT THE NEW RADY SHELL AMPHITHEATER in Jacobs Park
by Ron Bierman - August 11, 2021

What was a makes-you-jump BOOM!! doing in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue? Had someone mistakenly lit an 1812 Overture cannon? Were we under attack?! Oh wait! It was just a bass drum resonating through the San Diego Symphony’s spectacular new state-of-the-art sound system at the Rady Shell. And so, Rafa...