Reseñas de producciones pasadas
3Imagine a 5K triathlon that takes you through the thorniest patches and most verdant of pastures, only to leave you exultant rather than exhausted at the end. That’s more than a bit how the Merola Opera program’s Nozze di Figaro felt at its first of two performances. As zippily conducted by Xian Zhang, cleverly directed by Robin Guarino, and hilariously designed by wardrobe queen Donald Eastman — you’ll get it when you see it — this Marriage served as a stunning showcase for some unquestionable future stars of the operatic stage.
In addition to the “Big Three” Main Stage offerings in the Des Moines Metro Opera summer season, we were also indeed fortunate to experience their deeply affecting Second Stage production of Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s Fellow Travelers. This is a haunting, much-admired recent operatic work, and this particular physical production is itself ‘well-traveled.’ Fellow Travelers very empathetically tells the heartbreaking story about the disturbing fate of a political operative and his author/lover during the 1950’s Lavender Scare in America. Having encountered it at Arizona Opera a couple of seasons ago, its familiar stagecraft was like a welcome encounter with an old friend.
The opening night performance of Atlanta Opera’s The Barber of Seville was dedicated to the people of Ukraine. Artistic director Tomer Zvulun spoke before the performance about the tragedy unfolding there. There was a steady round of applause before the curtain went up. Should we be at the opera, a funny one at that, while a million and more Ukrainian refugees flood into other countries as theirs is being bombed? Should we be chuckling at the antics of Figaro, the barber of Seville, while husbands are being conscripted into war and wives are making Molotov cocktails? Should we be sitting in plush box seats with our opera glasses, looking at beautiful people singing beautiful music, while there is a miles-long column of Russian military bearing down on Kyiv?
