DEAD MAN WALKING – REVIEW OF 2023 LIVE FROM THE MET IN HD PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Metropolitan Opera has started this year’s live transmissions to theatres around the world with Dead Man Walking. It is an opera by Jake Heggie to a libretto by Terrence MacNally and the performance was so powerful I will use a string of superlatives to do it some justice. It is a stunning, emotionally draining and simply great opera that grabs you by the throat in the first minutes and does not release you until the final blackout. It is thrilling.

Dead Man Walking premiered in San Francisco in 2000 and has been produced some 75 times around the world but the fabled Met only got around to producing it this year. With Yannick Nezet-Seguin on the podium, Ivo van Hove as director and a brilliant cast, the production deserves to be described as a masterpiece.

The opera follows the experience of a nun, Sister Helen (Joyce di Donato), who befriends Joseph De Rocher (Ryan McKinny) a convict on death row in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola. She provides him or wants to provide him with spiritual comfort as he awaits his execution amid hopes of a reprieve or a commutation of his sentence. She wants him to tell her the truth, accept responsibility for his actions and seek forgiveness. He is adamant that he did not commit the murder but that it was done by his brother. She is desperately seeking for Joe’s redemption but he can only find it by facing up to the truth.   

Ryan McKinny as Joseph De Rocher and Joyce DiDonato

as Sister Helen Prejean in Jake Heggie's "Dead Man Walking." 

Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera

There is a heart-wrenching hearing before the Parole Board where De Rocher’s mother (Susan Graham) makes an impassioned and searing plea for clemency to the board. The parents of the two murdered teenagers are there also and their pain and loss leave no room for forgiveness. It is an unforgettable scene.

Ivo van Hove gives the opera a masterly production that deserves the title of work of a genius. He makes liberal use of video projections by Projection Designer Christopher Ash that give clarity and meaning to the production. The performance opens with a video showing a forested area and zeros in on a young couple taking a swim in a lake and then being confronted by two men. The girl is brutally raped and both are killed. It is a harrowing scene.

Projected videos are used throughout the performance to excellent effect giving additional punch to the scenes that we are witnessing. Brilliant.

The vocal and acting performance are of a stature that I have never seen in an opera and rarely in the theatre. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato who has sung the gamut of opera roles, gives a performance that may well be considered the pinnacle of her long career. The role of Sister Helen makes huge vocal demands as she tries to get to De Rocher’s soul but the emotional stresses as she faces De Rocher’s mother, the parents of the victims and finally the harrowing execution are almost unbearable.

Bass-baritone Ryan McKinny is outstanding as Joseph De Rocher. He is a muscle-bound man who displays bravura in his attempts to deny his guilt and hide his fear. But his fear is palpable and Sister Helen eventually breaks through his defences and reveals his fear and humanity. McKinny gives the angry, frightened and human De Rocher a superb voice as Sister Helen breaks through the convict’s outward denials and gets to his heart and hopes he finds redemption.

Jonah Mussolino as the Younger Brother, Joyce DiDonato as 

Sister Helen Prejean, and Susan Graham as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher

in Jake Heggie's "Dead Man Walking." Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera

Susan Graham delivers a monumental performance as De Rocher’s mother. She plays a poor and uneducated woman who loves her son. She gives a towering vocal performance that reaches heart-breaking emotional depths as she tries to save her boy from execution. Seeing her in the movie theatre screen in closeups is an advantage over what people who see it live in the huge Met Opera house at Lincoln Centre. I cannot praise her towering performance enough.

The set and lighting by designer Jan Versweyveld are minimalist. The set for the school where we meet Sister Helen and the other nuns is simply a large room. The same set is used for the prison scenes with different lighting. A large table is brought in for the Parole Board meeting. There are no prison bars or cells. All is sparse but extremely effective.

Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts the mighty Met Opera Orchestra in a score that carries you through from the first bar to the final note. You may never have heard it before but it is music that is alive and varies as the situation demands and is major part of the great performance.

This is opera at its best.
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Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie (music) and Terrence McNally (libretto) was shown Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on October 21, 2023 at various Cineplex theatres.  For more information: www.cineplex.com/events

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE – REVIEW OF 2023 OPERA ATELIER PRODUCTION

 Reviewed James Karas 

Opera Atelier, a prime example of civilization in Toronto, has produced Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice for its fall season. There are three versions of Gluck’s opera, the Vienna version of 1762 in Italian, the Paris version of 1774 in French and the Berlioz version of 1859 to a French libretto by Pierre-Louis Moline. Marshall Pynkoski, the Co-Artistic Director of Opera Atelier, has produced all three versions and for this year he has chosen to reprise the Paris version that he directed in 2007 with Colin Ainsworth in the lead role.

Tenor Answorth, still looking boyish, sings Orpheus again this year with soprano Mireille Asselin as Eurydice and soprano Anna-Julia David as Amour. The French version changed the vocal range of Orpheus from castrato to countertenor and now is frequently sung by tenors. Pynkoski has made a major infusion of ballet into the production which fits perfectly with Opera Atelier’s style of providing plenty of ballet dances thanks to Co-Artistic Director and Choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg.

It is a beautiful production starting with Ainsworth’s supple lyrical voice and wonderful delivery. The opera has few vocal flourishes for the tenor but he does have to maneuver through deep grief at the death of his wife on the day of their marriage to having to convince the Furies to let him into Hades and then try to endure the temptation to look at Eurydice  on their way out of the depths of Hades to the earth. Alas, he succumbs to her pleas and looks at disastrous results: she dies. Her death does have a positive aspect for us because Gluck composed the beautiful “J’ai perdu mon Euridice” aria that has the distinction of being the first big operatic hit.   

Colin Ainsworth as Orpheus, Mireille Asselin as Eurydice. 

Photo by Bruce Zinger

Asselin has a lovely and delicious soprano voice and we feel her distress as she expresses doubts about Orpheus still loving her when he refuses to even look at her. Excellent work. David does a fine job in the relatively small role of Amour.  

Zingg as expected choreographs gorgeous ballet sequences for the Atelier Ballet. The choruses are handled by the Nathaniel Dett Chorale and the Tafelmusik Chamber Chοir. The inimitable Tafelmusik Orchestra, another mark of civilization in Toronto, is conducted by David Fallis.

Gerard Gauci, Opera Atelier’s Resident Set Designer, designs the set with emphasis on colour, beauty and simplicity. The fires of hell are indicated at the back of the set although there are no dramatic efforts to provide idyllic dales or overdo the terrors of Hades but what we do get is effective.

There was great emphasis on a hazy or foggy Hades. There may have been a hitch, I suppose, and someone kept his finger on the haze making machine for far too long. Some of the dancers were hard to see as were the surtitles above the stage. Much of the theatre was enveloped in haze but I think it was a simple glitch in an otherwise wonderful production.

The Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra conducted by David Fallis did superior work.
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Orpheus and Eurydice by Christoph Willibald Gluck opened on October 26 and will run until November 1, 2023, at the Elgin Theatre, 189 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1M4. www.operaatelier.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor -Culture of The Greek Press

LA BOHÈME - REVIEW OF 2023 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

Puccini’s La Bohème  is one of the most reliable crowd pleasers and the Canadian Opera Company has wisely revived John Caird’s 2013 production again after repeating it in 2019. It is a sound production and was enthusiastically received by the audience. Rightly so.

Any production of La Boheme needs to fulfill certain prerequisites for the audience. We want a lovely, lovable, seamstress named Mimi who just happens to have a beautiful soprano voice and can sing with such passion to make us cry. Egyptian soprano Amina Edris fulfills those requirements quite nicely. She does not have a big voice but she is never not heard and her tenderness from “Mi chiamano Mimi”  to “Addio, senza rancor” (Goodbye without resentment) she delights and moves us.

All her love and passion need a suitable partner and that is the poet Rodolfo who is smitten by her at first sight. They search for her key and he touches her hand and erotic electricity is transmitted as he sings “Che gelida manina” (What a frozen little hand.) Samoan tenor Pene Pati launches into his two-word  (says he) autobiography very quietly and then soars to his high notes. He is a poor poet and dreamer with the soul of a millionaire. Now he sees the beautiful eyes of the seamstress and the rest is operatic eros.   

Pene Pati as Rodolfo and Amina Edris as Mimì in the 
Canadian Opera Company’s production of La Bohème, 2023, 
Photo: Michael Cooper

But she coughs and that’s no ordinary cold. Their love cannot last because Rodolfo cannot afford the medical bills and there is no health insurance on the South Bank of the Seine. But he pretends that the separation is a result of his jealousy and believes that Mimi can find someone who can pay the medical bills. Pati does a good job vocally and he is convincing in his acting. There is not a dry eye in the house during the final scene.

Rodolfo’s three friends deserve praise. The painter Marcello (South Korean baritone Joo Won Kang) is a real mensch who is in love with the flighty Musetta. The philosopher Colline (Congolese bass Blaise Malaba) and the musician Schaunard (Canadian baritone Justin Welsh) make up a fine ensemble of friends and singers. They are the lighter side of the opera with their tomfoolery and enjoyment of life under financially dire circumstances. They are also the support group of the two lovers. Well sung, well played, well done.

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company’s 
production of La Bohème, 2023, photo: Michael Cooper

The singer Musetta (Canadian soprano Charlotte Siegel) is a flirt and superficial seeker of fun. Her aria “Quando me’n vo” (When I walk all alone in the street) expresses her pride in men staring at her. The aria is also known as Musetta’s Waltz expressing her flirtatiousness, energy and love of fun. Unfortunately Siegel fell short of expressing those qualities in her portrayal of Musetta. Her voice, her vivacity and her movements fell short of what Musetta expresses and stand for.

The set by David Farley featured hanging panels with some furniture for the first act. The same panels in a different position and additional furniture made the scene in the café Momus of the second act, not opulent but adequate. The third act near the gates of Paris on a snowy February morning is again adequate but don’t look for too many snowflakes. The set is unimportant. What happens between Rodolfo and Mimi and between Marcello and Musetta and among the friends is what we are focusing on.

Katherine M. Carter is the revival director as she was in 2019 and the production works very well on all levels.

Jordan de Souza conducts conducts the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra in a marvelous performance of Puccini’s wonderful score. 
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La Bohème  by Giacomo Puccini with libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica opened on October 6 and will be performed eight times on various dates until October 28, 2023, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario.  www.coc.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of the Greek Press

FIDELIO - REVIEW OF 2023 CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas           

After a 14-year hiatus, the Canadian Opera Company brings back Fidelio, in a redoubtable production from San Francisco Opera directed by Matthew Ozawa and conducted by Johannes Debus. It has the vocal strength of the main singers and the powerful set and production designs of Alexander Nichols in a production that deserves to be seen and enjoyed.

Fidelio, as everyone knows, starts as a comic opera, albeit set in a jail, where the jail employee Jaquino (Josh Lovell) pursues Marzellina (Anna-Sophie Neher) with proposals of marriage. She is the daughter of the Chief Jailer Rocco (Dimitry Ivashchenko) and she rejects Jaquino because she is in love with Fidelio. The concern with love, marriage and money takes a sudden and uncomic turn when we learn that Fidelio is in fact Leonore (Miina-Liisa Varela), the wife of Florestan (Clay Hilley) a political prisoner and the victim of Don Pizzaro (Johannes Martin Kranzle), the evil Governor of the prison who wants to get rid of Florestan permanently.

We are rooting for Leonore to free Florestan and the prisoners to serve us with a glorious Ode to Freedom  that we hear in act one and again in a blaze of splendour at the end of the opera.  The COC Chorus gives a stunningly rousing performance.

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company’s 

production of Fidelio, 2023, photo: Michael Cooper

Lovell, Neher and Ivanchenko carry us through the domestic part of the opera with aplomb as we await the more serious business that Leonore is engaged in and the dark side of the opera represented by Don Pizarro. Miina-Liisa Varela has a lovely voice and in the uniform of a modern jail guard with a bullet-proof vest she is able to pretend that she is a man with our approval.

Tenor Clay Hilley as Florestan, kept in the dark dungeon and almost starved, begins his great aria “Gott! Welch Dunkel hier” (“O God! How dark it is!”) softly and rises to its vocal height. A gorgeous rendition. He then sings a beautiful melody where he imagines seeing Leonore (whose image is in fact projected behind him) leading him to heaven. We witness the great joy of the opera when the two finally recognize each other. Sheer magic.

Clay Hilley as Florestan and Miina-Liisa Värelä 
of Fidelio, 2023, photo: Michael Cooper
as Leonore in the Canadian Opera Company’s production 

Ozawa and Nichols have set the opera in a modern American prison. The huge set, placed on a revolving stage resembles an oversized prison with its bars and gates. This is a fitting place for torture and murder in the hands of the suave baritone Kranzle. But all will be solved by Minister Don Fernando (sung by bass Sava Vemic) who arrives just in time to the joy of all. The costumes by Jessica Jahn, as I indicated, resemble those of American police officers or prison guards with guns and bullet-proof vests. 

The COC Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Debus delivers Beethoven’s lyrical and heroic music splendidly and round off a marvelous production.

A superb night at the opera.
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Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven in a production from the San Francisco Opera opened on September 29 and will be performed seven times until October 20, 2023, on various dates at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. www.coc.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

RINALDO – REVIEW OF 2023 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

There are times when you see a production of an opera where the imagination of the director has taken such a leap that it leaves you breathless. It does not happen often but it does in Louisa Proske’s production of Handel’s Rinaldo at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, New York.

Rinaldo premiered in 1711 and is an opera seria that was sung by castrati. It has a plot about war, love and sorcery around 1099 during the Crusades. Briefly, the hero Rinaldo loves Almirena, the daughter of King Goffredo. The enemy is led by Argante who is told by the sorceress Armida that the only way he can win is is by capturing Rinaldo. She agrees to capture him herself and she abducts Almirena as well.

Moving on, Argante is in love with Armida and sorceress falls in love with her prisoner Rinaldo, The Christians also have a Sorcerer and, you may have guessed it, Rinaldo and Almirena are rescued and they all live happily ever after,

Handel and his librettist Giacomo Rossi call for a magic castle, a mountain, views of Jerusalem and paraphernalia that Cecil B. de Mille would have been hard put to provide.

Proske and Set Designer Montana Blanco  do away with most of that and leave it to our imagination. The opera opens in a modern hospital room with two youngsters in separate beds, One of  them is unconscious and the other one is awake and dreaming of the heroic deeds of the knights who fought in the Crusades and specifically of Rinaldo. His imagination takes flight and knights jump in through the window of his hospital room. They outfit him as a knight and we see Goffredo outfitted as a leader of the crusades. 

The cast of the 2023 Glimmerglass Festival production of Rinaldo.
 Photo Credit: Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festival

The two youngsters become Rinaldo and Almirena. The hospital staff and visitors become the rest of the characters of the opera. The large window at the back is used as a screen for the projection of photographs and videos including a cartoon representation of the climb of Goffredo and his followers up the steep mountain to fight the sorceress, Armida. They are blown away. The Sorcerer on Rinaldo’s side arms them with injection needles  and they go back and blow the Armida side off.

The imaginative transformation of two youngsters in a hospital into the main characters of the opera and the ability to carry the whole idea to the end struck me as brilliant. The opera begins and ends in the hospital room where the hospital staff and visitors who became the medieval characters revert to their modern selves.

The staging and directing are accompanied by some extraordinary singing. The production boasts three countertenors. Even in Handel’s time, the castrati who sang the major male roles were rotated by undamaged singers but for this production Glimmerglass found three outstanding countertenors. Rinaldo is sung by Anthony Roth Costanzo who has a delicate physique and a voice of surpassing beauty and versatility that manages all the trills with utter ease.  The same high praise belongs to countertenor Kyle Sanchez Tingzon  who sings Goffredo as well as countertenor Nicholas Kelliher who sings the smaller role of Sorcerer.

Peter Murphy, Kyle Sanchez Tingzon, Madison Hertel, and Anthony 

Roth Costanzo. Photo Credit: Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festiva

Jasmine Habersham sings Almirena in a fine performance. But when it comes to female characters, the show is stolen by soprano Keely Futterer as the sorceress Armida. Dressed in black and accompanied by three Furies dressed completely in black, she plays up the role and manages magical appearances and disappearances as Almirena. A robust and vocally accomplished performance.

Bass-baritone Korin Thomas-Smith sings Argante, the leader of the “other side’ who is in love with Armida. Fine, resonant voice and superb performance.

I make no secret of my admiration of Louisa Proske’s imaginative treatment of the opera. But in all fairness, I should mention that there was a production of Rinaldo at Glyndebourne in 2011 that bears some resemblance to Proske’s It was directed by Robert Carsen and it set in an English private school where the students take on the roles of the opera. It is not as well thought through as Proske’s and the singers are more conventional. But that production is more Monty Python’s Spamalot than Handel.

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Rinaldo George Frideric Handel is being performed five times between July 28 and August 17, 2023, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

CANDIDE – REVIEW OF 2023 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival has chosen to revive Francesca Zambello’s 2015 production of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide for this season. It is an unwieldy and at times difficult work to produce but Zambello managed to bring it together as a well-done satire and opera that thrilled the audience.

It is a robust, fast-moving, colourful and very well-sung production that almost zips you through all the plot complications to the final philosophical conclusion that the work is all about. You may not follow every detail, especially the philosophical backdrop  but you should enjoy the overall production.

And, yes, Candide has a serious philosophical underpinning that is presented through biting satire and comedy. On the more earthy level, there is murder, rape, war, pillage, robbery and a few other such happenings in human life that are a part of the comic operetta. It is based on a novella by Voltaire, after all.

Dr. Pangloss lives in Westphalia with the un-aristocratic Candide (Brian Vu) who loves Cunegonde (Katina Galka), the aristocratic daughter of the Baron of Westphalia (Carlos Ahrens). A commoner loving an aristocratic lady is verboten and Candide is summarily thrown out of Westphalia. Cunegonde joins him. Thus begin his travels around the world. He meets colourful and evil characters and goes through dramatic events in places like Bavaria, Montevideo, Paraguay, El Dorado and Venice. Cunegonde is with him but they are  separated and she is raped by soldiers during a war, he is flogged almost to death and I will not bore you with all the cruelties and examples of inhumanity that the operetta contains. Remember that the intent is a comic and satirical view of human conduct and institutions.

The novella and the comic opera are in the style of a picaresque work that depicts the adventures of a hero like Candide covering numerous episodes across many venues.

Brian Vu as Candide and Katrina Gulka as Cunegonde. 
Photo credit: Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festival.

During the travels and various encounters, there is music and numerous songs, of course. Bernstein’s compositions from the now-famous overture to the incidental music to the songs are brilliant, muscular, lyrical, frequently demanding and a feast for the ear. 

The cast is led by actor Bradley Dean, a man of the theatre, who takes on the roles of Voltaire as the host and as Dr. Pangloss, the wise companion of Candide. He is charismatic and a vivacious raconteur who gives a splendid performance.

Candide is the eternal optimist who believes all is done for the good. Yes, we do live in the best of all possible worlds and no facts or disasters can dissuade him from that conviction. Needless to say, it’s all a joke.  Bernstein makes serious vocal demands on Brian Vu as Candide and he performs brilliantly. The same applies to Katrina Galka as Cunegonde who scales her high notes effortlessly and gives us a very admirable heroine.

The 2023 production of Candide. Photo credit:

 Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festival.

Our heroes do give as well as take punishment. Dr. Pangloss is sentenced to death and Cunegonde to flogging. She is “shared” by the Grand Inquisitor (Ryan Johnson) and Don Issacar but they are both killed by our stars. The same thing happens to Maximillian when he objects to Candide marrying Cunegonde. Sweet revenge. 

As I said, Candide is based on Voltaire’s 1759 novella. The musical/opera based on it opened on Broadway in 1956 with music by Leonard Bernstein and libretto by Lilian Hellman. It didn’t really work. Since then, it has gone through head-spinning changes and revisions. The Glimmerglass production credits Hugh Wheeler for the book and Richard Wilbur, Stephen Sondheim, John la Touche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Leonard Bernstein for the lyrics.

The current revival of Francesca Zambello’s 2015 production is a lively and colourful Candide that flowed reasonably smoothly despite its unwieldy plot and far too many twists and turns. Eric Sean Fogel’s revival with set designs by James Noone  and costume designs by Jennifer Moeller gives us a coherent and well-sung production. Joeph Colaneri conducts the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra and Chorus.

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Candide by Leonard Bernstein et. al. opened on July 8 and will be performed twelve times until August 20, 2023, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. www.glimmerglass.org 

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greel Press

LA BOHÈME – REVIEW OF 2023 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival came to life in 1975 with four performances in the auditorium of Cooperstown High School. Things picked up after that modest start and in 1987 it constructed the Alice Busch Opera Theatre along the shore of Otsego Lake, in the beautiful rolling countryside a few miles from Cooperstown. Yes, that is the one-street town that is famous for the Baseball Hall of Fame and one street full of stores selling baseball memorabilia.

The opera that was produced in the high school auditorium was Puccini’s La Boheme, which happens to be one of this year’s offerings in the 1200-seat Alice Busch Opera Theatre and not in the high school auditorium.

The current production, conducted by Nader Abbassi and directed by E. Loren Meeker, is a pleasure to watch, moving, well-sung, on superb sets. It is pure Bohème without directorial high jinks. Meeker knows the opera well. She directed the original 2016 production at the Glimmerglass Festival and had it set in the Paris of the colourful Belle Epoque of Toulouse Lautrec.    

What do we want? Give us a Mimi that will make Rodolfo  (and us) fall in love with her while searching for her key and make him and everyone in sight bawl in the final scene when she dies. Soprano Teresa Perrotta steps onto the stage to achieve all that. She is a young singer who won the 2023 Grand Final of The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. That propelled her into some minor roles until she was cast as Mimi for the Glimmerglass Festival production. 

Teresa Perrotta as Mimi and Joshua Blue as Rodolfo.

Photo credit: Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festiva

She has a sweet and affecting voice that makes us love her and cry for her, and root for her when she describes her status as a poor but hard-working and virtuous young woman. She wants her candle lit by Rodolfo, she loses her key and tells us so delicately “Mi chiamano Mimi.” Perrotta carries us along Mimi’s love story, her distress and her fortitude when she separates from Rodolfo with no ill will.

What about Rodolfo, the poor, passionate poet, living in a cold garret in Paris who falls in love with Mimi deeply and forever and leaves her shortly after that.  Tenor Joshua Blue has been around the operatic block a few times and is climbing the artistic ladder with what seems to be a handsome and firm voice. Rodolfo has some fine moments and needs some high notes to express passion, pain and regret. He succeeds superbly. Puccini and his librettists Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa make him look like a jealous cad who abandons Mimi when he realizes she is seriously ill. But he is no cad. He separates from her because he cannot provide for her. He leaves her so she can find someone who can look after her. A superb performance by Blue.

Rodolfo’s garret mate and two friends do not always get the notice and appreciation that they deserve. True, they are relatively minor characters but they make a significant contribution to the opera. 

The cast of 2023's Glimmerglass Festival production of 

La bohème. Photo credit: Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festival

I tip my hat to them and endow them with kudos. We have Darren Lakeith Drone as Marcello, the painter; Justin Burgess as Schaunard, the musician and Nan Wang as  Colline the philosopher along with Rodolfo, of course. Under Meeker’s direction, they make the friendship appear real through thick and thin. They can laugh and find fun in their poverty and stand with Rodolfo and Mimi in her last moments. Fine vocal performances by all.

Kevin Depinet’s sets are perfect for the production. The garret set is a reflection of the artists’ wherewithal, the scene at the Café Momus is colourful, full of activity and carnival joy.

Nader Abbassi conducts the Glimmerglass Orchestra, Chorus and Youth Chorus with vivacity and superb playing.         
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La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini (music) and Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa (libretto) opened on July 7 and will be performed thirteen times until August 19, 2023, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York. More information at: www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

ROMEO AND JULIET – REVIEW OF 2023 GLIMMERGLASS FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Glimmerglass Festival on the shore of Otsego Lake in upstate New York is at it again with its wonderful productions of operas in an idyllic setting. In its classic format, the Festival offers five productions this summer, namely La Boheme, Candide, Rinaldo and  The Rip Van Winkles, a new opera commissioned by the Festival. An Evening With Anthony Roth Costanzo and Love & War, a program of Cladio Monteverdi madrigals are two bonus performances.

Charles Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet gets a superb production, directed by Simon Godwin and conducted by Joseph Colaneri. It is a modern-dress production, beautifully designed and judiciously directed with attention to detail with superb playing by the Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra.

Librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré were faithful to Shakespeare’s text subject to making cuts to allow the opera to be performed in less than three hours with one intermission. It is sung in French but we do get some of Shakespeare’s memorable lines in the English surtitles.

The singing was very good with some superb performances. Tenor Duke Kim was agile vocally and physically as Romeo. He showed versatility and displayed Romeo’s passion and despair with fervour and gave an all-around enjoyable performance.

Juliet was sung by soprano Magdalena Kuzma, a young and developing singer who showed some fine vocalizing. However, her vocal strength was more apparent when she showed conviction and defiance rather than when she expressed love and passion. I felt that her voice may be more suitable for dramatic soprano roles rather than the lyrical quality that is more suitable, indeed essential for Juliet.  

Magdalena Kuźma (above) as Juliet and Duke Kim as Romeo.
Credit: Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festival

Bass-baritone Stefano de Peppo as Lord Capulet starts the opera with the joyous aria “Allons! jeunes gens!” inviting the guests at his party to have fun. It is an ironic opening to an opera that will end in utter tragedy. De Peppo’s performance is marvelous as a forthright singer and Juliet’s father.

Baritone Olivier Zerouali (Mercutio), another young singer, had the opportunity to display his versatility and showmanship especially in “Mab, reine des mensonges” and he did with pizazz.

Bass Sergio Martinez sang Friar Laurence with sonority and a beautiful display of decency. Contralto Meredith Arwady plays Gertrude, better known as the Nurse, as a comic and upfront character that is quite enjoyable.

The set by Dan Soule is superb in its effect and versatility. It consists of several moveable pieces that at first show the aristocratic house of the Capulets. A grand staircase can be seen and a balcony. The pieces are moved around for the balcony scene, the street scene, Friar Laurence’s cell, Juliet’s bedroom etc. Efficient and effective without ostentation.

 

(L to R) Magdalena Kuźma as Juliet, Stefano de Peppo as 

Count Capulet, and Meredith Arwady as Gertrude. 

Photo Credit: Evan Zimmerman/The Glimmerglass Festival

Director Simon Godwin is a man of the theatre who has directed many Shakespeare plays including Romeo and Juliet for the stage. His sense of theatre serves him well in directing this production. The various scenes are handled meticulously and with Choreographer Jonathan Goddard the fight scenes are done splendidly.

The masked party of the opening scene gives the impression that the costumes may be some adaptation of sixteenth century attire. In the subsequent scenes the actors wear modern clothes which work just fine for the production.

The Glimmerglass Festival Orchestra shone under the baton of Joseph Colaneri  

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Romeo and Juliet by Charles Gounod opened on July 15 and will be performed in repertory seven times until August 19, 2023, at the Alice Busch Opera Theater, Cooperstown, New York.  www.glimmerglass.org

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

COSI FAN TUTTE - REVIEW OF 2023 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

If you are going to the opera and notice that what you are about to see is directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, tighten up your seatbelt because you may be in for a rough ride. The rough ride could be thrilling or whatever the opposite of thrilling is that will cause you to boo, metaphors aside, the production that you actually see.

I speak of the current production of Cosi Fan Tutte at the former residence of the Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, now called the Theatre de l’Archevêché.  Cosi was the first opera to be produced at the Aix-en-Provence Festival when it opened in 1948 and there can be few people who attended that performance and attend this year’s showing but sometimes historic nostalgia is as important as actual memory.

As to the plot of Cosi, we all know that with some variations we have the beautiful sisters Fiordiligi and Dorabella who, with their maid the feisty Despina, live in a mansion in Naples overlooking the harbour.

They are deeply, madly, eternally in love with Guglielmo and Ferrando and we know that because they tell us that it is the absolute truth. The latter gentlemen feel exactly the same way about the ladies, and they are willing to put their lives or whatever to dispel any doubts about their devotion. But their friend, the cynical and wise philosopher Don Alfonso (I think that’s what he is) is willing to make a bet that all women are capable of infidelity and that is confirmed by the title of the opera.

Wanna bet? Yes, they do. Don Alfonso “sends” the men to war, and the same men disguised as Albanians are brought to the ladies’ posh residence by him. The ladies do not recognize the newcomers who woo them with passion and conviction. My impression has always been that the two beauties are very nice but not very swift. Leave to Mozart’s music to overwhelm you and suspend your disbelief.

 

The two couples near their beds. Photo Monika Ritterhaus

What does Tcherniakov give us. Forget most of the above. Two middle-aged couples are, in Tcherniakov’s words, “in a fancy villa in the forest or perhaps a chalet in the mountains.” The set shows a sitting area with an ordinary table and six chairs with two inviting bedrooms with big beds behind but let’s not quibble about that.

The two couples make use of the bedrooms during the overture and when the opera begins, we discover that they are Guglielmo and Fiordiligi, and Ferrando and Dorabella with Don Alfonso and Despina. We already saw Don Alfonso molesting, yes, sexually interfering with Despina’s anatomy, but she seemed to participate in the encounter after some resistance. We will see more of Don Alfonso as a dirty old man.

But right now, our attention is riveted toward the lovers who are past the bloom of youth and are in fact in their fifties. I take the liberty of assuming that whatever they were doing on those beautiful beds was not for the first time.     

The holiday in the forest or in the mountains takes place now and the men and women are dressed in modern clothes so there is no eighteenth or nineteenth century prudery. Guglielmo and Ferrando as the presumed Albanians of the original production appear in modern clothes with masks which they quickly take off and even Mozart’s gorgeous music is asking too much of us to suspend our disbelief. Where are those mustachioed and overdressed Albanians when you need them?

The pervert and the maid. Photo: Erika Ritterhaus

The middle-aged men and women re-discovering love and passion with a different partner and the women tasting infidelity may not have the same stigma that it did, say, 250 years ago. But Tcherniakov does not stop there. Despina with a blonde wig looks like something out of a Marx brothers’ movie but her relationship with Don Alonso may not be as consensual as we would like to think. They engage in simulated coitus in front of our eyes that is not all bad except that we do not expect the elder philosopher Don Alfonso to be such a dirty old man.

Pervert Don Alfonso kisses Ferrando and Fiordiligi on the lips quite seriously. A shotgun is introduced early in the performance and as in a Chekhov play, it is eventually used on stage.

I have spoken at great length about Tcherniakov, but the performers deserve much credit. True they are all in their fifties (except for Nicole Chevalier whose date of birth I could not find). But, even if they stumble now and then, they do superb work.  They are baritone Russell Braun as Guglielmo, soprano Agneta Eichenholz as Fiordiligi, tenor Rainer Trost as Ferrando, mezzo Claudia Mahnke as Dorabella, baritone Georg Nigl as Don Alfonso and soprano Nicole Chevalier as Despina. The Balthasar Neumann Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock plays Mozart’s music with incredible beauty and finesse.      

Directors pushing the envelope to produce operas in different locations with radical interpretations, especially in Europe, is nothing new. In fact, the last time Cosi was produced at the Aix-en-Provence Festival was in 2016 directed by Christophe Honoré. He set his production in a slum in a village in colonial Africa. The director was roundly booed.

This time the reaction at curtain call was mixed. There are boos no doubt but also applause of approval. I admire Tcherniakov’s work, and I would never boo his brilliant inventiveness and imagination. One can legitimately say that he may have gone too far with his inventiveness in this production but isn’t that the reason we want to see what he has in mind?

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Cosi Fan Tutte continues at the Théâtre de l'Archevêché until July 21, 2023 in Aix-en-Provence, France.  http://festival-aix.com/

James Karas is the Senior Editor- Culture of The Greek Press. This review appears in the newspaper

THE THREEPENNY OPERA – REVIEW OF 2023 AIX-EN-PROVENCE FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas

The Aix-en-Provence Festival is in its 75^th year and from the 4^th to the 24^th of July 2023 the gorgeous medieval city in the south of France becomes a mecca of cultural activities from productions of opera, ballet, concerts, and lectures to keep one occupied almost constantly.

The Festival opened on July 4 with a new production of The Threepenny Opera that featured some amazing features. It is done in French in a new translation by Alexandre Pateau in an adaptation by German man of the theater Thomas Ostermeier who also directed the production. L’opéra de quat’sous (four sous) is the French title of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s 1928 collaboration. The production is supposed to be faithful to the 1928 text with the addition of a new song, “Pauv’ Madam Peachum” with text by Yvette Guilbert, adapted by Pateau.

In an innovative step, the production uses actors from the Comédie-Française instead of conventional opera singers, and Le balcon, a band of about a dozen musicians playing a variety of instruments under the direction of Maxime Pascal.  

Most people know something about The Threepenny Opera. It is a product of the moral and financial morass of the 1920s Weimar Republic Berlin. It is not an opera in the conventional sense, of course, but a parody that attacks private property, capitalism, morality, the bourgeois, the justice system and gives a frightful portrait of life in the slums of London. Crime, corruption, prostitution are the milieu of the work. It is based to some extent on John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera.

Ostermeier takes an idiosyncratic approach to the opera by producing it partly as a concert version and partly as a fully performed work. This is no doubt a bow to the theory of epic theatre. More about that in a minute.  When the performance begins, we see four microphones prominently displayed on the stage.  Claina Clavaron sings “The Ballad of Mack the Knife” about the demi-monde of the opera and the anti-hero and preeminent criminal Macheath. otherwise known as Mac the Knife in a style resembling a 1920’s cabaret performance. 

Scene from Threepenny Opera. Photo © Jean-Louis Fernandez

From then on, the singing and the dialogue part of the opera will be performed on the microphone or by the characters interacting in the usual way in the theatre. The choice to have actors speak on the microphone rather than interact with the other characters in the scene is the choice of director Ostermeier. This is no doubt an attempt at giving us the then nascent idea of Brecht known as epic theatre, an attempt to treat a play as if it were the recitation of an epic poem rather than an attempt at realistic representation. This is not the place for an essay on epic theater but that idea and Brecht’s dedication to Marxism were not fully developed in 1928.

The Threepenny Opera is, despite its name, a play with songs and therefore has a lot of dialogue between sung numbers. The actors of the Comedie-Francaise spoke it, in various speeds as required by the text. Those without a facility for French dialogue at a certain speed (like moi) could not read the English surtitles with any appreciable speed. But I am sure there were few such types.

After the Ballad we get down to business in what is supposed to be a London slum but there is no indication of that. We start with the disgusting Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum (Christian Hecq), a portly gentleman who is the boss of the beggars. He trains and outfits them at their cost and collects 50% of their “earnings.” This may be the original franchise method of doing business. Peachum has a “lovely” wife and partner called Celia (Veronique Vella). They have a pretty daughter called Polly (Marie Oppert) who, horrors, wants to marry some low-life and yes, it is Macheath himself played by a suave Birane Ba.

In the next scene we attend the nuptials of the happy couple with a collection of criminals and Chief of Police Brown (Benjamin Lavernhe). What follows is a scene of slapstick comedy with pies (cake really) thrown at people in a scene reminiscent of The Three Stooges. In true epic theatre style, the actors get down on their knees and clean up the mess made by the cakes when the party is over.

The production continues in the same style with Peachum’s desire to have Macheath arrested and Brown protecting him. They were army buddies after all. There is treachery, bribery, and ballads like the one about sexual obsession, melodrama, the song of Solomon and others.   

The sets by Magda Willi are minimal with no hint of London slums. The action takes place during the coronation of a queen, and you can decide a more precise chronology for that but don’t bother. There are video projections by Sebastien Dupouey of geometric figures and black and white photographs and film clips but I could not make head or tails of them. Florence von Gerkan’s costumes were modern but colourful to portray some of the low-lives and hookers of the underworld.

The actors of the Comédie-Française performed with assurance and aplomb from slapstick comedy to more serious scenes and especially comic ones of satire, parody and ridicule of society as well as betrayal, arrest and almost execution of Macheath. In case you forgot the end of the opera, rest at ease. Macheath is pardoned by the newly crowned queen and made a lord.

There are some lyrical songs and the assorted musicians of Pascal’s Le Balcon performed with gusto.

The Threepenny Opera has gained a sure-footed niche in modern culture with some of the songs like The Ballad of Mack the Knife that have gained honourable status. The work has posed difficulties in classification. There is no need. Opera houses and theatres are producing it on a regular basis, and no one should care about classification.

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The Threepenny Opera (L’opera de quat’sous) by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill opened on July 4 and will be performed on different dates until July 24, 2023, at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché, Aix-en-Provence, France. www.festival-aix.com/

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press. This review appears in the newspaper

DON GIOVANNI – REVIEW OF LIVE TRANSMISSION OF 2023 MET PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

New York’s Metropolitan Opera has brought its stunning new production of Don Giovanni to a theatre near millions of people around the world who could otherwise not imagine seeing it. There are many things one can say about Ivo van Hove’s vision of the opera. Idiosyncratic, perhaps eccentric, maybe unorthodox, highly imaginative, thought-provoking, even controversial. You can choose other descriptions but the conclusion should be that this is an extraordinary production of a great opera.

It is a modern dress production but the suits and ordinary dresses worn by the cast with few exceptions are just the beginning. The pretty country girl Zerlina and the bumpkin Masetto that she is about to marry are dressed in ordinary clothes with no indication of class difference between them and the aristocratic Don Giovanni and the other upper crust members.

The set goes further in capturing van Hove’s bleak view. Several stark concrete buildings form a cul-de sac. There are openings for doors and windows but they are just gaping holes. The set is rotated at some points but there are no interior scenes and no indication of wealth or views of the countryside. Simple concrete.

What kind of Don Giovanni do we get? I think the best way to describe him is as a relative of Donald Trump. He is a slimy lecher who considers women as sex objects to be had and discarded. You can forget any notions of the romantic lover. He is no doubt a talented seducer with money and status to fool most women but they represent the proverbial notches on the headboard of his bed and are not worthy of more consideration. 

A scene from Mozart's "Don Giovanni" Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera

Take the opening scene where the beautiful Donna Anna (Federica Lombardi) is grabbing Don Giovanni as he tries to get away from her room where they had sex. She wants to know who he is and he refuses to identify himself. We see how he operates when he tries to seduce the innocent Zerlina, a country girl who is about to get married. She falls for his devilish lies. Did he pull the same stunt on Donna Anna and she fell in love with him? Now that he had his “notch” he is no longer interested.

The same story is seen in his relationship with Donna Elvira (Ana Maria Martinez). She is a previous victim looking for him, not to punish him, but to get him back. This Donna Elvira is constructed terrifically by van Hove and sung and acted superbly by Martinez. She is not a young woman but one that is almost ready to be put on the proverbial shelf and there is desperation on her search for her lost and perhaps last love. This Donna Elvira is much more credible than an irate woman looking for revenge.

When Leporello (Adam Plachetka) reads out the catalogue of Don Giovanni’s “conquests” to Donna Elvira, it is in fact a list of victims who believed his grotesque lies and served his momentary sexual lust before being discarded like a used napkin.

Near the end of the opera, Donna Anna tells her patient and loving fiancée Don Ottavio (Ben Bliss) that she will postpone their wedding for a year. I have thought that this postponement is prompted by her love of Don Giovanni. In this production she shows genuine affection for Don Ottavio and it may be another twist by van Hove.

The singing is outstanding. Baritone Peter Mattei, wearing a black suit, white shirt and black tie, delivers a stunningly sung Trumpian scumbag of a Don Giovanni. He just loves women, he tells us. Bass-baritone Adam Plachetka is a superb Leporello, long-suffering with sparks of decency but unable to do much. In the end I thought he would walk off with Donna Elvira bur servants don’t get aristocratic women.

Federica Lombardi as Donna Anna is gorgeous in her singing and acting. We can decide for ourselves the motivations of the Commendatore’s (Alexander Tsymbalyuk) daughter but we can only heap praise on Lombardi for her silk voice and marvellous performance.

Martinez’s Donna Elvira who can be seen as a woman raging with ire and passion is here a lady in pain looking for a lost, and as I said, perhaps, last love. Martinez has been made to look the part and her performance is simply stellar.

Soprano Ying Fang’s Zerlina is very pretty, sings beautifully, is ambitious but not very bright. We love her regardless and we applaud her when she persuades the oafish Masetto of Alfred Walker that she still loves him even though she bolted almost from the altar. Just wonderful.

A simply marvellous production.

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Don Giovanni by W. A. Mozart was shown Live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera on May 20 and will be rebroadcast on June 10, 2023 at various Cineplex theatres.  For more information: www.cineplex.com/events

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

TOSCA – REVIEW OF 2023 COC REVIVAL OF PAUL CURRAN PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas 

The Canadian Opera Company opens an amazing production of Puccini’s Tosca that together with Macbeth wraps up the current season. This is the third revival of Paul Curran’s 2008 production. It has earned its staying power and garnered a standing ovation.

Any production of Tosca requires three outstanding singers: a tenor for the hero Mario Cavaradossi, a soprano for the heroine Flora Tosca and a baritone for the despicable Baron Scarpia. There are other roles who need to entertain us such as the Sacristan who is a comic character and needs to sing, make gestures and facial grimaces to get some laughs and bass Donato di Stefano does a fine job..

There is also the desperate Angelotti of bass baritone Christian Pursell and the lovely tones of the Shepherd Boy sung by Olivia Pady from the Canadian Children’s Opera Company. If you ever wondered what a shepherd is doing in the middle of a seriously built-up area of Rome in the Castel Sant’Angelo, wonder no more. The area around the castle was not built at all around 1800, the time of the opera, and there were flocks of sheep around there.

 

Keri Alkema as Tosca and Stefano La Colla as Cavaradossi. Photo: Michael Cooper

Let me praise the singers. Tenor Stefano La Colla in his debut with the COC sang a superb Cavaradossi that was a thrill to listen to. After the insolence and comic business of the Sacristan, he breaks out with “Recondita armonia” and lets out nothing less than vocal pyrotechnics. He waxes romantic and alluring as the jealous Tosca accuses him of infidelity. He reaches for the stars when he sings Vittoria and ends with the luminous “E lucevan le stelle.”

American soprano Keri Alkema is reprising her 2017 performance as Tosca and gives a superb performance. It is a role that makes serious demands on the soprano. She starts as the jealous, suspicious and histrionic woman who loves Cavaradossi. In a nice touch, she will not let him kiss her in front of the Madonna. In the second act Alkema/Tosca meets the challenge of psychological torture leading to betrayal as Scarpia forces her to disclose the whereabouts of the escaped Angelotti.   

She is driven to the edge of despair and finds the strength and vocal beauty in “Vissi d’arte” to sing about living for  art and beauty. A gorgeous rendition. Then comes the attempted rape, the horror and the triumphant stabbing of the creep. Scarpia pleads for help and as he is dying, Tosca leans over him and says “Die with my curse! Die..die..die!” Alkema delivers these words almost matter-of-factly. I think they should contain venomous, demonic triumph as she gets even with him. It is the only disappointing moment in her performance.

Scottish baritone Roland Wood as Scarpia encapsulates lust, evil, torture and deceit. He was so convincing that some people booed him during curtain call, confusing the singer-actor with the character that he portrayed. Marvelous performance.

Curran and Set and Costume Designer Curran opt for an effective production eschewing Zeffirellian excesses. The set from the church scene to Scarpia’s office to the roof of the Sant’Angelo castle are appropriate without being ostentatious. The COC Orchestra is conducted by Giuliano Carella.   

The production does have an alternate Tosca sung by Sinead Campbell-Wallace and a Shepherd Boy sung by Zoya Avramova.

This is a truly outstanding production that does credit to the COC. In the words of Oliver “More, please.”

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Tosca by Giacomo Puccini opened on May 5 and will be performed eight times until May 27, 2023, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. www.coc.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor – Culture of The Greek Press.

MACBETH – REVIEW OF CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY 2023 PRODUCTION

 Reviewed by James Karas 

Verdi’s Macbeth was last produced by the Canadian Opera Company in 2005 in its final season at the unmourned and unmissed Hummingbird Centre. The production left mixed memories but the farewell to the Hummingbird was sheer joy. The COC now has a marvellous new production of the opera with an impressive cast directed by David McVicar and under the baton of Speranza Scappucci.

Verdi famously thought that Macbeth had three roles: Lady Macbeth, Macbeth and the Chorus. You may disagree but he was not far wrong. I will pay homage to them in reverse order. The COC Chorus is a star in in the production. From the The Witches’ Chorus, to “Schiude, inferno” to “Patria oppressa” and the final rousing chorus they sing with beautiful lyricism, strength and triumphal sound. An outstanding Chorus at its best.

A scene from the COC’s production of 

Macbeth, 2023, photo: Michael Cooper

American baritone Quinn Kelsey sang an impressive Macbeth. We follow him from his first surprising encounter with the witches to his reluctant conversion into a murderer under the influence of his wife, to his transformation into an evil person and his final downfall.  Macbeth never loses his humanity completely and I am ready to blame his wife regardless of his complicity and actions. In a stunning performance Kelsey shows the evil that overtakes Macbeth but also his innate reluctance to be consumed. He is consumed but his seeing Banquo’s ghost and fainting during the banquet scene show that there is another side to Macbeth. His vocal performance is superb as he negotiates through his emotional turmoil from victorious general, to ambitious and arrogant murderer and finally to a defeated human being.   

Reviewing Bulgarian soprano Alexandrina Pendatchanska’s performance as Lady Macbeth poses a problem. We were advised that she was indisposed and we are honour-bound to respect and overlook any vocal issues. I don’t think we were short-changed because Pendatchanska did superb work in delivering Lady Macbeth’s vocal flourishes and she was convincing in the Mad Scene and in her display of ambition. The rest must be overlooked.

Turkish bass Onay Kose sang a sonorous Banquo, Macbeth’s friend who is murdered but appears at Macbeth’s celebratory dinner after the killing of the legitimate king. Canadian tenor Matthew Cairns as Macduff delivers “Ah la paterna mano” one of the most affecting arias on learning of the massacre of his wife and children.

David McVicar, one of the  best directors in the business, directs this coproduction with the Chicago Lyric Opera. The scene opens in an abandoned and crumbling church where the witches are gathered. With some changes in detail the run-down church serves as the focal point of the production.

With Set Designer John Macfarlane and Costume Designer Moritz Junge, McVicar delivers a dark, bleak, menacing and horrific atmosphere. The bleakness of the world of Scotland is not relieved by anything until the last scene when the chorus sings praise to the new king and gives thanks to God for their deliverance from evil.

Speranza Scappucci conducted the COC Orchestra at a brisk and superb pace.

This is a marvelous production and one that is worth seeing.

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Macbeth by Giuseppe Verdi is being performed seven times on various dates until May 20, 2023, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. www.coc.ca

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press.