by Mike Telin
Last night, Friday, April 28 at Masonic Auditorium, Cleveland Opera Theater scored a win with its latest mainstage production, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Directed by Scott Skiba, the exceptionally strong cast performed with solid vocal prowess and comedic flair, making for an enjoyable musical as well as theatrical experience. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“The challenge of performing the role of Figaro is holding onto all of the words, but the character is so much fun,” Christopher Holmes said. “As a baritone, I’m used to playing the bad guy, which is a lot of fun too, but this role is written so well that I’m really looking forward to it.” This week the Oberlin graduate will make his Cleveland Opera Theater debut, singing the title role of Mozart’s popular opera buffa Le nozze di Figaro.
Directed by Scott Skiba, performances will take place at the Cleveland Masonic Auditorium in MidTown on Friday, April 28 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, April 30 at 3:00 pm. Domenico Boyagian will conduct the Cleveland Opera Theater Orchestra and cast, which includes Christopher Holmes as Figaro, Marian Vogel as Susanna, Brian Keith Johnson as Count Almaviva, and Rachel Copeland as Countess Rosina. The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
Puccini’s La bohème, probably one of the world’s most performed operas, packs a wallop pretty much every time you hear it. This weekend at Cleveland Opera Theater, that was again the case for me. But the emotional ending isn’t the whole of the opera. In its first three acts (and even in the opening of the fourth), La bohème often seems more comic than tragic, more boisterous than tender. Perhaps its mix of contraries, not just its sentiment, is what makes it so powerful. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
On Friday, April 29 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, May 1 at 3:00 pm at Masonic Auditorium Performing Arts Center, Cleveland Opera Theater will present Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, directed by Scott Skiba. Conducted by Domenico Boyagian, the opera will be sung in Italian with English subtitles.
“It’s going to be an exciting production,” Skiba said during a recent conversation. “It’s easy to take it for granted and say, yeah, it’s La bohème, but when you’re working on it and discovering new things in it, it just strikes you how rich it is at every turn. And Puccini’s music is so wonderful. At every rehearsal I look over at Domenico and say ‘This music is so good!’” [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“La bohème is just a winner,” Cleveland Opera Theatre founder Andrea Anelli said during a rehearsal break at Masonic Auditorium. “It was the first opera the company ever put on. We did it at the Beachwood Middle School Auditorium — semi-staged, no chorus, and just with a piano,” Anelli recalled. “It’s really exciting to see the growth of the past ten years in circling back to that opera, but now doing it with full chorus and full orchestra. It’s a fantastic feeling.”
On Friday, April 29 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, May 1 at 3:00 pm at Masonic Auditorium Performing Arts Center, Cleveland Opera Theater will present Giacomo Puccini’s beloved La bohème, directed by Scott Skiba and conducted by Domenico Boyagian. Lisa Yanofsky is the assistant director. The opera will be sung in Italian with English subtitles. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
With characters like Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois, its setting in the French Quarter of New Orleans in the 1940s, and its subplots of sensuality, delusion, and madness, Tennessee Williams’s play A Streetcar Named Desire makes it a shoo-in for operatic treatment. Composer André Previn and librettist Philip Littell took that task on in 1995, and Cleveland Opera Theater chose their adaptation of Streetcar for its second show at the Masonic Performing Arts Center, mounting a production that was admirable for its ambition and impressive in its results. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Rebranding is sometimes just a marketing ploy to sell the same old product with a shiny new veneer. But when Opera Per Tutti changed its name to Cleveland Opera Theater last fall, the announcement came with an ambitious set of new plans. On Friday evening, May 8, the new company reached its first milestone with a first-class production of Puccini’s Tosca in COT’s new performing space, the acoustically excellent Masonic Auditorium. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
When gearing up for an opera production, one of the most exciting times is the day the production moves from the rehearsal room into the performance space. Last Saturday afternoon, May 2, a group of invited guests got the chance to witness Cleveland Opera Theater’s first day in the auditorium of the Cleveland Performing Arts Center, where on Friday, May 8 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, May 10 at 3:00 pm the company will present its most ambitious production to date, Puccini’s Tosca.
The cast includes Andrea Anelli as Floria Tosca, Timothy Culver as Mario Cavaradossi, Brian Keith Johnson as the Barone Scarpia, Robert Pierce as Cesare Angelotti, and Benjamin Czarnota as the Sacristan. The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Opera Per Tutti, founded by Andrea Anelli in 2006, made the bold announcement in December of 2014 that it would re-brand itself as Cleveland Opera Theater. The change was made with one purpose in mind: to create a sustainable model for an opera company in the 21st century in Cleveland. This is the first of three articles that will examine the many exciting endeavors the company is undertaking to make its vision to reality.
On Friday, May 8 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, May 10 at 3:00 pm at the Cleveland Performing Arts Center (formerly Masonic Auditorium), Cleveland Opera Theater will present its most ambitious production to date with Puccini’s Tosca. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Opera is fun! Even if in the end all parties do not live happily ever after. Still, when everything works during a performance, when it all comes together, one would be hard pressed to find a more entertaining way to spend three hours than at the opera.
On Friday, March 28 and Sunday, March 30 in Cleveland Public Theatre’s Gordon Square Theatre, Opera Per Tutti presented a magnificent production of Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine. I attended Sunday’s performance and indeed, it all worked.
La Rondine (the Swallow) is one of Puccini’s lesser-known operas and in fact it is the composer’s sole experiment in writing operetta. Although it has never been produced as often as some of his more popular works, with this vocally splendid cast combined with brilliant staging by Scott Skiba and deft coordination between the pit and stage by conductor Domenico Boyagian, Opera Per Tutti certainly made a case for La Rondine to get more face time with audiences. Theatrically speaking, the plot is lively with a nice mix of comedy and drama without ever becoming tragic. But above all, Puccini’s score is gorgeous.