by Daniel Hathaway
Opera fans in Northeast Ohio will enjoy a bumper crop of productions this harvest-time. Six shows, two of them double-bills, will open between November 2 and 11. We’ll be running separate previews for Oberlin Opera Theater’s Donizetti/Poulenc evenings (November 2,4, 5, and 6), for CIM Opera’s Puccini/Menotti performances (November 9-11) and for Opera Western Reserve’s single performance of Carmen (November 11).
But let’s take a look at the busiest opera weekend of the year. Baldwin Wallace’s Serse, Kent State Opera’s scenes from The Magic Flute, and the first pair of a dozen performances of Mascagni’s Zanetto by Opera Circle Cleveland, plus the remaining Oberlin Opera performances, all fall on the weekend of November 4-6. With some astute planning, you can catch a performance of each of them. Here’s a rundown of the BW/COT, Kent State, and Opera Circle productions. [Read more…]
On Saturday, June 11, four years after Opera Circle Cleveland first took on Il trovatore at Bohemian National Hall, the company revisited the opera — one of Verdi’s most popular titles — at the Ohio Theatre in PlayHouse Square. A strong cast of singers and a fine professional orchestra led by Joel Smirnoff lifted the production well above some shortcomings of staging. 
Last Sunday afternoon, December 6, The Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, under its Music Director and Conductor Robert Cronquist, presented “A Commemorative Program in Memory of the Women’s Orchestra at Auschwitz” at Kangesser Hall at The Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights. The event received support from Violins of Hope Cleveland and The Cleveland Jewish Federation. Robert Conrad, President of WCLV, acted as host and introduced each work. It was a lively and interesting concert. 
There was no need for Opera Circle Cleveland’s collaborative production of The Bartered Bride to try to break down the “fourth wall” between performers and audience at Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall on Sunday afternoon, October 25: the wall never went up in the first place. As the audience arrived, cast members were already milling about in the auditorium and its corridors, brightly attired in Czech folk costumes, and greeting friends and family. Carrying their instrument cases, members of the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra threaded their way through the throng, and the young acrobats who would appear in the third act were enjoying pastries in the snack bar. It felt like a big family reunion. 
Sometimes one simply must wait for the right time to assemble all of the collaborators necessary in order to bring an opera production to fruition.
In just over an hour, betrayal and jealousy in a Sicilian village spill over into tragedy in Pietro Mascagni’s one-act classic opera, Cavalleria rusticana — all the while accompanied by some gorgeous music. Opera Circle staged two performances of “Cav” last weekend at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. I saw the opening performance on Friday evening, November 21.