by Daniel Hathaway
After losing its previous performing venue — the Masonic Auditorium having been sold — Cleveland Opera Theater has found a new home in the Maltz Performing Arts Center at CWRU. On Friday, April 27, stage director Scott Skiba and conductor Domenico Boyagian brought the tragedy of Cio Cio San, alias Madama Butterfly, to life in an elegantly simple production on the wide stage of the former temple.
by Daniel Hathaway
A strong cast of singer-actors and superb production values made Nightingale Opera Theatre’s recent production of Mark Adamo’s Little Women a beautiful experience. I saw the second of two performances in the intimate theater of the Barlow Community Center in Hudson on Sunday afternoon, July 16. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Mark Adamo’s Little Women, his first attempt at an opera, turned out to be a composer’s dream project. It is based on Adamo’s own adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s story of four New England sisters coming of age during the American Civil War. The piece was workshopped at Houston Grand Opera in 1998, then given a full production there in 2000. With more than 70 productions to date, including a version filmed for national television, Little Women has gone on to become one of the most-produced new operas of our time. Nine productions will have taken place in 2015-2016 alone.
Nightingale Opera Theatre will bring Little Women to the stage of Hudson’s Barlow Community Center on Friday, July 15 at 7:30 pm and on Sunday, July 17 at 2:30 pm. [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
“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…]