ClevelandClassical.com Header
Ad
Ad

The cast of Blind Injustice discuss portraying real people and the power of hope (2nd of 4 articles)

by

by Stephanie Manning

 While the team at Chagrin Arts was in talks to bring Blind Injustice to Northeast Ohio, the question of location became increasingly important. “We talked about doing it in different cities, but it became clear that this needs to happen in Cleveland,” tenor Tim Culver said.

Composed by Scott Davenport Richards with a libretto by David Cote, the 90-minute opera follows the stories of six people who had their convictions overturned with help from the Ohio Innocence Project. Four of them lived in Cleveland or East Cleveland, while the other two lived in neighboring Lorain and Summit counties.

[Read more…]

Akron Symphony concludes season with a grand Verdi’s Requiem (May 10)

by

by Peter Feher

The Akron Symphony is ready to stage a full opera in some upcoming season, judging by the spectacular success of the orchestra’s performance of Verdi’s Requiem on May 10 at E.J. Thomas Hall.

All of the elements essential for a winning production were present. A sense of drama, a compelling cast of vocal soloists, and a stage packed with extra choristers and instrumentalists made the evening feel like a thoroughly theatrical event. It was a grand way for the Symphony to conclude its 2024-25 concert year.

That a sacred piece should seem so lavish and entertaining is the glorious crux of Verdi’s Requiem. Classical composers going as far back as the 15th century have set the Latin Mass for the dead with a certain creative flourish and delight in excess, but Verdi’s contribution represents the operatic peak of the tradition.

His realization was always intended for a concertgoing audience. The work was first conceived in 1868 as part of a tribute to the late leading opera composer Gioachino Rossini but only completed in 1873 following the death of Italian writer and politician Alessandro Manzoni.

[Read more…]

Canton Symphony: A circuitous path to Haydn’s Mass in Time of War (Mar. 23)

by

by Tom Wachunas

It would seem that the timing of the March 23 MasterWorks concert by the Canton Symphony Orchestra — a few weeks into Lent — was no accident. If the mission of the program was to leave the audience awed enough to ponder and savor heavenly matters, it was ultimately accomplished with glorious panache. But the road to get there was paved with strange intentions. [Read more…]

Kent fall opera scenes include premiere of The Story of an Hour

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Kent State music education major Scott Little’s new opera, The Story of an Hour, has inspired KSU opera director Marla Berg to take her annual fall opera scenes program to a new level this year.

“Although I didn’t hear the portion of Scott’s piece that was workshopped during Cleveland Opera Theatre’s {NOW} Festival, Tim Culver thought it was really good. Then I heard a reading of some of the work at Kent. But what really spurred me on is that Scott wrote a short piece for the Kent orchestra and choral concert last spring, and I really liked it. He came in to talk with me about what it would be like to produce an opera and I thought, you know what? It’s a 40-minute piece. Wouldn’t it be an extraordinary experience for everybody involved if we did it.”

Berg’s decision to mount the premiere ramped up the usually modest fall opera scenes program considerably. “I normally do a montage of eight to ten small scenes, and I thought, I’ll just match Scott’s piece up with two bigger scenes,” Berg said. Although she’s always promising to make things easier on herself the next time around, the director ended up choosing Act III of The Marriage of Figaro and scenes from Berlioz’ Beatrice and Benedict with spoken dialogue from Shakespeare, all of which share the theme of marriage. [Read more…]

Canton Symphony offers up a sublime Verdi Requiem

by

by Tom Wachunas

CSO-Verdi-May-17Composed in 1873-74, Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa Da Requiem (Requiem Mass) poses a wondrous irony. Verdi was openly disdainful of organized church worship. His wife, Giuseppina, once characterized him as, “…not an outright atheist, but a very doubtful believer.”  It might seem, then, counterintuitive that this acclaimed champion of worldly opera — who had not composed any conventional sacred music since his youth — would render a work of such profound religiosity. [Read more…]

Bohemian Rhapsody: Cleveland Opera Theater’s La bohème at Masonic PAC (April 29)

by

by Nicholas Jones

COT-Boheme-CafePuccini’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…]

Nightingale Opera Theatre to produce Donizetti’s Elixir in Hudson June 13

by

by Daniel Hathaway

Elixir-PosterHudson’s Nightingale Opera Theatre will mark its move into a new venue at Western Reserve Academy on Saturday, June 13 at 7:30 pm with a production of Gaetano Donizetti’s “melodramma giocoso,” The Elixir of Love.

One of the top comic operas of all time, Elixir was the most-performed opera in Europe during the decade following its premiere in 1832, and unlike many titles, has never fallen off the charts.

In a telephone conversation, we asked Melissa Davis, Nightingale’s artistic director, why she chose the piece for the company’s summer production. “We wanted to do a show with a smaller principal cast this year,” she said. “Tim Culver, the tenor who will be singing the role of Nemorino, told me, ‘I just really love Elixir. Have you thought about doing that?’ I’ve performed the opera three times in my career and remember it so fondly. It has such great music and such a fun plot. We decided to go with it.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Opera Theater: Tosca at Masonic Auditorium (May 8)

by

by Daniel Hathaway

COT-Tosca-Act-I

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…]

Review: Opera Per Tutti: La Rondine at Cleveland Public Theatre (March 30)

by

by Mike Telin

OPT-Rondine-2Opera 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.

[Read more…]

Follow ClevelandClassical.com

Contact us