Category: Opera
NC Opera’s “Girl of the Golden West” Peeks into Puccini’s Darker Side
RALEIGH, NC – Operas performed in a concert format are often viewed as economy productions, where the music eclipses the visual spectacle that comes with ornate sets, lavish costumes, and ready action. There was nothing...
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THROUGH 2/17: The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson Brings a Neglected Pioneer and Her Seminal Opera Company Back Into the Spotlight
CHARLOTTE, NC – Commissioned by the Glimmerglass Festival and premiered there during the summer of...
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NC Opera’s Inventive “Barber of Seville” a Feast for Ears and Eyes
It’s been nearly eight years since North Carolina Opera last presented The Barber of...
Read MoreSeasonal Allergies Fail to Diminish NC Opera’s Exquisite La Traviata
Rare was the moment in Sunday’s matinee performance of Verdi’s La Traviata by North Carolina Opera when vivid sets, lavish costumes and lush Romantic music failed to dazzle the eyes and ears of the enthusiastic...
Read MoreCavalleria Rusticana Returns After a Long Absence With a Gently Rebuked Pagliacci
Long coupled in double bills around the world, Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci parted ways at Opera Carolina nearly 30 years ago, immediately after the two were finally wed in Charlotte. Until then, the operas had appeared separately or in successive engagements during the seasons of 1957-58, 1969-70, 1974-75, and 1986-87. The transcendent popularity of Canio’s climactic aria in Pagliacci, “Vesti la giubba,” has given that opera a stronger grip in the repertoire, which accounts for Opera Carolina programming its most recent presentations of the work in 2006 and 2015 in tandem with two other one-acts. Yet the coupling with Cavalleria is very natural, since Leoncavallo wrote his opera in response to seeing Mascagni’s, and the two premieres were almost exactly two years apart.
Read MoreNorth Carolina Opera Presents Verdi’s La Traviata
This featured preview has been provided by North Carolina Opera as part of a publicity exchange. For more information on CVNC’s publicity exchange program, please follow this link. North Carolina Opera (NCO) will present...
Read MoreTHROUGH 7/30: Opera Wilmington Gives Masterful Performances in La Traviata Production
Unlike other narrative art, opera is not about figuring out what characters are feeling or thinking, since they tell you in no uncertain terms. Opera is about entering a space to explicitly have a shared emotional experience. It...
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ILA Summer Fest Overachieves With Semi-Staged Tales of Hoffmann
Maybe Charlotte’s best-kept cultural secret ever, the 29th International Lyric Academy Summer Festival was officially announced by its partner, Opera Carolina, two days after it had actually begun! From as far away as Cape Town and Seoul, around 150 singers, teachers, accompanists, and conductors had converged on the Central Piedmont Community College to begin a transcontinental five-week program in the Queen City. The Charlotte segment of this intensive training for young and emerging artists hopscotched from classrooms and rehearsal halls behind-the-scenes during ILA’s first week to CPCC’s grandest stage, the Dale F. Halton Theater, for the public performances marking the second week. Amid the hullabaloo, two of the college’s venues were discarded from the original festival announcement and poster art, Tate Recital Hall and the new Parr Center, adding to the impression of hurry, indecision, and feverish excitement during the ILA Festival’s opening nights.
Read MoreREPEATS 6/24: Not a Question of “If” My Son, But “When” – The Cautionary Love of a Black Mother in Driving While Black
A sudden, grievous red light cast the Greensboro Opera stage as cellist Cremaine Booker and percussionist David Verin churned up the sounds of undeniable frustration. Lead soprano and librettist, Roberta Gumbel, stumbled on...
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Through 4/23: Opera Carolina Revitalizes La Traviata, Finding Fresh Drama at Key Moments
Closing in on her 103rd birthday, my mom has lost count of the number of times she has seen Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. But she frequently remembers the first time, because Traviata was the first opera she ever saw at the Metropolitan Opera – and she was so young then that her Bronx elders devoutly believed she wasn’t old enough to know what a courtesan was. It’s still a lovely opera to begin your operagoing with, largely because it begins so wonderfully. From the outset in Violetta Valery’s salon, Verdi pops a risqué cork of Parisian glamor and gaiety, countering this effervescence with an Italian mix of ardor and melody. It’s easy to come away from the amazing Act 1 with the idea that Violetta represents liveliness, sensuality, and sexual freedom while Alfredo Germont, her ardent suitor, represents the purest passion and commitment. After all, the curtain comes down with Violetta striving to sustain her “Sempre libera” pleasure-seeking while Alberto’s voice from offstage is wearing down her resistance with refrains invoking the torment and rapturous power of “amor che palpito” – love that pulsates – throughout the universe.
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Through 4/23: A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute, UNC School of the Arts Presents The Rivals by Kirke Mechem
The first of three performances of the witty and buoyant opera, The Rivals by Kirke Mechem (US, b....
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THROUGH 4/16: The Tension of Love and Death in NC Opera’s Porgy and Bess
For the last production of the 2022-2023 season, North Carolina Opera’s Porgy & Bess...
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