Reviews for Austin Opera Performances
Review: The Pearl Fishers by Austin Opera
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 03, 2023
The audience for the lyrical THE PEARL FISHERS floats on the inebriating rush of Bizet's music. The production's send-up of the libretto's orientalism is subtle, clever, and kind. Will Liverman stands out among the four immensely talented leads.
Georges Bizet's 1836 Pearl Fishers (Les pecheurs de perles) is as good an illustration as opera scoffers will ever get of the fantastical irreality of the art form. Having received the Prix de Rome, a sort of one-year fellowship to study in the Eternal City, because of some quirky funding stipulations, Bizet received an offer from the Théâtre Lyrique of Paris to compose the score for a bizarre script set in virtually unknown Ceylon (modern …
Review: The Barber of Seville by Austin Opera
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 08, 2022
Austin Opera's staging of THE BARBER OF SEVILLE is thoroughly entertaining. You could even turn off the sound and have a good time (but don't do that—you'll miss some of today's most dazzling vocal performers!).
Rossini's The Barber of Seville is—and except for its 1816 opening night, always has been—great fun. Classic comic types are here, familiar from a tradition stretching to the present from early Roman comedies and the commedia dell'arte: a yearning ingénue (the soprano) about to be married off to an unsuitable suitor (a bass); the clever, handsome young man courting her in disguise (a tenor) with the help of a comic trickster (a baritone). Librettist Cesare …
Review: The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Austin Opera
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 12, 2022
When all was sung and done, THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS felt vaguely like a 100-minute product placement for Apple, scored with Bates's excitingly audacious music.
This second, redesigned and redirected staging of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (1917) opened in Austin and will travel to Kansas City and to Atlanta. Marketing and some reviews promise a new look into the epic world of changing technology and its guru Steve Jobs (1955-2011). Austin Opera has brought in superb singing talent for all the principal roles. John Moore's appearance as Jobs convinces us, as does the stalking and glowering that stage …
Review: The Marriage of Figaro by Austin Opera
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 09, 2021
What a way to end the famine of Austin performance! Taking in Austin Opera's striking production of the Mozart's comic opera was the equivalent of consuming an entire wedding cake over the course of a lengthy evening.
What a way to end the famine of Austin performance! Taking in Austin Opera's striking production of the Mozart's comic opera was the equivalent of consuming an entire wedding cake over the course of a lengthy evening. The Marriage of Figaro (1786) is by common consensus one of the best and by performance history one of the most popular works of operatic staging, so the audience in Dell Hall, Long Center, Austin had every right …
Review: Rigoletto by Austin Opera
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 15, 2019
Music is the food of love, and it's the very meat and potatoes of this production. The work of the symphony, the chorus and the principals is so emotive one could close one's eyes and still be haunted by this production.
Austin Opera’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto has a brief three performance run ,which is unfortunate considering how stellar this show is. Presented as a three-act opera (the original had four) is based on Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s'amuse (The King Amuses Himself), and despite the deceptively light-hearted title the story is a brutal one indeed. The work originally debuted in Venice in 1851 and despite some initial issues with government censors, it went on to be …