Time was when the English comic operettas of William Schwenk Gilbert (words) and Arthur Sullivan (music) were a regular feature of amateur theatrical activity around this country. It had been that way since the late 1870s, when a national craze in the U.S. for one of their shows, H.M.S. Pinafore, monopolized the popular culture, with theater troupes presenting pirated … [Read more...]
Beautifully sung ‘Butterfly’ opens PB Opera season
There are any number of tragic female heroines in the centuries since opera was created, but it’s hard to think of one more sympathetic than the Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San, traduced by her caddish American husband and forced to take the only way out she knows. That’s Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and for this opera to come across successfully, it’s important that the … [Read more...]