Fleur Barron. The Palm Beach Opera Young Artists gave a Liederabend on March 29 at the Royal Poinciana Chapel in Palm Beach; close on 200 people attended this rare form of songmaking. European opera singers trot out their best lieder songs at festivals in between engagements ad nauseam. And retired greats offer milder versions, extending their careers by a few years. American … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 19-21
`Opera: The Palm Beach Opera opens its second mainstage production tonight with Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, one of the bel canto’s most charming and radiant scores. Janai Brugger is Norina, David Portillo is Ernesto, Lucas Meachem is Dr. Malatesta, and Carlo Lepore sings Pasquale in a production directed by Fenlon Lamb and conducted by Antonino Fogliani. The plot of this 1843 … [Read more...]
PB Opera’s ‘Carmen,’ second cast: A subdued heroine, brilliant Young Artists
Nora Sourouzian. Bizet’s collection of melodies in his opera Carmen continue to buzz around in the recesses of the brain long after the performance has ended. His music is immortal. The production I saw at Palm Beach Opera on Jan. 23 had all the elements of a successful evening with some minor flaws. But it’s the music that lives on. Also, on this occasion, is the memory of … [Read more...]
PB Opera Young Artist ready for Donizetti main role
When she got the word, Bridgette Gan was ready to go. As a member of the Palm Beach Opera’s Young Artists Program, Gan was preparing to cover the central role of Marie in the company’s production of Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, which opens Friday. But Erin Morley, the soprano scheduled to sing the role in two of its performances, had come down with a cold, and it … [Read more...]
A splendid afternoon of PB Opera on the waterfront
Saturday saw huge crowds braving the “cold” 70-degree weather and troublesome winds that blew sheet music everywhere at the outdoor Meyer Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach for Palm Beach Opera’s second winter concert on the waterfront. On the stroke of 2 p.m., conductor Greg Ritchey brought down his baton for a rousing National Anthem, like you’ve never heard before, from … [Read more...]
At FGO, a triumph for a ‘Butterfly’ newcomer
It was a good Sunday afternoon for Vanessa Isiguen. The young soprano who made her debut in the role that day with Florida Grand Opera showed herself well up to the task of bringing to vivid vocal life the character of Cio-Cio-San, the doomed heroine of one of the world’s most popular and beloved operas, Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. A North Carolinian who made her … [Read more...]
New opera company triumphs with ‘Bluebeard’
All Hallow’s Eve gave birth to a new opera company for South Florida. Oct. 31 saw the launch of Opera Fusion at Lake Worth Playhouse in a well- presented, well-sung mounting of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. The group’s mission is to get opera to the people; it’s an artist-driven startup offering a new approach. Less stodgy, as proven by the very young audience who came … [Read more...]
PB Opera wraps season with well-sung, entertaining ‘Hoffmann’
Opera’s long history means that today’s audiences are treated to entertainment conventions from several different eras, and when it gets into pre-Industrial Revolution territory, viewers generally have to make something of a leap to get to full enjoyment. But Les Contes d’Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) was composed by Jacques Offenbach for a late 19th-century urban … [Read more...]
PB Opera’s Young Artists score brave triumph in abridged ‘Alcina’
Palm Beach Opera’s Young Artists brought off another astonishing coup Friday with their performances in Handel’s 1735 opera, Alcina, aided and abetted by music director Timothy Cheung and stage director Fenlon Lamb. Cheung’s grand piano was surrounded by a raised platform: it sat in the middle of the action, providing guidance and control in a staging that was put together in … [Read more...]
PB Opera turns to the timeless magic of Rossini’s ‘Barber’
Scratch the surface of a typical Rossini scholar you happen to meet and he or she will tell you that the Italian composer’s greatest contribution to the art of opera was in his serious works. It was there, the scholar will say, in works such as Elisabetta, Semiramide, Tancredi, Otello and Guillaume Tell, that Gioachino Rossini blazed a path that would be followed to great … [Read more...]