It is not too much to say that Palm Beach Opera inaugurated a new and exciting era for itself this week with its two presentations of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. And as it happens, it was quite a good production, with strong singing, smart staging and good orchestral playing of a very challenging score, and the company can justly be proud of it. But the most … [Read more...]
Staging, weak Cavaradossi mar second cast of PBO’s ‘Tosca’
There are times when the stronger regional opera companies mount Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca to exploit every emotion: love, hate, seduction, torture and betrayal. Each is accented and the audiences go home satisfied. This was not one of them. Palm Beach Opera’s version, directed by Massimo Gasparon, had none of the blood lust one associates with this opera: Tosca’s knife, a … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Three shows demonstrate strength of South Florida season
Depression-era escapism proves to still be potent entertainment as Cole Porter’s 1934 enduring hit Anything Goes splashes across the stage of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. Surely it cannot be because of the flimsy story line, even if it got a major overhaul in 1987 by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman, who simply added new wince-inducing jokes. No, the material works almost … [Read more...]