New Operas

Friends have sent me an article about new operas from sfgate.

It makes me realize that I have been blogging about that subject quite a lot.

I started off with Streetcar which I don't seem to have liked. If anyone thinks I should give it another chance, let me know.

Then I bought the video of a European revival of Vanessa, a popular American opera. It is a prominent example of the obsessive love plot.

Then I start my unwatched videos with The Ghosts of Versailles. I definitely loved this.

I went on to Susa's The Dangerous Liaisons. I seem to have been pretty annoyed with it. For once I liked the theater but not the music.

Then I was bored by Doctor Atomic. I have always loved Nixon in China because of its very theatrical content and have wished Adams would produce something equally theatrical. If you wanted a meditation on annihilation, I guess it's fine.

Then I went mad for L'amour de Loin by a composer from Finland. I watched this because friends had seen it in Santa Fe and loved it.

I pointed out in a couple of places (here and here) that Sophie's Choice by a composer working at Peabody is being produced in Berlin and Vienna this year.

I've seen Adamo's Little Women in a workshop production which I reviewed for SFCV. It's easy enough for a workshop. And I saw Dead Man Walking at its premier in San Francisco. This is one of the most dramatically powerful operas I've ever seen and is being revived in Dresden, of all places.

Recently I wrote about modern operas crossing the Atlantic.

Opera is a long way from dead on this side of the Atlantic. Everyone wants to write operas, everyone wants to sing operas. Over here we have nothing but opera everywhere you look. Opera in America is thriving like perhaps no other artistic medium. There are always the financial problems--professional opera is very expensive--but the medium is alive and well, led by the regional operas, including NYC, Houston, Santa Fe, Boston, St. Louis, and of course San Francisco.