Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) By Alexander Zemlinsky. Libretto by George Klaren, based on Oscar Wilde’s “The Birthday of the Infanta.” Staged by OperaHub at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, through March 13. Free
Reviewed by Helen Epstein
For a truly worthwhile evening of music drama — free admission no less — get yourselves to [...]

Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb
It has been many years since a major new opera was mounted here. But Opera Boston has done just that with its recent world premiere of “Madame White Snake” at the Cutler Majestic Theatre. This was the most demanding and expensive undertaking in the company’s history.
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Reviewed By Helen Epstein
An hour and a half before curtain, operagoers are lining up at the AMC 10 cineplex in Burlington, Massachusetts across the road from the mall. Forty-five minutes later, the only available seats in Theater 3 are in the first two neck-craning rows. It’s 12:15 p.m., a sunny Saturday in February when most [...]

Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb
The Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) initiated this week what it calls Opera Annex by moving out of its usual venue for its production of Benjamin Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw. The site chosen was the Park Plaza Castle, built in 1891 as a Boston armory.
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By Caldwell Titcomb
The Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) is currently offering Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” his last completed and finest opera, which had its delayed and unsuccessful premiere in 1875. According to Opera America, “Carmen” ranks No. 4 in the list of most performed works from the 1880s to 2005, surpassed only by Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” and [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
Oct 4: Celebrated mezzo-soprano Frederika von Stade gives her farewell Boston performance to inaugurate the Celebrity Series’ new season. Also sharing the spotlight will be the famed soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. Symphony Hall, 3:00 p.m.
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Another extraordinary evening at Tanglewood. No bones to pick. Just appreciation and delight.

At Tanglewood: James Levine conducts BSO and Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, Conductor; Hei-Kyung Hong, Soprano; Matthias Goerne, Baritone. (Photo Credit: Hilary Scott)
by Helen Epstein
It’s time that some cultural reporter with a budget explored what makes the Tanglewood Festival Chorus under the [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
If you know a bit about opera, you will have heard of Verdi – but perhaps not of Monteverdi. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was the first major composer in the history of opera, and the biennial Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is presenting his last opera, “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” (“The Coronation of Poppaea”) as [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb

In “The Bartered Bride,” Jennifer Aylmer plays Marenka, who loves the farmhand Jenik, but is pressured to marry Vasek, the son of a wealthy neighbor.
Boston has had the unusual luck of experiencing two major Czech operas within a few weeks. First, the Boston Lyric Opera gave us Antonin Dvořák’s “Rusalka” (see [...]

By Caldwell Titcomb
Czech opera is not often mounted in these parts. The two major composers were Bedrich Smetana (1824-84) and Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904). The latter wrote ten operas, some comic and some tragic. Among Czech natives, the palm goes to the latter’s “Rusalka,” the composer’s penultimate opera, written in 1900.

The Wood Sprites (mezzo-soprano Emily [...]