Opera Atelier Tickets

Highly recommended. We should be really proud of opera atelier!

I can't fault this performance in any respect--the singing, dancing, and playing are all first rate. The engagement with Monteverdi's work is tremendous, and the emotional charge is just right. It makes you understand why the composers contemporaries called him "oracolo della musica."

The singing was ok for the most part as was the choreography for the dance sequences. What i did nor like, and it seems to be prevalent in most operas mounted by Opera Atelier.is the use of a single bench on either side of the stage where characters can sit down and continue singing. For some reason I find it annoying that two benches are used as a substitute for more meaningful and visual scenery. The costumes were well designed.

It was my first Opera concert and I really loved! I think it is exciting and touching. Wallis Giunta, the opera singer that plays Dido, is an amazing singer and I cried when she performed the last scene.

As always, an amazing production from Opera Atelier. Wallis Giunta is an unforgettable stage presence and the choreography was breathtaking.

When difficult music is played and sung well it creates an electricity that lingers in the brain long after the curtain comes down. Days after the performance, I'm still savoring the incredibly precise and controlled trills, runs and roulades. It was a breathtaking performance by the orchestra, chorus and principals. Of the five principals, I could not point to a single flaw for four of them, and the one member I minor issues with (I didn't think her trills were really well controlled or held long enough) was the clear audience favorite, so what do I know? If I had to find fault it would be that only one member of the men's corps de ballet weighed more than 98 pounds. It's a look, I guess.

Was very impressed with the entire show - the singers were outstanding, the dancing, choreography, set design, costumes, lighting - all of it was superbly done

Mozart’s Lucio Silla deserves a place in the standard repertory. The music is mature Mozart without apology. The arias are uniformly impressive and many could slip unnoticed into Figaro or Cosi. The tightly structured, dramatically deft libretto and carefully balanced score have none of the longueurs that afflict Finta Gardiniera. There isn’t a moment too little or too much in the score. It’s a thoroughly compelling work despite Opera Atelier’s frustratingly inconsistent production. The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra under David Fallis played sensitively, though with a heaviness that suggested a modern opera rather than a period band. Sets and costumes by Gerard Gauci were elegant, period-inspired confections that created a real sense of 18th Century spectacle, though the continual set changes in the middle of arias, initially delightful, soon became tiresome and distracting. Jeanette Zing’s ballets, interpolated despite the lack of ballet music, were an uncomfortable and often awkward mix of period and 19th century movement, with the women’s choreography notably more period-appropriate than the men’s. In some scenes the spectacle of the corps de ballet was charming, in others de trop. The chief defect was the staging by Marshall Pynkoski, who despite 30 years as a stage director of 18th century opera, and despite having staged Lucio Silla for Salzburg and La Scala, seems to have no idea what to do with opera seria. Indeed, he gave a pre-curtain speech emphasizing his lack of understanding of the form. His main instinct was to cram every moment over-full with fussy, irrelevant stage business in the manner of big-house baroque-opera productions of 40 years ago. His lack of trust in the music, drama and audience was embarrassing, as well as highly destructive of the music. Thus Luico Silla (Krešmir Špicer) stomped around drunkenly, hurling himself and the other characters across the stage like an elephant in must, while Cecilio (Peggy Dye) pirouetted like a baby goat and Cinna (Inga Kalna) waddled like a duck. Pynkoski appears to have provided the singers with no guidance on movement, which was correspondingly inconsistent and inappropriate. Only Meghan Lindsay as Giunia had a natural sense of gesture and deportment and maintained a sense of dignity despite the continual silliness around her. Pynkoski threw in a couple of really distasteful regie-theater ideas, including an incest and masturbation scene between Silla and his sister Celia (Mireille Asselin) and extended unfunny byplay about Cinna’s lack of interest in women. Vocal assets were significant. Asselin and Lindsay both sang with beauty and style and made the most of their many florid arias and ariosos. Inga Kalna nailed the very elaborate coloratura of her two entrance arias, despite a hollow mezzo reminiscent of Marilyn Horne. Dye’s pleasant, very light soprano was a few sizes too small for Cecilio’s orchestrated arias and was often inaudible, but worked better in the lightly accompanied third act aria, “Pupille amata non lagrimate.” Dye’s lack of stage presence greatly reduced the impact of her recititativo and the poor direction crippled the singing of the others to varying degrees. Pynkoski encouraged Špicer to bellow and shout rather than sing, which was unfair both to the singer and the role. Only in the suitcase aria added to Act III to motivate Silla’s change of heart, did Špicer have a chance to sing with any style, revealing a tenor which alternated richness with occasional coarseness and showed delicacy when not singing forte, despite a few breaks into hoarseness. All in all, an object lesson in how inappropriate staging can make even a great opera less than the sum of its parts.

As always Opera Atelier gave an amazing show. The whole thing was gorgeous to watch and to listen to.

I came in from New York to attend this performance- and was not disappointed. The vocalists overall were quite good, and the production as a whole was innovative and imaginative. Alcina was appropriately portrayed as a self centered, cold woman, who demonstrated occasional moments of real pathos and introspection. The constant visual references to all the men whom she had transformed into rocks, waves, trees, etc. reminded us of the vastness of the collateral damage Alcina had wreaked upon mankind. A major concern however was a large "projector box" which was unfortunately positioned in the first row of the mezzanine. Not only did it interfere with a completely unimpeded view, but it made quite a bit of noise during the performance. Please, Opera Atelier, do something about the "box" before next year's performances! I really enjoyed the Baroque dancing and only wished the dresses had not been quite so long, since I was unable to actually see the feet of the dancers and have an opportunity to fully appreciate the complexities of the choreography. Perhaps shorter, more Bsroque style costumes (as opposed to a more "romantic" approach,next time?