Utah Fest Opera’s MAGIC FLUTE soars musically, lacks stage magic
LOGAN — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Magic Flute is a challenging opera to produce. It is a fairy tale of darkness, light, and finding your way in the world which…
Singers soar in Utah Opera’s THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
SALT LAKE CITY — The Barber of Seville, by Gioachino Rossini, is probably the greatest comic opera ever written. That is not just my opinion, but Giuseppe Verdi’s, as well,…
Tedious concept cripples Utah Opera’s LE TRAGÉDIE DE CARMEN
SALT LAKE CITY — Peter Brook has been hailed a theatrical genius. He was influenced by the work of Antonin Artaud and his ideas for “Theatre of Cruelty,” which was…
A moving and gorgeous SILENT NIGHT at Utah Opera
SALT LAKE CITY — It was the war to end all wars. World War I began over 100 years ago, but its effects live on all around us. It was…
Utah Festival Opera’s THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO is a wedding of artistry
LOGAN — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro—or for purists, Le Nozze Di Figaro—is a most glorious and joyful opera and about number five or six in the opera…
Terrence McNally’s MASTER CLASS is nearly masterful at Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre
LOGAN — To say that playwright Terrence McNally is a stalwart of the American theatre would be a gross understatement. Critic Rex Reed describes McNally as “one of the greatest…
THE MAGIC FLUTE at the Utah Opera has “Bells and Whistles”
SALT LAKE CITY — In opera, you can’t do better than Mozart. Of course, the world of opera has Verdi and Puccini, and a handful of other brilliant composers, but…
The University of Utah is good COMPANY
SALT LAKE CITY — The musical Company started out as eleven one-act plays penned by actor/playwright George Furth who planned for Kim Stanley to play each of the separate leads.…
Utah Opera’s THE LITTLE PRINCE is a prince of a production
SALT LAKE CITY — One can only imagine what was going through the heart and mind of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in the early 1940s as World War II raged in…
Sundance’s OKLAHOMA! has strengths, lacks heart
SUNDANCE — Oklahoma! was the first musical written by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and it ushered in the American musical theatre as we now know…