Category: Opera

  • Review: Least Like the Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy; “Lobotomy: The Opera”!

    Review: Least Like the Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy; “Lobotomy: The Opera”!

    Before the lobotomy, Rosemary Kennedy loved opera. In Irish National Opera’s Least Like the Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy, art imitates life in the deepest irony. This is an opera about Rosemary Kennedy’s lobotomy. It’s medical misogyny set to music. Joe and Rose Kennedy’s gloss-finished Camelot, of which JFK was their triumph, unravels to reveal…

  • Why was ENO’s Yeoman of the Guard so boring?

    Why was ENO’s Yeoman of the Guard so boring?

    Gilbert and Sullivan were fighting when they wrote Yeoman of the Guard. Sullivan wanted to compose a serious opera. Gilbert wanted to continue their successful brand—writing biting parody of Victorian society against the beauty of late-nineteenth century scores. In the end, Gilbert gave in to Sullivan. The result is their most serious opera. Hefty source…

  • English National Opera’s Tosca: Young Stars Shine Bright in Timeless Tosca

    English National Opera’s Tosca: Young Stars Shine Bright in Timeless Tosca

    120 years after its premiere, is it possible for Puccini’s Tosca to feel fresh? In its English National Opera premiere, Cristof Loy’s Tosca is a classic with a few twists. There’s more than meets the eye with this Tosca. The curtain rises with bold fanfare that gives way to an instantly familiar church. This world…