Virginia Opera

The future of opera in the time of pandemic: A Q&A with Adam Turner

I spoke with Adam Turner, Artistic Director of the Virginia Opera, on Tuesday, September 15, about how a regional opera company weathers COVID and the shutdown of most live performance. Virginia Opera...

Virginia Opera is all about Stayin’ Alive

With live performances shut down since March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, artists unemployed, and income streams disrupted, performing arts organizations continue to face the hardest of times....

‘Cinderella’ (La Cenerentola): Well-sung Rossini at Virginia Opera

Spoiler alert: Cinderella and the Prince live happily ever after. Of course, since Virginia Opera, like all opera companies of any size, prints a detailed synopsis in the program each patron receives,...

Virginia Opera’s ‘Il Postino’: no “scary modern music” here

Virginia Opera’s artistic director Adam Turner, in his program note for contemporary composer Daniel Catán’s Il Postino, hastens to assure audiences that the company is working to dispel myths about...

Virginia Opera opens “From Screen to Stage” series with ‘Il Postino’ at George Mason University

The sensuality and passion of Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician, Pablo Neruda has become the bones for a contemporary opera, Il Postino by Daniel Catán. Il Postino (The...

A Dramatic ‘Tosca’ Mesmerizes, Enchants at the Virginia Opera

The dawn of the 1800s saw a Rome in turmoil. Napoleon Bonaparte spun a soured campaign in Egypt into a public relations success story, securing his legacy as a folk hero and launching a coup d’etat...

Review: ‘Street Scene’ by Virginia Opera

Kurt Weill’s varied score, Langston Hughes’ eloquent lyrics, a powerful book by playwright Elmer Rice, and a quality ensemble cast combine in Virginia Opera’s production of Street Scene, to create the...

Review: ‘The Girl of the Golden West’ at the Virginia Opera

Giacomo Puccini never met a foreign culture that he didn’t try to set to music. His operas set in Japan (Madama Butterfly) and China (Turandot) are celebrated as masterpieces. Less celebrated is his...

Review: ‘The Flying Dutchman’ at Virginia Opera

How should we deal with the storms of life? Should we go through life content and yet oblivious to the suffering of ourselves and others? Or, do we allow ourselves psychic disturbance over the plight...

Review: ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at Virginia Opera

Few stories have been as revised, re-told and reconstructed as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But a rendition that is not as performed as it should be is the 19th century opera by French Romantic...

In the Moment: Virginia Opera’s Quest for The Youngest Audience in America

“Opera is officially dead.” So read the headline for Christopher Ingraham’s Washington Post Wonkblog. And in “one chart” yet. Ah, yes big data says it all neatly and with great certitude. Maybe. Then...

‘La Bohème’ at Virginia Opera at the GMU Center for the Arts

La Bohème takes place in winter, between Christmas Eve and February. Director Kyle Lang has set the Virgina Opera’s current production in the year 1939-40, World War II, after the fall of Poland and...

Virginia Opera’s ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’ by Jacques Offenbach at George Mason U

I was expecting to be entertained by the Virginia Opera’s rendition of Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, directed by Sam Helfrich, which played at George Mason University’s Center for the...

‘La Traviata’ at Virginia Opera

In a fitting capstone to Virginia Opera’s 40th anniversary season, the Virginia Opera, in conjunction with Des Moines Metro Opera, presents a thrilling production of Verdi’s masterpiece La Traviata....

‘H.M.S. Pinafore’ at Virginia Opera Company

Strictly speaking, I really shouldn’t like Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore. I like theatre that is dark, shocking, provocative… I’m more comfortable at Capital Fringe than Disney on Ice. So no...

‘Sweeney Todd’ at Virginia Opera Company

Fog was already filling the vast Concert Hall at the George Mason University Center for the Arts when I settled in to watch the first show of Virginia Opera Company’s 2015 season, Sweeney Todd: The...

‘Carmen’ at Virginia Opera at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts

Things were very fiery this past Friday night at the GMU Center for the Arts as the Virginia Opera brings a new and exciting full-scale production of Bizet’s Carmen, one of the most renowned and...

‘A Streetcar Named Desire (The Opera) at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts by Audrey Thornton

Virginia Opera’s third installment in their 2013 American series, A Streetcar Named Desire, an opera in three acts premiered at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts on Friday, March 1, 2013...