Category: Opera
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Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” is a French-styled “Total Work of Art”
The “hero’s welcome” for composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at the opening night performance of the L.A. Philharmonic’s production of Debussy’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” hit with a refreshing coolness of modesty; with an apropos absence of fanfare perfectly suited to the production at hand. Salonen so casually enters while other philharmonic members are still trickling in that…
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Laurie Anderson’s Moby Dick, Spoleto Festival Review 1999
“Up front, like Ahab guiltily admits in the beginning of Laurie Anderson’s Songs and Stories from Moby Dick, “I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never read the book! It’s too big!” … Unfortunately, the show’s not much more than that: a “reading’s cool” PSA for technophiles.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
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Kurt Weill’s Die Burgschaft, Spoleto Festival Review
“Die Burgschaft is the story of Mattes and Orth, two men in the mythical land of Urb who witness the gradual and tragic degradation of their trust in one another because of the dividing and corrupting influence of money and power.” From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
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Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Spoleto Review 2001
Many in the audience seemed truly touched by this “jewel of Western opera repertoire,” as Director Chen Shi-Zheng has called it.
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Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, Spoleto Review 2001
“For all the kitsch and Brecht, what I would’ve loved to see was a critique of this dopey and insulting take on women….”
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Spoleto Festival 2001 Preview
2001 Spoleto Festival Preview. From S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives.
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Stephen Sondheim’s Company, Piccolo Spoleto Festival Preview
The musical “Company,” by Stephen Sondheim, is being revived by the Footlight Players for Piccolo Spoleto due to its outstanding success in January. “Company” is considered a “concept” musical due to its non-linear form of storytelling. It washes over you with a collage of relationships, giving you a better understanding of what it’s like to…
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Cole Porter’s Anything Goes, Review
Review of Charleston Stage Company’s 2000 production of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”. From S.E. Barcus’ Charleston City Paper archives.
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Dido and Aeneas, Spoleto Festival Preview
“This ‘jewel’, as Director Chen Shi-Zheng calls it, is the first important English opera ever written, standing somewhere in time — in 1689 — between the operas of Monteverdi and Gluck.” From S.E. Barcus’ Charleston City Paper archives.
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Kurt Weill’s Die Bürgschaft, Spoleto Festival Preview
Spoleto presents Kurt Weill’s Die Burgschaft, preview. From the S.E. Barcus Charleston City Paper archives, 1999.
S.E. Barcus 