University Opera Displays Teamwork

Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte is more than the sum of its parts   About a half-century ago I decided that if I was going to be serious about majoring in music, I’d better hear the Mozart operas. My first introduction to opera on vinyl was Carmen, followed by Die Walkure…somehow Mozart struck me as a…

University Opera Offers a Gem in a Bejewelled Setting

Shannon Hall is home for the weekend for a memorable La Boheme   One of the British comedienne (and wannabe Wagnerian soprano) Anna Russell’s greatest lines was “That’s the beauty of opera…you can do anything…so long as you sing it!” The original context was in her monologue about the absurdly incestuous relationships among the principals…

University Opera Staging “Unanswers” All the Right Questions

Performance of Turn of the Screw evocatively staged   Bet you didn’t know that University Opera has a thing or two on Los Angeles Opera… Ok, forgive me a little hyperbole, but in the case of the production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, there is some truth to it. It’s been at…