All stories by Richard Sasanow on BroadwayStars

Monday, April 18, 2016

BWW Interview: Executive Producer Rolando Sanz Talks Andrew Lippa's ANNE HUTCHINSON/HARVEY MILK and Its Date with Destiny by Richard Sasanow

When Broadway's Andrew Lippa was commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus to write I AM HARVEY MILK for its 35th anniversary in 2013, the hour-long work was a success from the star…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:29AM

BWW Interview: Executive Producer Roland Sanz Talks Andrew Lippa's ANNE HUTCHINSON/HARVEY MILK and Its Date with Destiny by Richard Sasanow

The world premiere production of a new work, I AM ANNE HUTCHINSON I AM HARVEY MILK--what the creators call a concept opera--takes place next Saturday, April 23, at the Music Center at Strath…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:00AM
Friday, April 15, 2016

BWW Interview: Fort Worth's JFK, the World of Contemporary Opera and American Lyric Theater's Lawrence Edelson by Richard Sasanow

The premiere of JFK in Fort Worth on April 23 is a big step forward for composer David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek--who made a splash in contemporary opera circles with their post-…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:54AM
Wednesday, April 6, 2016

BWW Review: Radvanovsky Completes Donizetti Hat Trick with Potent DEVEREUX at the Met by Richard Sasanow

The Tudor Trilogy --putting together Donizetti's ANNA BOLENA, MARIA STUARDA and ROBERTO DEVEREUX--was fabricated to light Beverly Sills' fire as America's Queen of Opera at the old New York …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:59PM

BWW Interview: With CHARLIE PARKER'S YARDBIRD, Tenor Lawrence Brownlee Goes from Bel Canto to Bebop by Richard Sasanow

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee, who's justly acclaimed for his high notes--forget about a high C; how about an F above that!?--just finished the New York premiere of the Daniel Schnyder opera CHARL…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:59PM
Tuesday, March 29, 2016

BWW Review: Memorable MOMENTS from Aucoin, Gluck and Costanzo at National Sawdust by Richard Sasanow

In THE ORPHIC MOMENT, a "dramatic cantata," composer-librettist-conductor-poet (phew!) Matthew Aucoin takes an 18th century masterwork, Gluck's ORFEO ED EURYDICE--perhaps the greatest of the…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:55PM
Friday, March 25, 2016

BWW Review: If It's Monday, It Must Be Puccini - Opolais is a Ravishing MADAMA BUTTERFLY at the Met by Richard Sasanow

MADAMA BUTTERFLY was never my favorite Puccini until the current production conceived by Anthony Minghella. Before, Butterfly always seemed too submissive, Pinkerton too brutish and their ch…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:48PM
Wednesday, March 23, 2016

BWW Interview: Tenor Matthew Polenzani - Boy Toy of the Tudor Queens by Richard Sasanow

Tenor Matthew Polenzani--he of the refined singing, elegant deportment and serious nature--is having a great season at the Met, with major roles in a pair of new productions. First, he was N…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:10AM

BWW Review: The Audience Cheers Tenor Camarena in Delightful DON PASQUALE at the Met by Richard Sasanow

Point/counterpoint: As if to set off its trio of Elizabethan tragedies by Donizetti, the Met is presenting two of the master's comedies. First up: DON PASQUALE, and it was a pip. (The other …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:10AM
Thursday, March 17, 2016

BWW Review: An Opera Grows in Brooklyn, Part I - LoftOpera Takes on TOSCA by Richard Sasanow

LoftOpera, about three years old, is a darling of hip opera lovers of all ages in New York, as well as the mainline media, and its recent performances of Puccini's TOSCA make it easy to see …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:54PM
Wednesday, March 16, 2016

BWW Review: An Opera Grows in Brooklyn, Part II - Regina Opera Looks at LUCIA by Richard Sasanow

Judging by the Regina Opera's take on Donizetti's LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, which finished its run on Sunday, it doesn't have a hipster bone in its body, which, I think, would have been just fine…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:24PM
Friday, March 4, 2016

BWW Review: Diva Netrebko Casts Spell at Metropolitan Opera Recital by Richard Sasanow

Anna Netrebko came out on stage in a shimmering white and silver gown with matching headband, looking like an Art Deco goddess in a poster by Alfonso Mucha. It's a look that suited her--not …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:50AM
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

BWW Review: High Art in Small Places, Part I – A Deliciously Baroque LA CALISTO from Juilliard Opera by Richard Sasanow

Lincoln Center's American Songbook series doesn't usually cross the road to opera-land, but I'm glad it did, when it presented the Ricky Ian Gordon-Leonard Foglia chamber opera A COFFIN IN E…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:56AM
Tuesday, February 16, 2016

BWW Review: An ALT-ernative View of Opera for the 21st Century by Richard Sasanow

Opera for the 21st century is more than setting RUSALKA in a whorehouse, populating RIGOLETTO with a cast of apes or sending MARIA STUARDA to a maximum security prison. It must start with a …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:44PM
Wednesday, February 10, 2016

BWW Review: Radvanovsky Tears Up the Stage in MARIA STUARDA at the Met by Richard Sasanow

With MARIA STUARDA at the Met, we're back for the second installment of Donizetti's so-called Tudor Trilogy, with ANNA BOLENA (Anne Boleyn) already off to the gallows and ROBERTO DEVEREUX (w…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:34AM
Monday, January 25, 2016

BWW Review: All Puccini, All the Time at the Met with LA BOHEME and TURANDOT by Richard Sasanow

Sometimes, the Metropolitan Opera seems like an endless Puccini festival. It's particularly apparent this season, when top dogs LA BOHEME, TOSCA and MADAMA BUTTERFLY are joined by TURANDOT a…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 11:29AM
Tuesday, January 19, 2016

BWW Review: PROTOTYPE vs. CITY OPERA - The King is Not Dead. Long Live a Different King, Anyway by Richard Sasanow

It seems ironic--to me at least--that New York's venerable City Opera would be returning to life at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, just as the "Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now" festival…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 09:08PM
Thursday, January 14, 2016

BWW Review: PERLES of Wonder from Damrau and Polenzani at the Met by Richard Sasanow

One more BOHEME? Yet another TOSCA? How about BARBIERE redux? Sometimes the standard repertoire of opera companies seems too standard. That's why it was good to hear that the Met was mountin…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 07:41AM
Monday, January 4, 2016

BWW Review: New York Opera in 2015 – Gifts that Keep on Giving by Richard Sasanow

No more carping about out-of-tune singing (for the rest of 2015). No more bemoaning directors who don't seem to like the art of opera (for the next five minutes). No more worrying whether tr…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 03:46PM
Wednesday, December 9, 2015

BWW Review: Vivaldi's CATONE is a 'Hot Mess' - and a Great One from Opera Lafayette by Richard Sasanow

On paper, Vivaldi's 1737 opera seria CATONE IN UTICA seems a big mess: The music from the first act is missing and musicologists can't agree what the third act should look and sound like, le…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:49PM
Monday, November 23, 2015

BWW Review: The Met's 'Ratpack' RIGOLETTO and the Art of Making Opera by Richard Sasanow

The Met's production of Verdi's great opera RIGOLETTO, is often referred to as the 'Ratpack' version--because it is set in the Las Vegas days of Frank Sinatra and his high-living cronies. Fr…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:42PM
Tuesday, November 17, 2015

BWW Review: A LULU of an Evening at the Met with Soprano Petersen in the New Kentridge Production by Richard Sasanow

Who or what is Lulu, the eponymous character in Alban Berg's landmark atonal opera? Is she saint or sinner? Femme fatale or victim? Put-upon or mistress of her own fate? Whatever else she mi…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:08AM
Saturday, November 14, 2015

BWW Review: Richard Tucker Gala Anoints Jamie Barton 2015 Prize Winner at Geffen Hall Concert by Richard Sasanow

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual galas--celebrating each year's winner of the Tucker Award to young American singers--are known for two things. First, they are notoriously fun ev…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 05:56PM
Thursday, October 22, 2015

BWW Review: Let's Hear It for the Boys, in TANNHAUSER at the Met by Richard Sasanow

Almost 40 years ago, on short notice, the great tenor Jon Vickers (who died this summer at 90) caused a scandal when he pulled out of the premiere of the Met's still-current production of Wa…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 10:12PM
Monday, October 12, 2015

BWW Review: Sondra Radvanovsky Thrills in Met ANNA BOLENA by Richard Sasanow

The Met came late to the trio of Donizetti operas about British queens, when it finally mounted ANNA BOLENA mounted for Anna Netrebko in 2011. This was long after Beverly Sills made her deal…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:05PM
Saturday, October 3, 2015

BWW Review: Met Audience Goes Wild for Hvorostovsky at Season TROVATORE Premiere by Richard Sasanow

Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky hadn't even opened his mouth, as the Count di Luna, when the audience went wild at the season's premiere of Verdi's IL TROVATORE. It was as if he had jus…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 06:23PM
Friday, September 25, 2015

BWW Interview: See Giovanna Run - A Chat with ANNA BOLENA's Mezzo Jamie Barton at the Met by Richard Sasanow

With the season's first performance of Donizetti's ANNA BOLENA on Saturday at the Met, the big news is that it's part one of soprano Sondra Radvanofsky's first Tudor Trilogy in New York. Alo…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 12:29PM
Thursday, September 17, 2015

BWW Review: Barton, Appleby and Goerke - No Greenhorns at the Greene Space and WQXR Concert by Richard Sasanow

When I heard mezzo Jamie Barton at the Metropolitan Opera's recital in Central Park in the summer of 2014, she would have knocked my socks off--if I hadn't been wearing sandals. This time ar…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 04:24PM
Tuesday, July 21, 2015

BWW Reviews: LA FAVORITE at Caramoor, Conducted by Crutchfield, Provides Another Indispensable Bel Canto Rarity by Richard Sasanow

At a time when we're often inundated with yet another TOSCA, BOHEME or CARMEN at major opera houses, the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY--a couple of hours north of New York City in summer …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 12:14PM
Thursday, May 21, 2015

BWW Reviews: BALLO with Radvanovsky, Beczala and Markov Ends Met Season with a Bang by Richard Sasanow

The Met was running on all cylinders for the last performance of the season, with Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA in an energized version of the production that premiered in 2012. The trio of p…

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 02:08PM
Friday, May 15, 2015

BWW Reviews: CAV/PAG, Those Verismo Twins, Still Tied at the Hip at the Met by Richard Sasanow

It was "out with the old, in with the new" for another of the Franco Zeffirelli productions that were once the Metropolitan Opera's bread and butter, designed for audiences to cheer for the …

SOURCE: BroadwayWorld at 03:54PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 15, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
TBA: Titanic