News & Reviews

The Baltimore Sun When it comes to tragedy, it's still hard to beat the one about "a pair of star-crossed lovers" named Romeo and Juliet, who defy their feuding families and are denied happiness by a dreadful series of circumstances. If there's anything that can...

DC Metro Theatre Arts 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 of the world? Should we play the role of...

Communities Digital News The Virginia Opera’s wonderful, grand opera-era production of French composer Charles Gounod’s somewhat neglected 1867 classic, “Roméo et Juliette,” ended its statewide run at Richmond’s Carpenter Center this past weekend. Based, with...

Opera, like theater, is often overlooked among audiences in today’s culture as boring, long and incomprehensible. With the popularity of film, television and video games, it is more important than ever to choose a piece that audiences can connect with.   PHOTO BY...

Posted: Thursday, April 21, 2016 12:00 am BY EMILY JENNINGS/FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR Not long ago during the “Pirates of the Caribbean” craze, teenage girls everywhere obsessed over the character of Capt. Jack Sparrow, adorning bedroom walls with posters and even...

Posted: Saturday, April 16, 2016 6:00 pm By ROY PROCTOR Special correspondent - Richmond Times Dispatch From its opening storm at sea to its heaven-bound finale, Richard Wagner’s early opera “The Flying Dutchman” is several shows rolled into one in the...

Voix Des Arts 18 April 2016 PERFORMANCE REVIEW: Richard Wagner — DER FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER (W. Tigges, C. Pier, P. Volpe, C. Bix, R. Pike, D. Blalock; Virginia Opera, 17 April 2016)         RICHARD WAGNER (1813 – 1883): Der fliegende...

Saturday, February 27, 2016I What if a high school student doing a report on a historic opera star had the singer appear to him? Radford High School students got to explore that possibility on Thursday through a performance by the Virginia Opera Company. The company...

FEBRUARY 24, 2016 Following on the heels of the Richmond Ballet's triumphant presentation of "Romeo & Juliet" last weekend, the Virginia Opera offered Charles Gounod's lyrical take on the tale of the star-crossed lovers in an emotionally sensitive production in...

BY RICH GRISET Directing Charles Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” for his first time in 1987, Bernard Uzan acknowledged that the casting of opera legend Alfredo Kraus as the male lead didn’t make the most sense. Though the Spanish tenor’s pipes were still in fighting...