News & Reviews

Virginia Opera presents An Operatic Visit to  The Santa Fe Opera NOW ON SALE Click here for details

By Terry Ponick FAIRFAX, Va., December 6, 2014 – The Virginia Opera finally got the full house they deserved last weekend. The Norfolk-based company sailed into the George Mason University Center for the Arts last weekend, docking, alas, for a brief two days to...

By Michael Poandl 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 one was more surprised than I when I found myself...

By Roy Proctor So what can audiences expect of a mid-Victorian operetta populated by characters with penny dreadful names such as Dick Deadeye, Ralph Rackstraw and Little Buttercup? Quite a charming bit, as Virginia Opera proved in the rollicking production of Gilbert...

By Brian Bochicchio The Sondheim masterwork Sweeney Todd slashed its way into George Mason University this weekend, as Virginia Opera presented its version of the darkly enthralling musical experience. Stephen Powell (Sweeney Todd) and Phyllis Pancella (Mrs. Lovett)....

By Tim Smith For its fortieth anniversary, Virginia Opera slid into Broadway repertoire to deliver a highly satisfying account of Stephen Sondheim’s ever-chilling Sweeney Todd, one of the organizations strongest ventures of the past decade or so. Several companies...

By Roy Proctor Special correspondent So who says Broadway is Broadway and opera is opera and never the twain should meet? Obviously someone who has never looked and listened long and hard at Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd,” a powerhouse rendering of which is...

By Rich Griset Ron Daniels has a unique connection with the musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”: It probably wouldn’t exist without him. More than 40 years ago, it was Daniels who found the old penny dreadful tale and decided to turn it into a...

Stephen Sondheim said of Sweeney Todd, “If you do it in a theatre, it’s a musical. If you do it in an opera house, it’s an opera.”  Presented Sept. 26 at the Harrison Opera House as Virginia Opera’s 40th season opener, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street,...

By Mal Vincent An opera opening in Norfolk is a life-affirming experience - celebratory. Even routinely, it's about as close as the arts get to an event that mixes real pearls with dipped pearls. "Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street" | Handout photo....