News & Reviews

By Teresa Annas NORFOLK Ron Daniels looked almost parental last week as he worked through some scenes from Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd." The director stood in Virginia Opera's rehearsal hall, low-key and inconspicuous in his black slacks and shirt, hands in pants...

By Teresa Annas The Virginian-Pilot©April 29, 2014 NORFOLK Virginia Opera has promoted two of its artistic staff members to lead positions, effective immediately. Adam Turner, formerly resident conductor, has been bumped up to principal conductor and artistic adviser....

Posted by Mike Paarlberg on Apr. 12, 2014 at 3:31 pm Louis C.K. has a bit in which he notes how incredible it is that women continue to go out with men, given that the number one threat to women, and chief cause of injury and mayhem to them is, well, men. The number...

By Charles T. Downey, Published: April 13 An opera company is unlikely to have a triumph, in the critical sense, by staging “Carmen,” but Georges Bizet’s story of passion and murder will fill a house. It worked for Virginia Opera, which staged the opera on Friday...

By Emily Cao on April 13, 2014 Things were very fiery this past Friday night at the GMU Center for the Arts as the Virginia Opera brings a new and exciting full-scale production of Bizet’s Carmen, one of the most renowned and certainly most dramatic operas in history,...

Bizet classic comes to George Mason by Samantha Schmieder Special to the Gazette The famous opera “Carmen” will finish its four-city trip around Virginia with a final performance in Fairfax at George Mason University’s Center for the Arts on Friday, April 11, and...

Virginia Opera moves the classic seduction of “Carmen” to 1950s Spain. by Rich Griset No matter how hard she tries, Ginger Costa-Jackson can't get away from "Carmen." It isn't that she's ungrateful — getting cast in the title role is a dream for most mezzo-sopranos....

By Lee Teply Virginian-Pilot correspondent©March 26, 2014 At last Friday's opening night of the Virginia Opera's production of "Carmen," the mix of strong casting and high production values gave fresh life to the oft-told story. The company set Georges Bizet's work -...

by Montague Gammon III A fast rising young Metropolitan Opera star-in-the-making mezzo who likes “once upon a time … happy ending” stories – Cinderella (La Cenerentola, Rossini) is the role Ginger Costa-Jackson most looks forward to playing some day – portrays the...

By Teresa Annas The Virginian-Pilot©March 20, 2014 Hour after hour, Jennifer Noe trained her eyes on the hem of a dress soon to be in lights. Last week, her slender hands - with surprisingly long nails, given her work - straight-pinned a jet-and-silver-scalloped hem...