News & Reviews
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Carousel
Carousel barker Billy Bigelow loves Julie Jordan, but can never seem to do right by her. After tragedy strikes, Billy must answer for his behavior, but can a selfish man find it in his heart to be selfless? Carousel’s timeless themes of love and redemption are...
The Marriage of Figaro
One of the greatest operas ever written, The Marriage of Figaro is a witty, yet profound tale of love, revenge and forgiveness. Figaro, valet to Count Almaviva, and Susanna, maid to the Countess, are set to be married…but the Count has his own designs on Susanna’s...
A Streetcar Named Desire
In this famous tale of lust and disgrace, the newly impoverished Blanche Dubois arrives in 1940’s New Orleans to live with her sister and brother-in-law in their shabby apartment. As the weeks press on, dark truths about Blanche’s past collide with the stark reality...
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Everything works in this ‘Figaro’
“The Marriage of Figaro” is slippery. Just when you think Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte are settling into sweet comedy, this 1786 opera has a way of skittering into farce. Just when “Figaro” seems content to trade on melodrama, it deepens toward tragedy....
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Richmond-born singer returns for ‘Figaro’
For Richmond-born Matthew Burns, Friday’s opening of Virginia Opera’s “The Marriage of Figaro” at Richmond CenterStage will be a down-home family affair. Burns, a bass-baritone, will be singing opposite his wife, soprano Anne-Carolyn Bird, as ladies’ maid Susanna, who...
The Washington Post: Virginia Opera has all the elements of a great ‘Marriage of Figaro’
There are so many great moments in Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” that can send an audience away happy — a meltingly beautiful “Dove Sono” from a lovelorn Countess, a comic turn or two from an oversexed Cherubino, or even the slapstick antics of duplicity and...
The Washington Times: Virginia Opera ‘Marriage of Figaro’ an adventure in total delight
Funny, light, and lively, loaded with energy and crackling with wit, the Virginia Opera’s current production of Wolfgang Mozart’s comic opera The Marriage of Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro) turns this beloved old warhorse into a comic confection that’s refreshingly new....
The Washington Examiner: Madcap ‘Marriage of Figaro’
The brilliant Lillian Groag has been a favorite stage director for the Virginia Opera for the past 20 years. When former VO Artistic Director Peter Mark convinced her that her pristine reputation as a theater director, playwright and actor was an ideal requisite for...
WHRO: The Marriage of Figaro Review by M.D. Ridge
What a week for Mozart!—beginning with The Marriage of Figaro at the Harrison Opera House April 6, followed by the powerful Requiem April 13. The Marriage of Figaro is, of course, built on the bones of a satire by noble-wannabe Pierre Beaumarchais, in which the clever...
Fairfax Times: A comic opera that flies into the heart
Ah, sweet lunacy composed by a musical genius is coming this way. It is full of rascally, randy men and quietly patient, shrewd women who want a love that will last beyond the first “whoosh” of courtship. The score soars from the very first beat of the overture. On...