Minnesota Opera's 'Barber of Seville' is breezy bit of fun

By Rob Hubbard
Special to the Pioneer Press
Updated: 04/12/2009 11:28:34 PM CDT

If you associate opera with stuffy, self-important haughtiness, then Gioachino Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" is the ideal antidote to that perception. It's a fast-paced slice of silliness, in which any character's inflated ego soon is popped by the pinprick of absurdity.

Review: Retirement party at "Barber of Seville"

Minnesota Opera's soon-to-be-retired production of Rossini's "Barber of Seville" is full of fine singing, smart trims and comic surprises.

By MICHAEL ANTHONY, Special to the Star Tribune

Rich and famous by the time he was 37, Gioachino Rossini never wrote another opera after that. Just as Rossini retired too soon, most people who see the Minnesota Opera's lively (and final) production of Rossini's greatest hit at the Ordway Center in St. Paul will come to a similar conclusion: This production is too good to be retired.

In fact, it's better this time around, thanks to a strong cast and shrewd staging by Kevin Newbury.

Review: Spectacle pulls the strings in opera's "Pinocchio"

By LARRY FUCHSBERG, Special to the Star Tribune

March 2, 2009

The themes of Carlo Collodi's "The Adventures of Pinocchio" are the stuff of opera: love, growth, empathy, betrayal, self-sacrifice, death and rebirth. No wonder, then, that composer Jonathan Dove and librettist (and fellow Brit) Alasdair Middleton have reappropriated the story of the plucky boy-puppet, plundered by Walt Disney for his 1940 animated film. Their three-hour entertainment, which takes Collodi's title as its own, opened Saturday at the Ordway in its original production, imported by Minnesota Opera from England's Opera North (which gave the premiere in 2007). And to borrow Pinocchio's favorite adjective, it is good.

Minnesota Opera's polished 'Pinocchio' struggles to find its heart

By Dominic P. Papatola
dpapatola@pioneerpress.com

Updated: 03/01/2009 09:12:34 PM CST

"The Adventures of Pinocchio" includes moments that are both humorous and harrowing. It offers images of beauty and poignancy. There are sprinkles of magic and dabs of social commentary. What it lacks is a sense of momentum and - perhaps ironically in the story of a wooden boy who yearns to be real - the ineffable touch of humanity.

Review: MN Opera's "Adventures of Pinocchio" an enchanting experience for all ages

March 1, 1:19 PM
by Brad Richason, Twin Cities Performance Art Examiner

Of all the theater based performance art forms, few can feel as intimidating to the uninitiated as opera. Preconceptions ranging from heavily stylized singing (often in foreign languages) to a grandiosity of presentation (often viewed as pomposity) are enough to dissuade many from even contemplating an evening at the opera - a shame considering the uniquely emphatic beauty of the form.

The devil's in the detail

Minnesota Opera's new "Faust" wins ovations.
By Mary Abbe, Star Tribune

What: By Charles Gounod. Directed by Doug Varone for Minnesota Opera. Conducted by Jean-Yves Ossonce.
When: 7:30 p.m. today, Thu. and Sat.; 2 p.m. Sun.
Where: Ordway Center, 5th and Washington Sts., St. Paul.
Tickets: $20-$150. 612-333-6669 or www. mnopera.org.

When it comes to "Faust," Charles-François Gounod's 1859 romantic masterpiece, the Germans have it right. Their opera houses dub this French classic "Margarete," after the lovely heroine whose fate is its crux, reserving the title "Faust" for Goethe's earlier treatment of the tragic bargain between the doctor and the devil.

Minnesota Opera's Faust a devilish dyad of art

By Rob Hubbard
Special to the Pioneer Press

Opera has been described as the ultimate art form, combining magnificent music with gripping theater.

But the Minnesota Opera's new production of Charles Gounod's "Faust" takes those two artistic disciplines and doubles them. Thanks to director and choreographer Doug Varone, it's a production that moves like a modern dance performance.

MUSIC | Mozart's Orient Express arrives at the Ordway

By Jay Gabler , TC Daily Planet
November 7, 2008

The Minnesota Opera is billing their upcoming production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville as “the perfect opera for first-timers,” but for the uninitiated, an even better bet might be the company’s current production of Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio. The score is pure ear candy, the passages of spoken dialogue help ground the arias (Abduction was written as a “singspiel,” a form akin to a Broadway musical), the elaborate set is a thing of beauty, and the cast members have a great deal of fun with the opera’s broad humor and farcical plot.

Clemency on the Orient Express
Marvelous music and a scintillating staging make Mozart's "Abduction" a winner.

By LARRY FUCHSBERG, Special to the Star Tribune
November 3, 2008
MINNESOTA OPERA

Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782) is 18th-century fluff, hardly comparable to "Figaro" or "The Magic Flute." But fluffiness, in this case, precludes neither marvelous music nor a last-act reversal still worth pondering. (Seraglio is simply the Italian for harem; the plain English translation sounded too risqué to Victorian ears, and the bowdlerization has stuck.)

Tonight's hottest ticket in town? The election
By Richard Chin
11/04/2008 07:14:48 AM CST

Can a night of song and dance match the drama of a historic presidential election?
Maybe not.
     When the Minnesota Opera saw ticket sales slump for tonight's performance of "The Abduction from the Seraglio," it decided to offer an Election Night special: tickets that cost up to $110 discounted to $20.
Overall sales for the Mozart opera that runs through Sunday at the Ordway Center have been strong, said opera marketing and communications director Lani Willis. Tonight is the exception.
"Obviously, this election is really a heated one for a lot of people," Willis said.