Larry Fuchsberg, Star Tribune
If sentimentality is your thing, Jules Massenet's 1892 "Werther," which opened Saturday at Ordway Center in a new Minnesota Opera production marking the centenary of the composer's death, is an essential evening in the theater -- an unabashed, world-class, multi-hanky tear-jerker, engineered by a meticulous master.
But even if your musical diet is rigorously schmaltz-free, there are other pleasures to be savored in this, the first of Massenet's 30 operas to be mounted by the 49-year-old company, notably the singing of tenor James Valenti and mezzo-soprano Roxana Constantinescu.
Rob Hubbard, Pioneer Press
Down with intellectualism! Up with passion!
You could say that that, in essence, was a Romantic's rallying cry in 19th-century Europe, when the continent was overflowing with art bent upon engaging the heart more than the mind. And if they could build their case upon a novel by a literary legend of the previous century like Johann Goethe, all the better.
French composer Jules Massenet tapped Goethe with "Werther," an 1892 opera currently receiving its first production in the Minnesota Opera's almost-half-century history. If you read the list of ingredients, it seems ideal for opera: A young scholar falls in love at first sight, but she's promised to another, leading him to a life of anguish interspersed with tortured professions of his passion.
But the opera has a host of shortcomings, particularly a clunky libretto that can leave you wondering if important details haven't been omitted. That said, the Minnesota Opera's production is quite impressive, particularly in the invariably powerful arias of tenor James Valenti in the title role, but also in an imaginative industrial-age set design by Allen Moyer. Yes, it's a flawed work, but this is an outstanding interpretation.
Rohan Preston, Star Tribune
The next big project for the arts in the Twin Cities is about to rise in downtown St. Paul.
Plans for a $75 million expansion of the Ordway Center -- the biggest arts building project since the new Guthrie Theater was completed in 2006 -- were announced Thursday by four arts groups. The 56,000-square-foot expansion will create a primary home for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
Ordway officials said they have secured $51.5 million of the project's $75 million goal. Money raised so far came from individuals, corporations and foundations, plus $3 million from the city of St. Paul and $16 million in state bonding. An anonymous donor gave $5 million, Ordway officials said.
Euan Kerr, MPR News
St. Paul is well on it's way to getting a new world class con-cert hall. The city's Arts Partnership announced today it has raised two-thirds of the $75 million dollars it needs to build and operate a new 1,100 seat concert hall at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts.
Groundbreaking could come as early as next spring.
Chris Hewitt, Pioneer Press
If the announced concert hall at the Ordway is a wooden "bento box," as St. Paul Chamber Orchestra President Sarah Lutman has called it, think of the audience as the rice and the SPCO as a very nice piece of salmon nestled inside.
The 1,100-seat hall, plans for which were unveiled at a news conference Thursday, will replace the under-used McKnight Theatre, which has been the home of theatri-cal productions such as "Grey Gardens." When the hall opens - if all goes as planned, in spring 2014 - it will be the new home of the SPCO. It will feature a design in which the audience surrounds the orchestra, and both audience and orchestra are wrapped in honey-colored wood that includes an enormous, curvy, wooden "ribbon" that extends from the back of the hall over the audience.
Efforts to raise $75 million for the project continue, with $51.75 million already raised from public, corporate and private sources, including a $3 million commit-ment from the city of St. Paul and $16 million in bonding funds from the state.