It’s hard to believe that Washington National Opera is celebrating its 70th anniversary. For its season opening, Artistic Director Francesca Zambello has brought back her 2017 production of arguably the grandest of grand operas — Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida, best known for its triumphal scene often staged with live elephants. No elephants in this production, folks, but with its massive chorus, a children’s chorus, and integrated ballet numbers by choreographer Jessica Lang, there is plenty of spectacle. Yet Zambello insists the work is a chamber opera, and, truly, its best moments feel as if a camera has zoomed in to capture the inner turmoil of the three main characters, caught in an eternal triangle and torn between passion and duty.

Conceived by Verdi and with the help of librettist Antonio Ghislanzoni, Aida tells the story of an imagined war between Egypt and its neighbor, Nubia, in an unspecified reign during the time of the pharaohs. The work, which premiered in 1871, was fueled by the recent conquests of Napoleon pushing into Egypt and setting off a frenzy of archaeological and artistic interest in Egyptology across Europe.

Zambello has pushed the temporal unspecificity further with this production, and with her creative team and casting has created a vaguely modern world background that could be about any two multicultural nations at war. In this world, there are two kings insisting on their right. One, simply named “The King,” gains the power advantage and wants to keep undesirable foreigners from entering what he sees as his territory. Amonasro, also a king, rules over a poorer people desperately fighting to exist.

Against this background, Amonasro’s daughter, Aida, has become a captive and slave to Egyptian Princess Amneris. Both women are in love with Radamès, an ambitious, patriotic soldier who is soon tapped by the intermediaries of the gods to lead the Egyptian war efforts. Aida tries to hide her feelings from her powerful rival Amneris and is torn between her love for Radamès, her devotion to her father, and love for her people and homeland. Radamès is also torn between his love for Aida and his duty as a soldier. Meanwhile, Amneris uses everything in her power to ensnare the man she loves and humiliate Aida.

In 2017, the contemporary artist known as RETNA got top billing for his contributions to the opera’s overall design, and his calligraphic projections with their nod to Egyptian hieroglyphics seemed bold and innovative. In this rerun, they seemed somewhat arbitrary and finally tiresome. Some shifts in the panel projections and lighting, happening in the middle of a duet or trio, even distracted from the emotional storytelling.

Michael Yeargan’s less flashy scenic design contributions serve the story and have stood the test of time, as have Anita Yavich’s costume designs and Mark McCullough’s original lighting design, repurposed for this revival by Peter W. Mitchell.

The performances are strong and compelling. From the first utterance by Morris Robinson as the High Priest, this superb bass commanded the Kennedy Center’s Opera House. He and Kevin Short, as The King, are DC regulars who have blessedly anchored several WNO productions. Shenyang invests his portrayal of Amonasro with powerful dignity, and his confrontation with Rowley, rejecting her and pushing her to the floor, is a dramatic highlight.

The three leads are double cast, appearing on alternate nights. Jennifer Rowley sang the title role on opening night. Rowley is a true singer-actor, especially gifted in embodying the frailty and emotional vulnerability of the captive slave girl Aida. Her beautiful soprano was both elegant and full of pathos, and her control while singing softly was especially effective, while her physical freedom and full-bodied gestural expressiveness made for a most memorable performance.

Adam Smith’s Radamès is also a most satisfying cast choice. Smith is the epitome of a disciplined military leader, with ramrod physique and steely focus as when he’s poring over maps and plans with his soldiers. He even communicates a soldier’s awkwardness around court functions, especially when pressed into an uneasy and arranged romantic alliance with the King’s daughter, Amneris. But when he is with his love Aida, the depths of his emotional gentleness and passion are revealed through voice and body. Smith has created a most moving emotional arc, and there are many moments, as in the final duet between Radamès and Aida, that are exquisite vocally and emotionally heartbreaking.

Raehann Bryce-Davis has a powerhouse stage presence and a rich mezzo to fill the role of the calculating and sometimes cruel Princess Amneris, who is used to getting her own way. Occasionally, her voice, placed far back, lacks articulation and even gets muffled by the orchestra and other voices. But she, too, has created a most satisfying emotional arc, and when her breaking point comes in the final act, she stoops, legs splayed, as if she would dig and bury herself in the earth. This is the moment she realizes the irreversible, tragic ending she has condemned her love Radamès to, and her sound and physicality combined make for one of the great dramatic moments in this opera or any in my experience.

The Washington National Opera Chorus and orchestra produce a great sound under Conductor Kwamé Ryan. However, gathering this many people on stage at once sometimes feels static and blocky, especially with a simultaneously staged ballet in place of the iconic triumphant march (with elephants).The opera speaks to our times in several ways. Bringing the production of Aida to the Kennedy Center Opera House might signal, intentionally or not, that respect should be given to other sovereign states and that kings wielding power are likely to have tragic consequences in their collateral damage. Its message might also suggest that we should all work for peace through love. After all, what is life without love — or opera?

Running Time: Three hours with a 25-minute intermission.

Aida plays through November 2, 2025, in the Opera House at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets (starting at $65.55) online or by calling (202) 467-4600 or toll-free at (800) 444-1324. Box office hours are Monday-Saturday, 10 am-9 pm, and Sunday, 12 pm-9 pm. A limited number of $39 Rush tickets will be available for every performance at the Kennedy Center Box Office the day of the performance. Rush tickets become available 2 hours prior to each performance.

The program is online here.

Directed by Francesca Zambelo. Conducted by Kwamé Ryan. Artistic Design: RETNA, Scenic Designer: Michael Yeargan. Original Lighting Designer: Mark McCullough. Revival Lighting Designer: Peter W. Mitchell. Costume Designer: Anita Yavich. Choreographer: Jessica Lang. Fight Master: Casey Kaleba.

Cast for opening night: Jennifer Rowley, Raehann Bryce-Davis, Adam Smith, Shenyang, Morris Robinson, Kevin Short, Dwayne Brown, Jenelle Figgins, Lauren Carroll, Nicholas Huff, and the Choruses and Orchestra of the Washington National Opera.

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In the Biblical story of Salome and the Dance of the Seven Veils, a teenage princess named Salome performs a seductive dance for her father, King Herod, who promises her anything she desires, with bloody consequences. If you’ve ever heard this story— and of Salome’s desire for the head of John the Baptist — then you’ve heard the story that baroque composer Alessandro Stradella and librettist Ansaldo Ansaldi set to music in 1675 and called St. John the Baptist. This IN Series production — with new English text by Bari Biern — is the world premiere of this piece.

The story has been notably adapted before: as an opera by Richard Strauss, and as a play by Oscar Wilde. Both of these versions were banned at various times for the portrayal of necrophilia and young lust. (Salome is 13.) The Stradella/Ansaldo version focuses more on Herod’s suppression of his own inner voice and John the Baptist’s efforts to draw that inner voice forth, with the homosocial and homosexual implications such an action might have.

This is a story that is filled with the same shocking moral corruption, rot, and insult as we currently contemplate with the Epstein files and the Trump regime. And director Timothy Nelson and his production crew at IN Series dig into this material with relentless fervor, zest, and rigor.

In contradistinction to the deadening malaise of the subject matter, John the Baptist is filled from the first moment to the last with some of the most gorgeous, constantly moving, rejuvenating, and uplifting baroque music you will hear anywhere.

To pull this off, in the entirety of the opera, there are only five actors on stage, accompanied by the cracker-jack orchestra (INnovātiō Baroque Orchestra) under Nelson’s incisive conducting. As far as I’m concerned, the IN Series production of Stradella’s St. John the Baptist is a colossal achievement of imagination and skill.

Rather than replicating a Biblical epic, the way Cecil B. DeMille films did for Baby Boomers and their parents, Nelson has placed the opera in what looks like a late 1960s-’70s suburban America. Josh Sticklin’s set design is full of cheap, unrecyclable, and undigestible abundance, creating a world that fosters isolation and dread. Just from looking at the set, you get the feeling that, clearly, nothing good can happen here, despite all of the beautiful music in which we are immersed. The polyester clothes designed by Oana Botez don’t allow the bodies of the people to breathe. The constant accompaniment of black-and-white television “interference” (lighting design by Yannick Godts) doesn’t allow for human feeling. We see why Salome, an only child, is unable to develop healthy connections with others, with disastrous consequences.

The audience is introduced to the Herod household as soon as they enter the theater, and before hearing a note of music: As we take our seats, we see Herodiade, Herod’s wife, played by Hayley Abramowitz, troweling icing onto a depressingly American birthday cake intended to cheer Herod up, cigarette dangling precipitously from her darkly glossed lips, her face framed by hair that is cut in an assertively geometric style. Heriodiade longs for sexual connection with her husband but makes do with her husband’s sleazy brother, The Counselor (Greg Sliskovich). Herod (Andrew Adelsberger) is likable enough. But mostly he seems depressed and tends to blend into the wall work.  The rest of the family spends all of their energy trying to bring him out, with Salome being the most successful at this. Adelsberger easily garners our patience and attention just as Herod garners that of the rest of the people around him.  

This next part I may have completely wrong. No one has claimed that this was part of the planned production on stage. However, this is the only way I can explain cogently what I saw.

In a gesture that reaches back to commedia dell’arte conventions, in which characters onstage are costumed as recognizable stock types (such as servants, wealthy old men, young lovers, self-styled captains), Nelson has chosen to have some of his cast look like instantly recognizable roles or archetypes from iconic movies. Of this cast, St. John the Baptist and Salome are each most obviously and pointedly dressed as an identifiable type. St. John is costumed as The Farmhand (specifically for our 21st-century reference, he is dressed and coiffed like Jake Gyllenhaal’s ranch hand Jack Twist in the movie Brokeback Mountain). Salome is similarly dressed as The Innocent Little Girl (specifically, she is dressed and coifed like Patty McCormack from the 1950s movie The Bad Seed, including her iconic pigtails). This choice in costuming has sizable payoffs as the show progresses.

John the Baptist is played by Daniel Moody, whose glorious countertenor comes through in the oratorio’s earliest musical moments as he sings of his plans to leave his current way of living in nature to preach to and reclaim the soul of Herod. Moody’s John the Baptist exudes a transcendent personal conviction (bordering on arrogance, to be honest) of the glory and healing effect that God’s love can have on one’s life.

The bulk of the rest of the production belongs to Dawna Rae Warren (Salome), whose singing and acting embody monumental strength, flexibility, and endurance as she berates her father to give her what she wants. Warren’s voice moves from low, guttural contralto reprimands to soprano howls emitted while climbing on top of the torture chamber in which John the Baptist is confined. Her appeals are unrepentant and unrelenting. Because of this, the last two-thirds of the second act belong to Salome regardless of whoever else is onstage.

The archetypal costuming I mentioned earlier may serve as masks, providing a kind of distancing for the performers, giving them permission to be bigger and more intense in their performances. All of these performers are well-trained, with voices that are facile, focused, and bold instruments. They apply their craft and talent unapologetically. These are not fragile artists onstage. And the audience is the better for it. I thought Warren’s Salome would get tired or at least slow down as the show neared the end. She didn’t. As a fellow audience member noted, “She was in the zone.”

Finally, a word about librettist Bari Biern. If librettists are not as well known as an opera’s composers, maybe it’s because when a librettist is doing their job, they meld with the work of the composer, and the work becomes one blended entity. Librettist Bari Biern’s work in John the Baptist blends into Stradella’s (and Timothy Nelson’s). Her words fit into the story and the conceit of this production, urging both the characters and the audience along. It’s in large part because of Biern’s deft use of language that the audience is able to take in some of the large musical, emotional, and conceptual leaps that it does.

Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes including one intermission.

St. John the Baptist played October 2 to 5, 2025, presented by IN Series and Catapult Opera, performing at Pop-Up Theater, 340 Maple Drive (IN Series’ new venue in Southwest DC). St. John the Baptist also plays October 10, 11, and 12, 2025, at the Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 West Preston St., Baltimore, MD. Tickets range from $25 to $35 in Baltimore and can be purchased online or by calling 410-752-8558.

The cast and creative team bios are online here.

St. John the Baptist
Music by Alessandro Stradella
New English Text by Bari Biern

CAST
Hayley Abramowitz: Herodiade; Andrew Adelsberger: Herod; Daniel Moody: St. John; Dawna Rae Warren: Salome; Greg Sliskovich: The Counselor

PRODUCTION TEAM
Stage and Music Director: Timothy Nelson; Set Design: Josh Sticklin; Lighting Design: Yannick Goats; Costume Design: Oana Botez

INNOVATIO BAROQUE ORCHESTRA
Violins: Risa Browder, Keats Dieffenbach, Rebecca Nelson, Leslie Nẻo, Zoe Kunubar. Viola: Asa Zimmerman; Violincellos: JohnMoran, Alexa Pilon; Bass: Jessica Powell Eig; Theorbo: Cameron Welke; Harpsichord/Organ: Paula Maust and Timothy Nelson

SEE ALSO:
Timothy Nelson on staging the shocking opera ‘St. John the Baptist’ (interview by Rasheeda Amina Campbell, September 19, 2025)

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This is a Tosca to die for. Opera aficionados who have seen this production, part of Glimmerglass’ 50th Anniversary season, are already comparing it to other productions — that is what opera lovers do, after all — and several who spoke to me said this is the best they’ve seen. I concur.

The world in this opera by the great Italian composer Giacomo Puccini is on fire. Civil war has broken out. Bullies and thugs have seized power. The rule of law is gone. It is a world where children are bullied and women are compromised and forced to submit to depraved, insatiable lechers. It is a world where even the church can offer no sanctuary but where terrified people are dragged from their hiding places and “disappeared.” The love of power has all but replaced the power of love, and empathy for our fellow man is scorned. As our great contemporary historian Jon Meacham has addressed the precarious situation we find ourselves in today, which offers some parallels, “We are in a battle for the soul of our country.”

Against a backdrop of political terror and chaos, a painter paints and a singer sings.

Director Louisa Proske, who hails from Berlin, knows well the scarred history of her own country’s not-so-distant past and has brought her considerable forces together to get a bead on questions at the heart of this opera. What do we do in the face of chaos and evil? What should artists do so as not to collude? And what role can they play to resist, help lead us through, and, to quote Meacham again, find “our better angels”?

Set Designer John Conklin, who designed the productions for the entire Glimmerglass Anniversary season, in Tosca continues his visual linkage of the works so that they might resonate and “be in conversation” with one another by threading through all his choice of thematic red. It put me in mind of another show’s anthem for young men in a time of revolution: “Red, the blood of angry men… Red, the color of desire…,” etc.  With Conklin’s passing just before the season opened, the Festival has dedicated the season to him.

What would a grand opera be without grand voices? In the case of this Tosca, the three leads are at the top of their game, and all three have been featured this past season at the Met. Yongzhao Yu is our hero, Mario Cavaradossi, a painter commissioned to paint a penitent Mary Magdalena for the cathedral. Yu embodies opera’s heroic tenor with his ardent vocal power giving full expression to some of the most beautiful melodic writing Puccini composed for a tenor. Yu also rises to the acting challenges of the role, demonstrating in turn the loyal revolutionary comrade and friend to Angelotti, the disciplined artist who continues to work under enormously stressful conditions of wartime, the tender and reassuring wooer to a jealous and high-maintenance diva, then a most courageous hero enduring torture and facing his own execution.

As the Diva that Mario adores, Michelle Bradley is, if anything, even more glorious vocally. Bradley possesses the power of a world-class soprano with seemingly that extra gear that enables her to soar out and above an entire orchestra. But she also shows the control to reel everything into a gossamer yet expressive pianissimo as she does throughout, but particularly in that most beautiful of Puccini’s arias, “Visi d’arte.”

There is a quintessential third role in the story, that of Scarpia, perhaps the greatest, most unscrupulous and rapacious villain in all of opera. Greer Grimsley seems born to have portrayed his darkness. It is the role of Scarpia that makes for the tight dramatic structure that builds to the thrilling climactic showdown in the second act. Grimsley portrays the oily unctuousness that changes in a moment to steely cruelty.

Proske prepares us for the big, dramatic payoff in her radical approach to the setting of Act II. Gone is any traditional office for Scarpia in the grand Farnese Palace with an ornate wooden desk and accoutrements of wealth and power associated with Scarpia’s world. Instead, we find ourselves in a military camp barracks made of cinder block and crenelated metal walls. At the top of the act, a young woman lies on a narrow bed in the office, exhausted or passed out, one is left to imagine, by only the latest forced sex by Scarpia. Stage right in full view of the audience is a tiled institutional bathroom, its walls slightly moldy. One of Scarpia’s henchmen is taking a piss. Later, another Blackshirt comes in and vomits from the horror of witnessing Mario being tortured. Even the final act of violence is staged in this most ignominious of settings. Spoiler alert: the opera  doesn’t end well.

Glimmerglass productions are always marked by rich collaborations between top-notch design teams. The designers for Tosca have wrought something that surpasses anything I’ve seen there in the almost 13 or 14 seasons I’ve been coming. Conklin’s set design was greatly aided by his associate, James Rotondo. Robert Wierzel, lighting designer, did a bang-up job for The Rake’s Progress this season, but his painting with light for this magnificent Tosca, especially Act I, which glows like a burnished Old Master’s painting, surpassed all. Kaye Voyce designed the costumes, and they too glowed as grand opera should. Tom Watson, hair and make-up designer for all the shows, is a stalwart member of the Glimmerglass design team and enhanced each character’s definition from the emaciated look and ragged locks of the battle-fatigued Angelotti to the glamorous tresses for the star, Floria Tosca.

Presiding over all for this production is Conductor Joseph Colaneri, who seemingly breathes Italian opera. His acute understanding of Puccini makes this Tosca a most fully realized and life-affirming experience of the power of great art.

Tosca (plays through August 16, 2025)

Running Time: Two hours and 21 minutes with a 25-minute intermission.

Conductor – Joseph Colaneri
Stage Director – Louisa Proske
Set Designer – John Conklin
Associate Set Designer – James Rotondo
Costume Designer – Kaye Voyce
Lighting Designer – Robert Wierzel
Projected Titles – Kelley Rourke
Fight Director – Thomas Schall
Sound Designer – Joel T. Moran
Hair & Makeup Designer – Tom Watson

Floria Tosca – Michelle Bradley
Mario Cavaradossi – Yongzhao Yu
Scarpia – Greer Grimsley
Cesare Angelotti – Donghoon Kang
Sacristan – Sergio Martinez
Spoletta – Kellan Dunlap
Sciarrone – Luke Harnish
Treble Solo – Ian Clark
Jailer – Jeremy Harr

Tickets are available at glimmerglass.org.

SEE ALSO:
2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ and ‘The House on Mango Street’
2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘The Rake’s Progress’
(reviews by Susan Galbreaith)

The post 2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘Tosca’ appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

Glorious music! Wonderful musicianship! The inclusion of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress in this their 50th Anniversary Season shows Glimmerglass Festival at its best, taking audiences for a pleasure ride through some great works of opera and music-theater. Glimmerglass also has become a proven model removed from the pressures of big metropolitan centers where economics of “the biz” all too often propel producing organizations to engage in transactional art-making and relationships. Instead, I believe here that artists are encouraged to take the time to nurture each other and nourish themselves and to re-imagine a work like The Rake’s Progress for today’s audience on a stage that draws everyone close so that when the side walls of the Alice Busch Theater slide open at the end, we find ourselves still cradled in a most bucolic setting.

Stravinsky’s opera pays tribute to the long tradition of this multi-disciplinary art form and celebrates music especially, which Conductor Joseph Colaneri most triumphantly realizes in leading the Glimmerglass Orchestra. Right from the start, with Stravinsky’s nod to Monteverdi, there’s a “Listen up” fanfare, and, under Colaneri’s baton, we’re off and running. The composer has also borrowed from Mozart in his orchestral composition and structure. At the same time, using a little theme that repeats, oscillating between major and minor, and by employing dissonance at times even in what is a tonal composition, Stravinsky places his music squarely in the camp of modernism.

Set Designer John Conklin picked up on the composer’s modernist intentionality and, rather than providing the setting called for at the story’s beginning — a garden on an 18th-century English country estate — he created a 20th-century painterly-and-sculpture “garden” of curved steel and discs and neon rods that change color from fiery red to magenta and blue during the course of the show. Conklin places all this against the reveal of the theater’s backstage, all pipes and mechanics exposed and everything sprayed red. It’s a 20th-century urban hell, make no mistake, and the production design telegraphs that man will have to pay for his greed, ambition, and carelessness.

The opera follows a Faustian tale of a fellow, Tom Rakewell, making a pact with the devil, selling his soul for power or pleasure or both. The devil in this opera comes in the character of Nick Shadow. Nick is a charmer, part worldly gentleman and part genie obsequiously promising to grant Tom three wishes, all the while reeling in his victim.

The Rake’s Progress is not an entirely easy piece, not on the listener’s ear, neither for the orchestra players to play nor for the singers to sing. It is a particularly Herculean task presented to the lead who, as the character of Tom Rakewell, must have the acuity and vocal stamina equivalent to a runner’s marathon. However, Adrian Kramer as Tom is more than up to the task and displays not just vocal alacrity and expression, but a certain acrobatic agility in expressing Tom’s irrepressible character and engages in some downright, cartoon-like physical clowning.

This muscular production highlights the physical genius of Eric Sean Fogel. Fogel, who has been associated with Glimmerglass for many seasons as Choreographer and Co-Director, steps up to fully direct and choreograph this show and has found in Kramer the perfect opera performer to realize his physicalized style of music-theater. In fact, the whole ensemble rises to the Fogelian challenge and plunges the hero into a teeming, roiling nightmarish world of lust and sadistic debauchery. The scene when Nick Shadow escorts the still naïve Tom to a London brothel is sin-sational! Kudos to the talented resident artists, led by Dance Captain Peter Murphy, a kinetic wonder!

As Nick Shadow, Aleksey Bogdanov is a fascinating performer to watch and a wonderful suave foil to the so-easily duped Tom. His velvety tones disarm and will lead on his man to doom or madness. Another marvelously drawn character is the bearded lady, Baba the Turk, with whom Tom, in his debauched delirium, is pressed into marriage. Deborah Nansteel, formerly in WNO’s Cafritz Young Artists’ Program, uses her beautifully supple voice and heartfelt sensibilities to present a complex, sympathetic portrait of a character today we might be wise to recognize as a non-gender conforming individual. (How did Stravinsky envision this character?) As Trulove, Anne’s father, Mark Webster represents the world of moral decency and ramrod societal norms. He’s a formidable old-world presence, who takes his daughter back into his sheltered world after her hopes for redemption through love unravel.

For Stravinsky to realize such an endeavor as this opera, it seems like destiny that he would share the task with a man who would become his friend and sometime philosophical sparring partner, W.H. Auden, the poet, who readily agreed to serve as Librettist. They were later joined by American poet and Auden’s lifelong lover Chester Kallman on the creative team. Although Auden as a man could be darkly complicated, his poetic sensibilities ran the gamut from philosophical, moral, and political — all which color this story — to romantic where he can even be delicate. This last side of Auden is best represented by the character of Anne Trulove, a morally good woman who forgives and follows her man to London to try and rescue him from his own weakness and growing moral bankruptcy.

As Anne, Lydia Grindatto gives a subdued and nuanced performance against the riot of more boisterously colorful characters, but this makes her role only more affecting, and her voice shines with a purity and strength that define her character. Auden’s writing for her character spins pure gold in places, providing a text imminently singable.

It was a great privilege to see and hear this work, so artfully realized. Sad to think there are only five performances left.

The Rake’s Progress (plays through August 15, 2025)

Running Time: Two hours and 44 minutes plus a 25-minute intermission.

Conductor – Joseph Colaneri
Director and Choreographer – Eric Sean Fogel
Set Designer – John Conklin
Costume Designer – Lynly A. Saunders
Lighting Designer – Robert Wierzel
Projection Designer – Greg Emetaz
With Adrian Kramer, Lydia Grindatto, Aleksey Bogdanov, Deborah Nansteel, Mark Webster, Tzytle Steinman, and Kellan Dunlap plus the Glimmerglass Ensemble and Orchestra

Tickets are available at glimmerglass.org.

SEE ALSO:
2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ and ‘The House on Mango Street’
2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘Tosca’
(reviews by Susan Galbreaith)

The post 2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘The Rake’s Progress’ appeared first on DC Theater Arts.

 It was 50 years ago that Glimmerglass Opera Festival first opened and helped ignite a movement that would redefine what was to be American opera and music-theater. Nestled on the north end of Otsego Lake, better known as Glimmerglass, just outside of Cooperstown, New York, the ideal setting draws in world-class artists and provides a summer program for emerging singer-actors and dancers to gain professional credits and work beside luminaries across the spectrum of music-theater.

Robert Ainsley began his tenure as Artistic and General Director in September 2022 when, after 12 years, the previous AD Francesca Zambello turned it over to her esteemed colleague to devote her energies fulltime at the helm of the Washington National Opera. Ainsley, with his youthful effervescent energy and welcoming grin, is just the ticket to overcome any doubts or naysaying regarding the future of opera and the arts. “Hello, Glimmerglammers! My GlimGlam Fam!” he bounds onto the stage before every performance and greets the audience, seeming genuinely glad to see us all. His is a winning strategy; to date he has surpassed the festival’s anniversary goal of raising five million dollars by almost two million, so he has just raised the bar.

More than anything, Glimmerglass means community.

Artistically, this important anniversary season serves as a tribute to legendary Scene Designer John Conklin, who as Associate Artistic Director Emeritus was part of the Glimmerglass familia for many years. He returned this season to design all four big productions, and it was said that the man was never happier than hunched over his design desk at Glimmerglass, most recently with Glimmerglass Director of Productions Abby Rodd. It is such a shame he did not make it this summer to even one opening but died while everything was still in rehearsal. But one has to believe John is still hanging out, smiling down on the art and his fellow art makers.

Conklin took an integrated approach to designing the season’s shows in both color palette, where he chose to explore the many symbolic meanings of the color red, and by incorporating a series of reveals where, in cloths being pulled down or away, something startling and new is discovered. Nowhere was his genius more in evidence than in the bold, colorful neighborhood he created for the world premiere production of The House on Mango Street. Three-story bright red scaffolding units served as fire escapes of an urban universe defined by one neighborhood block. Wheeled in and out as needed, the set pieces also provided surfaces for colorful projections including sequined bespangled events as you might find spilling out across a crowded street during a Hispanic street festival. Visual elements also include gigantes, the giant Mexican puppets, mixing realistic street scenes with pure theatrical magic.

There is an interesting pairing going on this season with a show about another neighborhood “across the pond.” Ethan Heard directed this new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s iconic musical about the Parisian painter Georges Seurat, Sunday in the Park with George, and both staging and design took a pared-down, minimalist approach. Heard had the cast sitting in straight chairs lining the sides of the stage and only stepping in and out of the “frame” as needed, and the space was marked by a central rectangular platform in Conklin’s signature red (natch). But when the red cover was pulled off, the green baize-form, smaller than a putting green, served symbolically as La Jatte, the island in the middle of the Seine where Seurat imaginatively captured ordinary people on their ordinary Sundays taking their promenades. The artist placed them forever together in a dancing field of light, using painted dots and specks of commas in a technique which became known as pointillism.

To capture Seurat’s large ensemble of characters in his painting, Sondheim writes for multiple voices, giving many resident members and guest artists of the Glimmerglass company cameo moments in which to shine. Taylor-Alexis DuPont etches a most memorable character as the much put-upon companion Nurse to the Old Lady, played with comic perfection by Luretta Bybee, and I was tickled mightily by the American couple from the South, Betty and Bob Greenberg (Claire McCahan and Marc Webste), who no sooner arrive in Paris than they want to go home. There’s much playful silliness between Angela Yam and SarahAnn Duffy as the two mademoiselles, following their flirtation with two young soldiers, one of them made out of cardboard. And who can resist Erik Nordstrom as the lounging, grouchy Boatman who prefers the company of his dog to humans? Indeed, there are a lot of recognizable types on the island.

John Riddle is a singer-actor who is able to give us the thorny complexity of a singularly-focused “genius,” who can break down and reel off the elements in art-making but emotionally is not able to connect to people, not even Dot, the woman he loves, nor his daughter as she’s coming into this world, whom he can’t acknowledge nor make room for in his cerebral-channeled life. It is left to Dot, model and muse, to provide human connectivity and emotion, and Marina Pires gives us all that and more in a beautiful portrait of a woman who can also teach us how to “move on.”

One other powerful aspect of this production is how Act II — which has often, sadly, received much criticism, with its “hundred years later” conceit and shuffling of characters — really works in this production. Heard makes a case for the possibility of generational maturing and healing. Even the initially chromelume-fixated, society/success-chasing George gets an aha moment, and we are led to believe he will mend his ways and work to find balance between art and life that his great-grandfather and namesake never could by going for saying what is true and heartfelt.

When we turn to the slot for a truly contemporary work in this season’s lineup, we can cheer the choice at this time in our country’s struggle to define who we are and want to be that Glimmerglass would commission and feature the world premiere of Sandra Cisneros’ coming-of-age story of about a young Chicana! “I like to tell stories,” sings the protagonist Esperanza, mouthpiece for Cisneros’ revisiting of her childhood and the struggle to claim her own voice through her writing.

Cisneros co-wrote the libretto for her story with Composer/Librettist Derek Bermel. She has indeed captured much of the strength, layering, and complexity of emotions found in the novel, in not only the psychology of her fiercely independent protagonist but by bringing in all the quirky neighbors in this their shared universe bound by one city block.

The music in the opera takes its wide-ranging cues from many cultural sounds in play today, from opera to Broadway, and from Latin dance rhythms and norteño to pop and hip hop. One thing the team hadn’t got quite right yet opening night was the balance between the orchestra and the changing sound worlds displayed by the singers, and, sadly, thus much of the sung text got lost. It’s a tricky mix with the powerful acoustic vocal music associated with opera and the mix of spoken word and rhythmically produced pop-belt-and-screlting mix explored in much of today’s electronic music amplification. Although I can certainly appreciate the premise of the creative team to capture accurately the diversity and constantly “changing channels” of our urban soundscapes, it was sometimes a challenge to re-tune one’s ears to the different musical genres and vocal styles coming at us veritably simultaneously. I would advocate a second and even a third viewing and listening to Mango Street as the production settles into itself. Every new work, after all, deserves our attention, working to meet it where it lives.

There were indeed moments of power and beauty. Angelo Silva as Geraldo, pushing a shopping cart on and off the stage, represents the most marginalized in the community, in his case an undocumented street vendor. Silva’s glorious voice is set beautifully by Bermel in a show-stopping number, and Geraldo’s story breaks open our hearts in the way only opera can. The violence that so suddenly ends the character’s life ripped me apart. Taylor Alexis-Dupont, as Sally, an adolescent girl with a terrible secret in her family and someone who wants to run with the wild boys and “take her cake and eat it too,” has a powerful instrument and knows how to fill and shape emotions to full advantage. There is also a gorgeous adult quintet (sextet?) by the adults in the beginning of Act II when they sing “Once” (when I was beautiful), comparing their individual dreams of what their lives would be but dreams always deferred. Amanda Castro has choreographed some cool street dancing.

Mikaela Bennet as the central character possesses genuine vocal warmth and clarity, especially in her upper range, but just because she can land strong notes at the bottom doesn’t mean that composers like Bermel need to make songs Olympic events in terms of degrees of difficulty. (There’s too much of this kind of vocal composition going on these days, to my mind.) Such vocal gymnastic displays can distract from the emotional impact of what’s happening at any moment in the story.

Nonetheless, these two shows really do serve as a pair, scenically and musically being in conversation, thanks not only to Conklin’s savvy, resonating designs but also to the conducting. Micael Ellis Ingram for the Sondheim brings out the “minimalist grooves” in the school of John Adams/Phillip Glass as well as “achingly beautiful” Fauré like harmonies. For Mango Street, Nicole Paiement is fearless in her approach. She reminds us that we are all shaped and enriched by our neighborhoods, its sounds and rhythms.

I left both shows thinking about neighborhoods as community. Neighborhoods feed images and stories to their artists — in one case George the Parisian painter and in the other a young Chicana who is in the process of becoming a writer and storyteller for her people. And we need our artists to show us who we are and what we can be. Yes, surely, sometimes in the process we get bruised or broken but only broken open, and if we can learn and forgive, so we can grow. Neighborhoods remind us that we must embrace new stories and new voices all around us, stories that have much to teach and entertain us if, like Dot, we care enough to connect.

Sunday in the Park with George (plays through August 17, 2025)

Running Time: Two hours and 47 minutes with a 25-minute intermission.

George – John Riddle
Dot/Marie – Marina Pires
Old Lady – Luretta Bybee
Nurse – Taylor-Alexis Dupont
Boatman – Erik Nordstrom
Celeste #1 – Angela Yam
Celeste # 2 – SarahAnn Duffy

Conductor – Michael Ellis Ingram
Director – Ethan Heard
Set Designer– John Conklin
Costume Designer – Beth Goldenberg
Lighting Designer – Amith Chandrashaker
Movement Director – Madison Hertel
Projections Designer – Greg Emetaz
Sound Designer – Joel Morain
Hair & Makeup Designer – Tom Watson

The House on Mango Street (plays through August 16, 2025)

Running Time: Two hours and 17 minutes with a 25-minute intermission.

Esperanza – Mikaela Bennett
Geraldo – Angelo Silva
Sally –Taylor-Alexis DuPont
Lucy –Samantha Sosa
Rachel – Kaylen Hernandez
Mama Cordero – Deborah Nansteel
Papa Cordero – Sergio Martinez
and for the complete cast list go to the Glimmerglass website

Conductor – Nicole Paiement
Director – Chía Patiño
Set Designer – John Conklin
Costume Designer – Erik Teague
Lighting Designer – Amith Chandrashaker
Choreographer – Amanda Castro
Dramaturg – Kelley Rourke
Projections Designer – Greg Emetaz
Hair & Make-Up – Tom Watson

Tickets are available at glimmerglass.org.

SEE ALSO:
2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘The Rake’s Progress’
2025 Glimmerglass Festival Review: ‘Tosca’
(reviews by Susan Galbreaith)

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So much has happened in this year at the Kennedy Center, and perhaps most seismically with the giant resident company, Washington National Opera. It is “still standing,” and delivered its season finale with what, in ordinary times, might have been a safe and familiar classic, the Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. But these are no ordinary times, and, in bringing the original production, with sets and all from the Glimmerglass Festival/Seattle Opera, Artistic Director Francesca Zambello has made a radical and joyful declaration of the power and resiliency of community.

What a beautiful world Peter J. Davison (set) and Mark McCullough (lighting, along with A.J. Guban for the revival) have created for the storytelling. The three-storied façade, representing the tenement dwelling, first appears in a full display of rich colors, but as the opera progresses, the walls begin to peel and become more skeletal, emphasizing the pressures and hardships the community has endured. The world of the bright southern sun grows dark and turns into eerie green-blue hurricane country.

The Gershwins’ work has had a rich but not always easy history. The story, based on a real character in Charleston’s Catfish Row, was penned in 1925 by local white author Dubose Heyward. When he collaborated with brothers George and Ira and transformed the story into an “American folk opera” in 1935, it upset many white audience members, who found much in the content and the subject of a poor Black community objectionable for the “high art” of opera. There has been a considerable period, still lingering, when there was a very vocal backlash from the Black community, which felt burned by the appropriation of their history, and people have bristled at what they see as the work’s perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes. Over the years, many Black artists have also felt confined, limited in their careers by being cast only in roles in this opera.

This production shows us a community that both cares for and polices itself as needs be against the callous treatment by white officials who periodically swoop in to haul off “material witnesses.” The stage is filled with life so rich and uplifting that the air in the Opera House seemed blissfully clear of any contentious dialectic. A welcome, unusually diverse audience on opening night at the Opera House erupted in enthusiasm throughout the almost three hours of opera.

This was due in part to the generosity of Zambello sharing the stage direction with Associate Director and Choreographer Eric Sean Fogel. The two have collaborated often before. This time, however, took their collaboration to another level and proved a most seamless affair. The whole production might well be called music-DANCE-theater because of Fogel’s contributions. From the very first scene, everyone is moving. Above, women on three-storied balconies shaking out and folding laundry, while below men engage in full-bodied good-luck rituals before rolling dice in a Saturday night craps game. Mothers rock and pass babies back and forth to each other (proving it does indeed take a village). A young boy grabs a baling hook and for a moment is caught playfully triumphant in private celebration. These daily activities are heightened just enough through exquisite choreographic sequences to become a continuous whole. It is a story of rolling, mesmerizing beauty, but also one that encompasses the full spectrum of humanity, including loss, mourning, and, yes, even eruptions of violence, yet brought back together when taking shelter against cataclysmic nature.

There is a great ensemble of talent assembled on the Opera House stage, and richly etched characters who together make up the Catfish Row community. Big and cameo roles are filled to just about perfection. The scene on Kittiwah Island explodes into an extended ballet, deliciously carnal in the best sense of that word: folks liberating themselves and expressing spirit and sheer physical joy in a church of the body.

In traditional teaching of opera, convention has it that singers sing in situations where their characters themselves would not. But in this production, such conventional wisdom has been upended. From the first scene and the beautiful singing of Viviana Goodwin as Clara in the all-time favorite “Summertime,” she delivers the lullaby completely rooted in character. Of course, this woman would sing so to pacify and bond with her infant. Soon into the storytelling, there is a death in the community. After her husband is killed in a fight by Crown, at his funeral Serena (Amber R Monroe) leads the assembled mourners in prayer — as she would. I was particularly taken by Benjamin Taylor, who as Jake sang one of the lesser-known songs from the opera, the working song “It Takes a Long Pull,” with such believability and depth as a man who makes his living off the sea and must face daily hardships and death just to keep food on the table for his family.

The central drama is carried by the relationships between Crown, Sportin’ Life, and Porgy, and the woman entwined in the three men’s lives, Bess.

You just know that when Bess enters, she is not just “a sometime thing”; she is trouble. Brittany Renee is a drop-dead gorgeous performer in voice, body, and soul, and in this her debut with WNO, she pulls off a performance that goes from A to Z and reveals her triple-threat mastery of singing, dance/physicality, and emotional expression. Her Bess first appears in flame orange-red satin announcing she’s probably too hot to handle. No wonder the other women on Catfish Row initially bar their doors!

Costume Designer Paul Tazewell cleverly traces Bess’ journey, later dressing her in a sedate white dress, suggesting someone newly baptized and redeemed but also one who has been somewhat domesticated. She, along with the entire ensemble, also wears white to the summer picnic on Kittiwah Island. But, spoiler alert, that flame dress appears again.

Chauncy Packer is Sportin’ Life and embodies that weasely song-and-dance man, drug-dealing tempter to a T. He plies Bess with “angel dust” to keep her under his thumb. He wiggles and slithers all over the stage and in and out of crap games. His big numbers, “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and “There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York,” are cross-genre showstoppers.

Kenneth Kellogg plays Crown. Having seen him as the lead in WNO’s Blue, where he played a loving husband, protective father, and straight-up police officer, it was initially hard to see him as the volatile bully and controlling abuser in this role. Crown is a brute. (The production leaves no doubt about that when Act I ends with his hauling Bess off and raping her after a community picnic.) Kellogg is a big guy and completely convincing as the brooding, menacing Crown. But the surprise came in this actor’s amazing ability to show also the loneliness of this outlier in a complex portrait of a tormented, self-sabotaging soul.

Amazing also is this Porgy, and I’ve seen quite a few. Michael Sumuel gives us a fully rounded character, physically and morally strong, and, despite his disability, someone fully integrated and respected in the community. I loved seeing this Porgy with Renee’s Bess; they made us believe they not only have deep affection for each other but enjoy real passion. The duets “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” and “I Loves You Porgy” made me tear up. I loved hearing the familiar tunes “I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ and “I’m On My Way” in his sonorous voice. When he crosses the stage determinedly heading off to New York City to find Bess, we not only root for him but believe he will succeed in his quest.

The music is just so fine and tuneful, and most ably conducted by Kwamé Ryan in this his first appearance on the WNO podium. Notably, Ryan is one of three artists of color on the creative team, alongside Costume Designer Tazewell and Associate Choreographer Eboni Adams.

I’ll let Francesca Zambello have the last word, which you’ll find as part of a most interesting exhibit of the women in this opera (and some of the singers who portrayed them) in the Hall of the States as you enter the Kennedy Center:

I consider this the greatest of all American operas, setting the standard for all American musical-theatre works to follow. It is rooted in the American tradition; it conjures a world long forgotten yet one rife with potential for contemporary times.

This “greatest of all American operas” plays through May 31.

Running time: Two hours and 50 minutes, including one intermission.

Porgy and Bess plays through May 31, 2025, presented by Washington National Opera, performing in The Opera House at the John F. Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW, Washington, DC. For the schedule and to purchase tickets ($45–$299), go online or contact the Box Office at (202) 467-4600.

In English with Projected English Titles.

The program for Porgy and Bess is online here.

Porgy and Bess
MUSIC by George Gershwin
LIBRETTO by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin

CAST
Porgy – Michael Sumuel, Bess – Brittany Renee, Clara – Vivianna Goodwin, Serena – Amber R. Monroe, Maria – Denyce Graves, Sportin’ Life – Chauncey Packer, Crown – Kenneth Kellogg, Jake – Benjamin Taylor, Strawberry Woman – Marquita Raley-Cooper, Lily – Alexandia Crichlow, Annie – Brittani McNeill, Mingo – Jonathan Pierce Rhodes, Robbins – Daniel Sampson, Peter the Honeyman – Keith Craig, Nelson – Ernest Jackson, Crabman – Anthony P. Ballard, Jim – Nicholas LaGesse, Undertaker – Jarrod Lee, Detective – Scott Ward Abernethy, Coroner – James Whalen

CREATIVE TEAM
Conductor – Kwamé Ryan, Director – Francesca Zambello, Associate Director and Choreographer – Eric Sean Fogel, Set Designer – Peter J. Davison, Costume Designer – Paul Tazewell, Lighting Designer – Mark McCoullough, Revival Lighting Designer – A.J. Guban

COVID Safety: Masks are optional in all Kennedy Center spaces for visitors and staff. If you prefer to wear a mask, you are welcome to do so.

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“Loving versus Virginia. So beautiful, it’s a song.” So sings ACLU lawyer Bernard Cohen (Troy Cook) when he first hears of a case challenging Virginia’s statutory prohibition of interracial marriage. Virginia Opera’s world premiere of Loving v. Virginia, by Damien Geter (music) and Jessica Murphy Moo (libretto), celebrates the love of a white man, Richard Loving (Jonathan Michie), and a Negro woman, Mildred Jeter Loving (Flora Hawk), and their fight to live their married life free from legal interference.

In 1958, Virginia was not for these lovers. Virginia law said both that an interracial marriage was void and that a couple who left the state to get married and returned to Virginia committed a felony. Having married in Washington, DC, and returned to their home in Caroline County, Virginia, the Lovings placed themselves in legal jeopardy. In a harrowing scene — one with all too much contemporary resonance — the police break into the couple’s bedroom at 2 a.m. and cart them off to jail. The court then banished them from the state, and their home, for 25 years.

The writers had the task of intertwining the deeply personal stories of Richard and Mildred and their families and the legal process that led to the landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision bearing their name. They, and director Denyce Graves-Montgomery, chose an interesting staging device to help tell the legal story. A “law chorus” of several identically clad ensemble members symbolized the impersonal demands of the legal system, most effectively when the group, with undulating movements, surrounds Mildred when she is jailed for the crime of living with her husband. Geter’s scoring for the law chorus, and for the scenes in which the Lovings are brought into the local court, emphasizes rat-a-tat Morse code–like motifs, punctuated by loud gavel bangs.

In contrast, the music for Richard and Mildred is far more lyrical, focusing on their love for each other and their longing to be home in their own place. Michie and Hawk sang strongly and beautifully while exploring their characters’ responses to the joys and difficulties of their lives. Richard is the picture of a man deeply rooted in the traditional role of protecting and providing for his family. Geter’s music, and Michie’s performance of it, paint a searing picture of Richard’s frustration at his powerlessness to do so. The music makes articulate the feelings of someone who is explicitly a man of few words.

Whether despairing while imprisoned, finding her own voice while writing to the Attorney General and the ACLU, or in loving her husband and children, Hawk just as effectively portrays her character as a woman who, above all, wants to be home with her family. Neither she nor Richard set out to be an activist or civil rights pioneer. Their perseverance made them the instrument of a major positive change in American law.

ACLU lawyer Philip Hirschkop (Christian Sanders) and his co-counsel Bernard Cohen show the passion and intellectual rigor — and even the sense of fun — of appellate advocates for their cause, while not neglecting to care for their clients who must endure years of the glacial pace of the legal system. The rather truncated capsule of their arguments before the Supreme Court is written in the fashion of high drama, perhaps inevitable in an operatic treatment of what, in reality, had a much more conversational tone before a clearly supportive court. (An audio recording of the argument is available online.) In a grace note for Saturday’s performance, Hirschkop, who will turn 89 next week, was in attendance.

The opera features a number of well-conceived and well-sung supporting roles, including Melody Wilson and Phillip Bullock as Mildred’s parents, Alissa Anderson as Richard’s mother, and Benjamin Werley as a racist sheriff and judge. This is a strong chorus show, and the large ensemble is very effective whether as the Lovings’ Caroline County community, a regimented set of clerks granting or refusing marriage licenses, or Richard’s fellow bricklayers on a project in DC during the couple’s exile there. The Richmond Symphony, under the direction of Adam Turner, was excellent in its playing of the highly varied requirements of Geter’s score.

Virginia Opera performs in Norfolk, Fairfax, and Richmond in consecutive weekends, which limits what designers can do with sets. For Loving, Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams used backdrops depicting a bucolic field in Caroline County and a street in downtown DC, groups of risers that represented a motor race grandstand and courthouse scenes, and a variety of small set pieces wheeled or pushed on and off stage (e.g., for the Lovings’ home or the ACLU office). This resulted in some laborious scene changes that slowed the production’s pace on a few occasions. Aside from the gray suits and masks of the law chorus, costume designer Jessica Jahn effectively dressed the cast in realistic period outfits.

The Supreme Court decision that freed the Lovings to return home was unanimous. The legal issues involved are far from over, however. In a thoroughly researched 2014 Boston College Law Review article, Christopher R. Leslie argued that Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent in a key 2013 gay marriage case, Windsor v. United States, effectively embraced the arguments made by Virginia in the Loving case. Had Alito been a member of the Court in 1967, Leslie persuasively contended, he could not — consistent with the views he expressed in Windsor — have joined the Court’s decision.

By showing what legal constraints on the lives and families of disfavored minorities mean in human terms, through the emotionally compelling medium of opera, the creators and performers of Loving v. Virginia not only delivered a touching love story and a powerful history lesson but also offered a cautionary note about the continuing presence of societal bias and legal thinking that would deprive loving couples of their ability to make a peaceful home together.

Running Time: Approximately two and a half hours, including one intermission.

Loving v. Virginia played on May 3 and 4, 2025, presented by Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony performing at the Center for the Arts at George Mason University, 4373 Mason Pond Dr, Fairfax, VA.

The program for Loving v. Virginia is online here.

Loving v. Virginia
Music by Damien Geter
Libretto by Jessica Murphy Moo
Directed by Denyce Graves-Montgomery
Commissioned by Virginia Opera and Richmond Symphony
In partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University
Co-produced by Virginia Opera and Minnesota Opera

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Twenty-five years into this century, the opera world is still (albeit sometimes tentatively) exploring what exactly are the stories and musical languages to speak eloquently and with passion to our times. Nowhere in America is this gambit felt more than with WNO and Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, where next to classics passed down from the likes of Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, and the upcoming American chestnut from the Gershwin Brothers, Porgy and Bess, the company develops and presents new American talent and perspectives, including performers and creative team collaborations. In 2023, WNO presented the premiere of Grounded, an opera that explored the moral and psychological implications of drone warfare. This month, they bring to Washington audiences The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, in a music-theater portrait of a complicated man very much at the center of a technology that revolutionized our world, but whose evolution as a man connecting to himself and fellow humans was an even more arduous journey and ultimately moving breakthrough.

Mark Campbell, one of America’s most successful contemporary librettists, collaborated with composer Mason Bates, who won a Grammy Award for the recording of this opera when it premiered in Santa Fe in 2017. They have created an important and, I believe, lasting opera in the repertoire. There are two productions of this opera thus far, co-owned and produced in rotation among a handful of regional companies.

At first, it seemed an unlikely subject for Campbell to tackle — he doesn’t seem a “techy geek” kind of guy. But he has found his way into the psychological heart of a man tormented in many ways by his own genius and cruel to his collaborators, employees, and girlfriends alike, but who, in struggling with a diagnosis of terminal cancer, finally comes to terms with his own mortality and admits his need for human connection. Campbell brilliantly eschewed a straightforward chronological storytelling and instead has created both a structure and embedded philosophy of circularity.

This circularity resonates with our understanding of the human side of the often barefoot, vegan Jobs, who was obsessed with Buddhism. In fact, his sensei, the character Kōbun Chino Otogawa, is one of two heroes in the opera. Sung masterfully by bass Wei Wu, Kōbun is a cross between a spiritual guide from on high (and sometimes from beyond the grave) and a perched-on-his-shoulder Jiminy Cricket conscience who can kick Jobs in the ass from time to time or joke, “Yeah, karma sucks.”

The opera opens with the vast stage filled floor to ceiling with a bank of file drawers representing the old world before the tech revolution. With the push of a button, the projected images soon change to banks of screen monitors flanking the stage. Other than this, the stage is unadorned but for a few straight benches where ensemble members give witness and can step into a scene as needed. Stage Director Tomer Zvulun has created elegance in simplicity itself with a very lean chorus by opera standards but very able-bodied physical as well as vocal presence of its members.

From the very start, we get stage pictures filled with life. There, downstage center, sits the cross-legged and barefoot Jobs in meditation. Simultaneously, a scene comes to life on a small high platform of Steve as a young boy (Stone Stensrud) when his father (Justin Burgess) presents the ten-year-old with a worktable he has made for him on his birthday to spur on his mechanical aptitude.

The classically trained composer Bates clearly signals his interest in popular music and specifically his experience as a dance music DJ. In the first ensemble number, the pulsing electronic beat all but transports to a club, while the words “One device has it all” convince us of the inevitability of the Apple Revolution to change the world. And so, with electronic sound used in conjunction with the full orchestra led by conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya, the opera is unapologetic about these opera singers being mic’d. Get over it, Opera Aficionados!

Let’s be clear, Jobs and his buddy and early partner Steve Wozniak (“Woz”) were indeed radical bad boys who wanted to “stick it to the man.” In an early scene, John Moore as Jobs and Jonathan Burton as “the Woz” figure out how to mimic Ma Bell tones and famously ring up the Vatican impersonating Henry Kissinger. The duets by these two singers are some of the most fun and compelling compositions, and the singers displayed great stage chemistry. But the “bromance” doesn’t end well when these two latter-day Davids later spar over who’s brought down Goliath, and the egotistical Jobs, grabbing all the power, pushes Woz to quit the company.

Campbell doesn’t sugarcoat it, and neither does Baritone Moore: Steve Jobs was not a nice guy. His relationship with lover Chrisann gets particularly ugly when he abandons the pregnant woman and denies paternity responsibility for their child. Two very vocal female members of the audience shouted their extreme displeasure across the auditorium at Steve Jobs’ reaction. Coloratura Kresley Figueroa as Chrisann, with her ultra-fast vibrato, gets short shrift by the creators.

Moore gives an exciting, emotional performance throughout without ever overblowing notes and turning into a walrus baritone. His approach is to offer a clean, contemporary sound, one I think Steve Jobs with his emphasis on elegant perfection and simplicity would approve.

But in addition to Kōbun, the other real hero in the piece is Jobs’ partner and later wife, Laurene, who stays by him through it all. Mezzo-soprano Winona Martin brings warmth and intelligence to the role, and Bates gives her beautiful melodic lines to accent her strength and genuine love and compassion for this man.

The production is jointly owned by the Atlanta Opera, Austin Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Utah Symphony & Opera, and Calgary Opera Association. In these precarious times, look for more of these alliances if opera is to stay alive. And contemporary opera, like all arts, must be free to respond to their times.

The creators have successfully compressed the action to what is acceptable to 21st-century audiences. The opera runs one hour and 40 minutes with no intermission.

P.S. I will admit mixed feelings attending the Kennedy Center as it has been seized as prize and become a political hot potato. I understand how many of my friends have decided not to attend events there under its current cloud. But I will ask people to consider also the many artists and crew members who bravely put on good work like the Steve Jobs opera. They depend upon audience members to support them in the exercise of their craft.

Addendum

The opera’s conductor weighs in on supporting the Kennedy Center, and ‘stars of tomorrow’ shine in the cast.

By John Stoltenberg (May 11, 2025)

No sooner had my colleague Susan Galbraith added to her glowing review of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs a last paragraph urging people not to boycott the Kennedy Center than the opera’s conductor, Lidiya Yankovskaya, published a full-throated op-ed in the Washington Post explaining, despite her “displeasure with the White House’s approach to the arts,” “Why I’ll still perform at Trump’s Kennedy Center.” It’s a serious and thoughtful argument:

Choosing not to perform deprives artists and art of power, and it aids regimes that fear being culturally challenged. Choosing not to attend performances of content we support will only ensure that this content is not presented in the future….

If we want to fight censorship and ensure a diverse range of programming options, we must continue to support the art that we want to see on the Kennedy Center stage for as long as we can.

On Friday evening, May 9, the Kennedy Center Opera House was the scene of two remarkable events. One was the full-on Secret Service security in the lobby — magnetometers, bag searches — occasioned by the presence of someone (or someones) whose identity was never publicly revealed. (I asked a few officers; none would divulge.)

But the more important remarkable event — the one I’d come for — was the presence that night of Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera in the (R)evolution of Steve Jobs cast. In Artistic Director Francesca Zambello’s pre-show welcome, she called them “stars of tomorrow.”

The sound reason for that praise soon became clear. In performance, each of these young artists met every vocal challenge, commanded our attention, portrayed their character with credibility, and propelled the story convincingly.

Here they are, each one a standout:

Steve Jobs: Jonathan Patton (baritone)
Laurene Powell Jobs: Winona Martin (mezzo-soprano)
Steve (“Woz”) Wozniak: Nicholas Huff (tenor)
Chrisann Brennan: Anneliese Klenetsky (soprano)
Caligraphy teacher: MichelleMariposa (mezzo-soprano)

Plus two Cafritz Young Artists program alumni:

Kōbun Chino Otogawa: Wei Wu (bass)
Paul Jobs: Justin Burgess (baritone)

Though vocally each of these singers was in superb professional form, I did observe on this night what felt like learning-still-in-progress: Some of the performers’ movement onstage seemed tentative and uncertain — as if their role and blocking had not yet become solidly embodied with the confidence and muscle memory that can come with a longer run. This  minor need for improvement was, in a way, another major argument for Kennedy Center support: It’s not only a place that shows great art; it’s a place that grows great future artists.

The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs played May 2 through 10, 2025, presented by Washington National Opera performing in The Opera House at the John F. Kennedy Center, 2700 F St. NW, Washington, DC. For the schedule and to purchase tickets ($45–$269), go online or contact the Box Office at (202) 467-4600.

In English with Projected English Titles

The program for The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is online here.

Composer: Mason Bates
Librettist: Mark Campbell
Conductor: Lidiya Yankovskaya
Stage Director: Tomer Zvulun

Steve Jobs: John Moore
Laurene Powell Jobs: Winona Martin
Kōbun Chino Otogawa: Wei Wu
Steve (“Woz”) Wozniak: Jonathan Burton
Chrisann Brennan: Kresley Figueroa
Paul Jobs: Justin Burgess
Young Steve: Stone Stensrud

COVID Safety: Masks are optional in all Kennedy Center spaces for visitors and staff. If you prefer to wear a mask, you are welcome to do so.

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IN Series’ Poppea offers a captivating and praiseworthy performance inspired by Claudio Monteverdi’s iconic opera The Coronation of Poppea. As the concluding chapter of IN Series’ Monteverdi trilogy, the actors and dancers bring to life the tragic, dramatic, and comedic elements of this masterpiece at Dupont Underground in Washington, DC. What makes this rendition particularly unique is its bold challenge to gender norms, blending two worlds by incorporating traditional South Indian performances, including Bharatanatyam dance — one of India’s oldest and most revered dance forms, originating from Tamil Nadu.

In addition to the cultural dances, the characters wore costumes resembling traditional Indian garb, while the stage was elegantly adorned with props that showcased the richness of Indian culture. Just in time for the Holi season, this performance served as both a memorable tribute to Monteverdi and a heartfelt celebration of Indian traditions.

The show’s commitment to a diverse cast and its seamless integration of different cultural elements was both refreshing and impactful, enriching the entire production. The opera explores themes of love, sex, power, and betrayal. Each cast member flawlessly embodied their character and sang their heart out. Their voices were enchanting, and every note they belted out and held took the audience’s breath away. Remarkably, each performer was able to sing one song after another while physically acting, without gasping for air. This is a testament to the divinely gifted talent of each cast member.

Speaking of something divine, the duets between Aryssa Leigh Burrs, who played the character Nerone, and Caitlin Wood, who played Poppea, were a heavenly experience. During one of their duets, their voices blended so harmoniously that, under the warm yellow backlight, they seemed to float together, gazing into each other’s eyes with a fiery chemistry that had the audience captivated. Their connection was so intense that at certain points, some audience members may have felt compelled to look away but could not resist watching.

Maribeth Diggle’s performance as Ottavia was a spot-on, heartbreaking expression of rejection and feeling unloved. The audience was able to experience what many of us fear in life. Attendees could hear sorrow in her voice and the subtle cries she let out while singing. Her voice, echoing off the walls, also stood out, creating an eerie and melancholic experience that could easily bring a tear to your eye.

The opera also featured a trio of dancers whose South Indian dance performances brilliantly served as transitions into each act. Their choreography, performed in perfect synchrony, gave the audience a deeper sense of each act’s mood, enriching the emotional landscape of the opera. The entire show was well done, and it was more than just an opera for the audience to watch. It was an experience where the cast connected not only with each other while in character but also with the audience by performing onstage and, at times, in the crowd. In such a small space, the show was a big success.

Running Time: Approximately two hours and 30 minutes, plus one 15-minute intermission.

Poppea played from March 14 to 16, 2025, presented by IN Series performing at the at Dupont Underground, 19 Dupont Cir NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($72 for reserved seating, $57–4$2 for general seating, and $35 for students) online or by calling 202-204-7763.

Poppea will also play from March 21 to 23, 2025, at at the Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 West Preston St., Baltimore, MD, where tickets can be purchased ($20–$30) online and from March 28 to 29 at St. Marks Capitol Hill, 301 A St SE, Washington, DC, where tickets can be purchased ($40–$77) online.

Poppea
Stage and Musical Direction by Timothy Nelson
Choreography by Hari Krishnan
With new music composed by Ami Dang and Rajna Swaminathan
Design by Deb Sivigny, Kathryn Kawecki, Paul Callahan

CAST
Poppea: Caitlin Wood:
Ottone: Daniel Moody
Nerone: Aryssa Leigh Burrs
Seneca: Peter Walker
Ottavia: Maribeth Diggle
Lucano: Allan Palacios Chan
Drusilla: Dawna Rae-Warren
The Nurse: Rob McGinness
Love: Elijah McCormack
Damigella: Judy Yannini
Arnalta: Hunter Shaner
Dancers: Yasseen Hassan, Tenesha Hunter, Chitra Subramanian

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Annapolis Opera’s production of La Traviata is a passionate, colorful adaptation of Verdi’s classic tale. Directed by Eve Summer and conducted by Craig Kier, it is a beautiful way to end the season.

Ethel Trujillo captivates the stage as the dying courtesan Violetta. Debating whether to accept Alfredo’s (Lawrence Barasa) love or continue on her life of pleasure, she drinks from a champagne bottle and lies on the floor next to a plate of food. Accepting Giorgio’s (Gustavo Ahualli) argument, she weeps while contemplating what she must do. She fills her three famous arias with passion; the third, as she recognizes her coming death, is mournful. She brings a deep tragedy to her death scene.

Lawrence Barasa plays Alfredo burning with desire. He sings of his love for Violetta, calling it the “heartbeat of the universe.” He kneels before her, holding her hand. They embrace longingly. Encountering her again after she has left him, he sings of her coldly before announcing to guests what she had done. Later, he crawls into Violetta’s bed with her, singing of her getting better and moving out of Paris together.

Gustavo Ahualli brings a grave seriousness to Giorgio, Alfredo’s father. Relating his daughter’s predicament to Violetta if Alfredo stays with her, he urges her to leave. He feels somewhat imperial at the start, used to being obeyed. He tries to comfort Alfredo with the pleasures of his home and the joy of returning home. Later, he laments forcing Violetta to choose, his voice filled with regret.

Patricia Hengen plays Annina, Violetta’s maid, with quiet loyalty. She says little to Alfredo as he questions her about Violetta selling her furniture to support him. In Violetta’s final sickness, she sleeps in the chair near her bed, grabbing water for her.

Joanne Evans plays Violetta’s friend Flora with great sensuality, flirting with guests and teasing the Marchese (Anthony D. Anderson) with perhaps being unfaithful. Anthony D. Anderson plays the Marchese d’Obigny with great happiness, comically asking the fortunetellers to stop when they say he might not be faithful. John Tibbets brings an anger to Barone Douphol, a scowl etched on his face as he stares at Alfredo suspiciously when he leaves Violetta’s room. He forbids Violetta from speaking to Alfredo after she has left him, and hurls down his cards while gambling with his rival.

Patrick Kilbride brings a joy to Gastone. The chief singer in the matador scene, he gleefully marches along the stage singing of his bravery and love. Andrew Adelsberger plays Doctor Grenvil with great attentiveness, at the opera’s beginning asking Violetta if she is okay to host the party. At the end he tells her she will recover soon, whispering to Annina that she has only hours left.

Props Run Crew Liliana Cudley fills the stage with period-looking chairs, tables, and sofas. Wardrobe Supervisor Sharlene Clinton and Wig/Make-up Designer Priscilla Bruce recreate the era with long dresses for the women and vests, jackets, ties, and top hats for the men. Violetta begins in a dress with bare shoulders, before changing to a colorful skirt, and ending in a nightgown. The outfits for the fortunetelling and matador sequences pop with color. Lighting Designer Chris Brusberg enhances the changing emotional atmosphere with different lights. In Act Two’s country house, the backdrop is lit with orange, while blue light bathes the stage in Violetta’s final scene.

Craig Kier conducts the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra with great lead, letting the music flow without it overpowering the singing. Director Eve Summer creates lots of movement among the performers, having them flow back and forth on stage. The matador scene is especially clever in its symbolic “goring” of bulls. Music, singing, and acting come together for a moving story of love and sacrifice. Only one performance remains, so be sure to catch it.

Running Time: Two hours and 45 minutes, including two 15-minute intermissions.

La Traviata plays on Sunday, March 16, 2025, at 3 PM presented by Annapolis Opera performing in Maryland Hall, 801 Chase Street, Annapolis, MD. For tickets ($28–$100), call the box office at 410-267-0087 or purchase online.

A virtual program is available here.

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The Jungle Book, based on the stories by Rudyard Kipling, is a work that Washington National Opera commissioned for young people both as audience members and as performers.

In their welcome letter to the audience, General Director Timothy O’Leary and Artistic Director Francesca Zambello state:

We want the kids’ first encounter with opera to make an impression, so we make sure they are working with artists at the top of their game. They rehearse and perform alongside members of our acclaimed Cafritz Young Artists Program and members of the WNO Orchestra…. [N]o matter what path they pursue in life, they will leave the experience with an appreciation for the hard work—and great reward—associated with artistic creation.

This production was filled with color and movement (set designer, James Rotondo; costume designer, Erik Teague; lighting designer, Amith Chandrashaker). And every adult audience member, whether parent or not, took joy, pride, and a little anxiety in the proceedings.

In its brisk 80 minutes (including intermission), The Jungle Book covers a lot of existential territory that adults sometimes forget children experience intensely. The narrative addresses such questions as:

How can I be safe when the world has such terrors (and tigers!) in it?
How do I secure to myself the protection of the tribe that I find myself in when I am the only one of my kind in this tribe?
How can I be useful, or important, to the tribe?
How do I get my tribe to love me?

One day, while playing at the edge of his village, Mowgli was trapped by the tiger Shere Khan. Mowgli’s mother intervened and, to save Mowgli’s life, sacrificed her own, dying at the teeth and claws of Shere Khan. Mowgli becomes an orphaned human cub who seeks asylum in the company of a pack of wolves. While debate about whether to allow Mowgli to remain in the wolf tribe proceeds, Mowgli is indoctrinated into the laws of how to conduct one’s life as a member of the tribe. Learning that there is a red flower that kept Shere Khan from actually entering the village where Mowgli and his mother lived, Mowgli decides to obtain the flower for the protection of the wolf pack. Mowgli returns with the flower just as Shere Khan is in the process of seizing one of the wolf cubs. At the sight of the flower, Shere Khan surrenders. Learning that Shere Khan is only mean because he has no pack of his own, the wolf pack offers the tiger the opportunity to be part of their pack.

The production includes large puppets in an eclectic style that we have become used to since The Lion King. Cast members wear and manipulate parts of the puppets. Floating atop long poles, birds fly through the aisles of the theater. Shere Khan — the tiger — is in three parts: two large legs/haunches and one gigantic head, all brilliantly colored and evocatively operated. There is a monkey that rides on a cycle that is propelled by a human partner pushing the bicycle. The wolf pack is composed of members of the Washington National Youth Chorus, who are joined in this production by members of the Taal Academy of Dance.

Kelley Rourke is the librettist for this opera version. The composer is Kamala Sankaram. Francesca Zambello and Brenna Corner co-directed the production, and Shuchi Buch choreographed. Kipling’s authentic affection for India is filtered through the colonial lens he inherited. The opera, which premiered in a shorter form at the Glimmerglass Festival, infuses Kipling’s story of India with “a sonic environment that draws from Indian classical music traditions” that predate European classical music by hundreds of years.

By including some of the students from the Taal Academy of Dance in the cast, Choreographer Shuchi Buch was enable to bring traditional Indian dance and storytelling forms called Bharatanatyam into the production. This brought the audience and performers into more immediate and visceral contact with the musical-physical soul of the Indian storytelling legacy that underlies Kipling’s tale.

All of the cast members were enjoyable, including Nicholas Huff, who, at the performance I attended, stepped in for Sahel Salam and sang the role of Shere Khan from the orchestra pit, while Antonio Montalvo and Chivas Merchant-Buckman, inhabiting the tiger’s puppet/costume, walked the role onstage.

Also in the cast were Vivian Warren and Anoushka Sharma (alternating as Mowgli), Declan Fennell (Little Brother), Kresley Figueroa (Bagheera), Vivian Goodwin (Hyena), Michelle Mariposa (Raksha), and Sergio Martinez (Baloo).

Washington National Opera continues to expand our idea of who opera is for and whose story gets told. With The Jungle Book, this company maintains its commitment to ensuring that the opera stage reflect a larger world than it has in the past.

Running Time: 80 minutes including a 20-minute intermission.

The Jungle Book played December 13 through December 16, 2024, in the Terrace Theater at The Kennedy Center, 2700 F St NW, Washington, DC.

The program for The Jungle Book is online here.

The Jungle Book
Based on the stories by Rudyard Kipling
Music by Kamala Sankaram
Libretto by Kelley Rourke
Co-Directors: Francesca Zambello & Brenna Corner
Conductor: Stephanie Rhodes Russell

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IN Series’ long-awaited production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto has finally opened to boisterous applause and standing ovations. Originally scheduled for the 2019/20 lineup, the show was one of many to be suspended due to COVID but is now showing at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center.

Verdi’s classic opera is being referred to as a “circus version,” so the action takes place in the ring rather than the palace of the Duke of Mantua. Instead of Italian, it has been adapted into English, with a new text by Bari Biern and a new orchestration by Timothy Nelson. The on-stage band, pared down from the usual orchestra, incorporates a taste of carnival into the score and is led by Music Director and Pianist Emily Baltzer.

The story, based on the play Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo, focuses on a jester, Rigoletto (meaning “to laugh”), in the court of a licentious and excessive Duke. At one of the Duke’s many orgies, Rigoletto mocks the husband of the Countess, whom the Duke is shamelessly pursuing. The other courtiers joke about the hunchbacked Rigoletto shockingly having a lover. And an elderly man curses both the Duke (for seducing his daughter) and Rigoletto (for mocking his pain). This opening scene, with many layers of debauchery and disrespect, is what motivates the rest of the storyline with separate yet interwoven vows of revenge.

Jonathan Dahm Robertson’s set design appears rather humble, yet perfectly suited for what can be expected of a circus tent. Blocks form a broken circle in the middle of the stage, serving as chairs, stools, or whatever the needs of the scene call for. A large curtain is upstage center, where many of the actors enter and exit, but also serves as a shadow screen, backlit to project scenes behind it or distort the size of a figure about to burst through onto the stage.

For a traditional cast of 13, not including a chorus to serve as courtiers and guests, this seven-actor ensemble is significantly smaller, but Costume Designer Donna Breslin helps to make the transition effective with the theme, using assorted capes, masks, hats, and even a muscle-man body suit to differentiate the characters. And, of course, the customary clown makeup, with exaggerated expressions, adds another layer of ambiguity to some of the performers.

Tenor Brian Arreola plays the shamelessly flirtatious scallywag Duke almost too well but is instead a mime in this iteration. He parades about the stage with comically puffed pride, oblivious to his effect on others. The Duke is far from a sympathetic role, but there is a level of charm required to avoid being labeled an absolute villain, and Arreola succeeds by embodying a playful, albeit careless, lover as he sings about the fickleness of women without a care in the world.

Chad Louwerse is Rigoletto, the fool of the bunch, who jokes with the Duke but is respected by no one. That is except for his daughter, Gilda (Teresa Ferrara), whom he keeps hidden away far from the rudeness of the court in order to protect her. Louwerse is the janitor of the circus, signifying the lowness of his position to performers of the troupe, comparable to that of a jester and courtier. Louwerse exhibits his versatility as Rigoletto, capturing his complexity when playing the joker, lamenting the curse, doting on his beloved Gilda, and railing in anger about her kidnapping.

Ferrara’s Gilda carries a single red balloon and displays childlike mannerisms with her posture and hesitance. She sings the infamous “Caro nome” and balances on top of the ring of boxes as if on a high wire. Ferrara and Louwerse’s interactions are touching and display a tenderness and genuine affection that is otherwise completely absent from the tragic opera.

Greg Sliskovich as Borsa and Henrique Carvahlo as Marulo are the clowns in the company but also fill in as guests. The pair more than compensate for the vast number of parts they represent with a menacing presence and booming voices. Along with the clown (and sometimes strongman), Andrew Adelsberger portrayed the murderous Sparafucile and Monterone, the father who issues the curse that sets the mayhem into action.

Elizabeth Mondragon is credited as Maddalena (who appears in the final act) but stands in for multiple parts, as well. Dressed like the ringmaster, she looms about the stage, silently but with an evil look and a sense of foreboding that always seemed to remind the audience that despite the festival aesthetic and occasional laughter, this event was indeed a tragedy.

And there were several amusing moments of levity amid the deception and doom. Arreola’s Duke disguises himself as Rigoletto’s maid, Giovanna, using a wrap and a strategically placed mophead to cover his face. Ferrara’s Gilda pretends to inhale the helium from her little red balloon to help hit a particularly high note of her aria. And Sliskovich’s Borsa appears to meander onstage with a cigar in one hand and a balloon on a dog leash in the other, as one does when in a circus act.

IN Series’ Rigoletto is far from the norm for regular opera goers, but the reduced size of the show, both visually and sonically, did minimize the intimidating aspect of the genre that often keeps opera virgins away. The adapted music was still gorgeously played with the occasional circus-esque accent and trained voices executing Verdi’s trimmed masterpiece well.

And the powerful moral of the material hit as harshly as ever, cautioning against the dark and disturbing ways that vengeance corrodes the soul and more often creates further pain rather than peace or healing.

I don’t know whether the choice to shrink the cast, translate the lyrics into English, and change the set to the familiar setting of an American circus was done with the intention of making opera more accessible, easier to understand, and more relatable to the common theatergoer, who may otherwise shy away, but that is indeed what has been done.

Overall, the production was wonderfully acted and sung. And while I may not understand every creative choice, I can recognize the skill and talent involved in taking a well-known work and molding it into something else — still beautiful, staying true to the meat of the storyline, and adding a personal modern touch. I would love to see it again to see if I can catch some other more subtle alterations that may have gone unnoticed. Or just to sit and enjoy a wonderful piece of live theater.

Rigoletto is the second of IN Series’ 2024/25 season, aptly titled “Illicit Opera,” showcasing art that was originally banned due to political and socially motivated censorship: a neutral word for the oppression of new or different voices in creativity that we are again facing in our world today. The next installment of IN Series’ “Illicit Opera” season will be Monteverdi’s Poppea and is scheduled to open in March 2025.

Running Time: Approximately two hours and 30 minutes, with one 15-minute intermission.

Rigoletto plays through December 15, 2024, presented by IN Series performing at the Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater in the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center, 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC. Purchase tickets ($72 for reserved seating, $57–4$2 for general seating, and $35 for students) online or by calling 202-204-7763.

Rigoletto also plays December 11 and 12, 2024, at the Baltimore Theatre Project, 45 West Preston St., Baltimore, MD. Purchase tickets ($20–$30) online or by calling 410-752-8558.

Rigoletto
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
New English Text by Bari Biern

CAST
Brian Arreola: The Duke; Teresa Ferrara: Gilda; Elizabeth Mondragon: Maddalena; Chad Louwerse: Rigoletto; Andrew Adelsberger: Sparafucile/Monterone; Greg Sliskovich: Borsa; Henrique Carvahlo: Marulo

PRODUCTION TEAM
New Orchestration: Timothy Nelson; Stage Director: Timothy Nelson; Music Director/Pianist: Emily Baltzer; Set Designer: Jonathan Dahm Robertson^; Costume Designer: Donna Breslin; Lighting Designer: Paul Callahan^; Production Manager: Tori Schuchmann; Technical Directors: Willow McFadden and Megan Amos; Stage Manager: Hannah Blaile
^: Member of United Scenic Artists

INSTRUMENTALISTS
Patrick Crossland; Kaitlin Gimm; Cheryl Hill; Carrie Rose; Jeff Thurston; Maxfield Wollam-Fisher

SEE ALSO:
IN Series to present circus version of censored Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ (news story, October 18, 2024)

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