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Artscope Magazine | January/February 2021

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Boston Lyric Opera

Nurse Bianca (Margaret Lattimore, r.) consoles Lucretia (Kelley O’Connor) who pines for her husband Collatinus in Boston Lyric Opera’s production of “The Rape of Lucretia” March 11-17 at Artists for Humanity EpiCenter.

BOSTON LYRIC OPERA’S ‘THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA’

// Artscope Online, Boston Lyric Opera, Featured, Review, Theatre

by James Foritano

Excellence can seem such a simple achievement. Merely assemble practiced, solid parts such as singer/actors, music and libretto (on a timeless theme) and put them on a stage-in-the-round so all their virtues wrap the audience in easy accessibility — not to mention three electronic boards with the dialogue raised high so it’s readable from every angle — and continue, for the duration, to stay out of the way, for goodness sake, until the play is done! Actually, there is some meddling with this simple formula which is so professional that one barely notices, but feels, the enhancements it delivers, while watching Benjamin Britten’s new Boston Lyric Opera production of “The Rape of Lucretia.” Three toughs who also happen to be aristocrats occupy a steep flight of stairs at stage rear of the opening scene. Between battles with a Greek army threatening Rome, they are contemplating what … [Read more...] about BOSTON LYRIC OPERA’S ‘THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA’

Tom Rakewell (Ben Bliss) falls captive to Mother Goose’s ladies (Photography by T Charles Erickson © T Charles Erickson Photography).

Boston Lyric Opera presents The Rake’s Progress

// Boston Lyric Opera, Music, Theatre

By James Foritano Boston, MA - A new production by director Allegra Libonati illuminates the Cutler Majestic’s historic stage and house with a tale at once simple and profound. Simple because, to the delight of this opera lover, the characters to keep in view form a neat triad of hero (Tom Rakewell, sung by Ben Bliss), heroine (Anne Trulove, sung by Anya Matanovic) and villain (Nick Shadow, sung by Kevin Burdette). Tom Rakewell is our wavering hero who charges off to London with a new inheritance, eying the goal of tasting all London’s sophisticated — and mostly low pleasures — while keeping intact the purity of his love to Anne Trulove. Nick is a dope, but a dope with the complication of deeper qualities which shine progressively albeit tragically stronger as his fate closes around him. Villain Nick Shadow is no dope; he’s a hunter of human folly so astute you might think … [Read more...] about Boston Lyric Opera presents The Rake’s Progress

Boston Lyric Opera Presents: The Merry Widow

// Theatre

by James Foritano There is an inspired moment, one could hardly call it a scene, in the Boston Lyric Opera’s current production on the Shubert Theater’s Stage, when an official messenger at the Pontevedrian Embassy in Paris describes with his full body, accompanied by lush sound effects, his interpretation of a submarine rising, raising its periscope, launching a torpedo and diving. The audience howls while the diplomats are alternately horrified, contemptuous and ultimately, uncomprehending. When Vienna’s storied Theater an der Wien launched composer Franz Lehar’s operetta, “The Merry Widow” (Die lustige Witwe), in 1905, it provoked hilarity enough to spread its reputation to every European capital and beyond. What exactly the audiences were laughing at, since the story in this famed operetta’s long history has been altered and up-dated many times, we’ll never … [Read more...] about Boston Lyric Opera Presents: The Merry Widow

Werther at Boston Lyric Opera

// Theatre

By James Foritano I go to opera because I feel that watching and listening from my seat I experience emotions and insights of a strength allied to but unavailable to me in other forms of art. And this indeed was the case in attending the Boston Lyric Opera’s presentation of Jules Massenet’s “Werther.” It takes ‘two to tango,’ as they say, and the truth of that moment came to me as Werther’s hero and heroine, tenor Alex Richardson as Werther, and mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy, tangled in the final act, voices and bodies, to bellow out a melodiously irresistible duet. I remember the usually mopping, tearful Werther’s white shirt bursting into a blaze of spot-lit radiance. The usually inhibited Charlotte leaning into Werther like a full-back straining for the goal posts; and Werther, no longer moppy, leaning into her as if to say with bodily force: “You’ve arrived, lady, at … [Read more...] about Werther at Boston Lyric Opera

Boston Lyric Opera's "In The Penal Colony" at the Cyclorama.

Boston Lyric Opera’s “In The Penal Colony” at the Cyclorama

// Theatre

By James Foritano   (On November 11-14, 2015, the Boston Lyric Opera Annex performed Philip Glass’ “In the Penal Colony” at the Cyclorama. Artscope’s James Foritano files this review of the show for the artscope zine.)   Boston, Mass. - The most compelling aspect of “In the Penal Colony,” composer Philip Glass’ contemporary opera inspired by the eponymous short story by Franz Kafka, is the haunting consonance between the music, the spare dialogue, and the dance-like motions of the three actor/singers on stage.   If you know Glass’ music, you know it’s about as repetitive and as nuanced as neurons firing. This narrow but intense range is mirrored in the spare dialogue and the acrobatic movements of three protagonists who enact ‘the victim,’ ‘the executioner’ and a ‘foreign visitor,’ who, he repeats often, is only there ‘out of courtesy.’   They … [Read more...] about Boston Lyric Opera’s “In The Penal Colony” at the Cyclorama