“Superb singing and spectacular visual elements, firmly supported by conductor Emmanuel Villaume and the Dallas Opera Orchestra, resulted in an uproarious ovation at the close of The Dallas Opera's production of Wagner's Das Rheingold Friday night at Winspear Opera House……. The physical sets, designed by Erhard Rom, are minimal platforms……but the projected images, also by Rom, present breathtaking and evocative visions, and serve as an essential element toward maintaining interest throughout the lengthy time-span of Das Rheingold. The audience initially approaches planet Earth from afar; eventually, Valhalla towers as a sleek modern office complex viewed from below. The Rhine shimmers, and Donner's thunderstorm lifts us into a whirling cyclone of clouds from which the rainbow emerges; we approach Alberich's mines through a dizzying descent via industrial elevators and iron bridges.”

Wayne Lee Gay, Onstage NTX

“…this Rheingold has a sci-fi look with much use of high-def video projections……This is one of the most impressive Dallas Opera performances I’ve seen over the last quarter century.”

Scott Cantrell, The Dallas Morning News

“….the staging blends the flamboyant dreamscapes of fantasy and lore with the industrial coldness of familiar, modern-day imagery……posing the universality and timelessness of legend as a vehicle for analyzing critically the dire truths of the present time.”

Richard Sylvester Oliver, Texas Classical Review

“Like the opera itself, the brilliant set design by Erhard Rom in this magnificent WNO production combines both classical and modernist features”

Dr. Mark Dreisonstok, MD Theatre Guide

“Set designer Erhard Rom…enhanced Zambello’s sharp focus on performance with restraint that never felt timid. Rom’s set evokes a moment of consequential stillness in an era in active collapse.”

Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post

“Erhard Rom’s gray-dominated unit set, a study in angularity, evoked a house of shards. Spiky remnants from Agamemnon’s former palace anchored one side of the stage, a huge pillar the other, with a pile of earthen rubble in between. In the rear, a slanted ramp led to the new royal quarters (and served as a convenient place for murders to be carried out in full view).”

Tim Smith, Opera News

“Erhard Rom’s set is an interesting mix of classical and modern…… the set is massive and modernist, with structures at disquieting angles, suggesting to me, at least, the links between Bronze Age revenge and the revanchist nationalism of today.”

Bob Ashby, DC Theatre Arts

“The set design was stellar….Designer Erhard Rom provided a number of broad palettes for Projection Designer S. Katy Tucker to work with. The effect of their combined work was stunning.”

Darby DeJarnette, DC Theatre Arts

“Erhard Rom’s spare, industrial sets…. could easily have tilted itself right into Obsession-ad minimalism. Instead, his long, graceful lines and simple surfaces helped gently channel our attention…….I don’t usually foreground the background, but this approach to “trovatore” went a long way in making the music so lucid and vivid.”

Michael Andor Brodeur, Washington Post

“The spectacular set and projection design, which is the same used by Minnesota Opera, is easily the best part of the production.”

Chris Arneson, Broadway World

“..the breakout star of the night is Scenic Designer Erhard Rom, whose living, breathing set, fueled by shadows and projected video animations, becomes a haunting character unto itself, one that fluidly blends past and present, the living and the dead.”

John Moore, The Denver Gazette

“….the Commendatore comes for dinner as a monumental statue …… one of the most memorable stagings of Don Giovanni I have ever seen. The descent to hell was particularly great, as the statue broke in half and both real fire and projections overtook our rakish anti-hero.”

The Opera Tattler

“I had to give Rom credit for the pièce de resistance of the night, the towering 24-feet tall bust of Commendatore.…….. needless to say the sight of it—which then split in half and swallowed Don Giovanni in the final scene—truly created a jaw-dropping spectacle and provided the show with a much-needed burst of excitement that late in the game.”

“Erhard Rom’s mostly static set split the House into two sides with the crack in the middle, which seemed to account for the downfall of both the House and the society. In between these sides, a raised platform was placed, where some actions happened during the opera.”

“So run, don’t walk, to see a performance of Don Giovanni at War Memorial….. as a performance of this caliber is hard to find!

Michael Anthonio - Parterre Box

Prague Quadrennial 2019 interview : https://www.spreaker.com/user/11279157/erhard-rom

But the ultimate star here was the production itself, a tour de force for Chicago Opera Theater with many moving parts in Erhard Rom’s ingenious scenic design.

-Howard Reich, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

 showcasing the ingenious imagination of Rom and the production team. What’s more, this imagination continues throughout the entirety of the piece, holding twists, turns, and surprises for the audience every step of the way.

-Spicer W. Carr, FRONT ROW REVIEWERS UTAH

 Set designer Erhard Rom is celebrated not only for his artistic gifts but also for mounting attractive multiple sets with economy of means.

-James Sohre, OPERA TODAY

 Otello's other great strength is its striking sets and imagery by Erhard Rom, the designer who made such an unforgettable impact with 2010’s Nixon in China.

- Janet Smith, THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT

 Matching the intensity of the performances is Erhard Rom's artful design.

-Janet Smith, THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT

 …looming set designs by Erhard Rom. The claustrophobic interiors, cut with images of incarceration, were central to the production's success …. a "really bold and fascinating" interpretation, "right up there" with the best

- Terry Blain, THE STAR TRIBUNE

 Erhard Rom's tiered unit set…. proved incredibly versatile. Projections swiftly created a steamy lakeside, and added texture to the more spartan prevailing environments.

- Katherine Syer, BACHTRACK

 ...the current production is an exquisite work of stagecraft…...The creative team's work is wonderful…... Projections are used intelligently, not as replacements for set pieces but to bring additional dimensions to the environment….

-Arthur Dorman, TALKIN’ BROADWAY

 …..a sizable financial investment in the creative powers of scenic designer Erhard Rom….The setting, originally intended to be the palace of Herod Antipas in Judea circa 30 A.D., was altered in Atlanta to portray an ambiguous era……Rom’s set was off-kilter and industrial: a cistern with a massive, metal grate atop dominated the space. Above all hovered a hulking, omnipresent moon that grew larger and glowed red after Jochanaan was beheaded.

-Stephanie Adrian, OPERA NEWS

 …..set and projections Erhard Rom…the story’s timelessness is front and center. Projections are used not to replace scenery, rather to help penetrate and illuminate the inner psyche….The stage becomes no longer representational, but a theater of the mind…….visually dominating the opera’s final scene……. much remains an enigma, left to poetic interpretation. It does not want to answer all questions and is more powerful by not doing so.

-Mark Gresham, EEarRelevant

a projection sequence displayed on the now giant moon during Salome’s epic final scene, juxtaposed with the princess cradling the covered severed head of Johanaan was extraordinarily disturbing and inspired Grand Guinol.

- Daniel Vasquez, Opera newoutpost.com

Director Michael Cavanagh and set designer Erhard Rom have created a cinematic performance, in which the drifting clouds in the opening scene in retrospect appears as the central metaphors……. a cloud world where everything seems solid, at any time can change shape.

-Per Svensson, Cultural Scene Reviews

Nixon in Stockholm an aural and visual spectacle…. The production…. is so closely integrated with the music and surprises with exquisitely chiseled details….. The landing of Spirit of ’76 is breathtaking when suddenly the enormous Boeing 707 fills the whole width of the stage. Sometimes the realism – which is rather stylized anyway – gives way for dreamlike sequences. It is so admirably done.

- Göran Forsling, Seenandheard-international.com

Designer Erhard Rom artfully mixes video projections and physical structures to make us feel like we’re in the middle of events.

-David Karlin

The creative juices of Erhard Rom (sets), Constance Hoffman (costumes) and Jane Cox (lighting) combine in a delicious blend of adaptable spaces, quirkinesses and subtlety. Cavanagh, in all the deftly directed comic footwork he creates, couldn’t have asked for a more evocative scenographic picture.

-OperaCaser

The physical production is impressive, featuring an elegant 18th-century manor house that’s still under construction. The clever set design by Erhard Rom includes a mix of neoclassical structures and architectural drawings on flats that look like huge sheets of drafting paper with grids. It allows the story to move quickly from a drawing room to an exterior facade to a study or lovely garden.

-Stephen West, Cultural Weekly

…brilliantly staged and cleverly designed….Erhard Rom’s beautifully rendered set…

-Steven Winn, Opera Magazine

Elements cohered like clockwork…. San Francisco Opera’s vibrant production ….Erhard Rom’s sets, softly lit by Jane Cox, featured high-ceilinged rooms and floating walls that resembled architectural drawings.

-Georgia Rowe, Opera News

With set designer Erhard Rom director Cavanagh created a setting that was fully 18th century in image and fully 21st century in technique with the set participating in the action. …a huge architectural drawing…. slowly morphing, videographically, into a fully realized façade elevation (drawing) of the aristocratic home we were about to enter. This occurred in precise, riveting synchrony to Mozart’s well-conducted overture. It was a visual distraction, very finely and thoroughly done…

-Michael Milenski, OPERA TODAY

Erhard Rom’s 18th-century American manor house set, a toy box deconstruction that takes shape during the overture and gains three-dimensional depth and stature through the action, serves as an ideal vessel and an architectural delight in its own right……. Cavanagh and his collaborators give this romantic roundelay a new dimension.

-Steven Winn, San Francisco Classical Voice

 

L’étoile Magazine

Todd O'Dowd

 “one of the most sumptuous and startling productions I have ever seen Minnesota Opera attempt. From its first images of the shifting projected mountains to simulate the drive to the Overlook Hotel, this is one of the most ambitious physical productions in the company’s history and the risks they take pay off big time; creating some gorgeous stage pictures and some genuinely terrifying moments"

 

Wall Street Journal

HEIDI WALESON

“Minnesota spent some real money on the production: Erhard Rom’s detailed set cleverly created not only the Overlook’s grandeur and emptiness, but intimacy with smaller rooms that slid on and offstage.”

TWIN CITIES pioneer press

ROB HUBBARD

 “I can’t recall an opera in which the villain is a building. But that’s the case with The Shining”

“And what a building it is. Thanks to the inspired intersection of Erhard Rom’s stately set and the swirling, spooky projections of 59 Productions…..  The Shining is an unqualified success”

Classical Music

by Jay Gabler

“If there's ever a show where the setting is its own character, it's this one, and the infamous Overlook is realized as a striking (so to speak) set by Erhard Rom, elements sliding aside as the characters penetrate more deeply into the hotel's dark heart. The eerie Room 217 literally glows with menace; lighting designer Robert Wierzel uses heavenly glows to fiendish effect.”

Musical America - Thomas May     “Production values were excellent across the board. Erhard Rom’s dazzling, readily reconfigurable sets capture the Overlook’s sprawling elegance and, at the same time, its claustrophobia.”

 Talkin’ Broadway - Arthur Dorman       “the physical production is ingenious”

Star Tribune- MICHAEL ANTHONY       “eye-filling multimedia production”  “The production Simonson and his team put together can only be called brilliant"

SHARPS & FLATIRONS

Peter Alexander

"The Shining received a stunning production that realized the full potential of the score.”

“Minnesota Opera’s production is a dazzling tour de force. The beautiful projections that place the actors on a mountain road and beside a peaceful lake are impressive enough, but even more impressive are the scenes in the hotel, with a combination of atmospheric projections that heighten the mood and sliding units that shift (almost) seamlessly from room to room.”

OPERA NEWS Joshua Rosenblum 

“Director Eric Simonson’s imaginative, kaleidoscopic production gives a sense of the Overlook’s threatening vastness. Through the effective integration of animated projections (by 59 Productions), sliding sets (by Erhard Rom), and cleverly deployed scrim effects, the hotel itself becomes the prime malevolent force in the proceedings. Costume designer Kärin Kopischke populates the stage with a rogue’s gallery of creepy revelers in the ballroom scenes, and Robert Wierzel’s haunted-house lighting is spot-on……..watching Vega’s Danny step slowly toward the bathtub with the drawn curtain in the forbidden room 217 was as riveting as anything I’ve ever seen in a theater. What a wonderful thing to be able to say about a new American opera. “

MN Playlist 

IRA BROOKER

“Of course, one of the most important roles in The Shining is entirely non-verbal, that of the Overlook Hotel itself. Erhard Rom’s production team has created a memorable, elegantly appointed set that captures the spirit of a grand estate sliding into obsolescence. A clever arrangement of self-contained, movable rooms allows the action to shift effortlessly from lobby to bedroom to pantry as sets are wheeled on and off stage…….. this is a worthy production propelled by majestic design, full-bodied performances and impressive ambition”

My Cultural Landscape

By George Heymont    SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2015

“With impressive scenery and projections designed by Erhard Rom, costumes by Mattie Ullrich, and lighting by Gary Marder, the production's rich visuals were strengthened by the use of forced perspective and, in the wedding scene, a cluster of giddily sculpted floral hats for the female chorus.”

“While some traditionalists in the audience were horrified by the look of San Francisco Opera's new production, I was absolutely thrilled by it. The design concept created the kind of dramatic tension which has long evaporated from most stagings of Donizetti's opera.”

“This handsome new production was a triumph for David Gockley's administration in its final year of leadership.”

Soprano Nadine Sierra’s, Director Michael Cavanagh’s Vivid “Lucia di Lammermoor” – San Francisco Opera, October 8, 2015

“I regard the Cavanagh-Rom production of “Lucia di Lammermoor”, which incorporates forward-looking technologies to enhance the operatic experience, as one of most effective new productions in the extraordinary ten-year stewardship of San Francisco Opera’s General Director David Gockley.”

 “The San Francisco Opera mounted an illuminating new production of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”, staged by Canadian director Michael Cavanagh, with notably effective sets and projections by Washington scenic designer Erhard Rom…..However Cavanagh and Rom came to the visual presentation of the opera, it certainly is the most striking and absorbing production of “Lucia” in San Francisco Opera history”

“The “Lucia” production suggests that the mix of highly dramatic staging and imposing sets with spectacular projections provides a means of mounting the Italian bel canto operas of the 1830s and 1840s, many of which are undeservedly underperformed.”

Opera Warhorses - October 10, 2015

 “Most productions of Donizetti’s bel canto classic arrive with few conceptual notions attached. Michael Cavanagh’s staging for the San Francisco Opera overflows with them, and they suggest myriad interpretations. The romantic era of Walter Scott has yielded to a modern landscape, in which Lucia is a pawn in her brother’s corrupt land swindle, unfolding in an elegant mausoleum and a posh executive office. …..ghosts saunter through Erhard Rom’s marble-surfaced décor”

“Best of it all is the Wolf Crag, staged on a chessboard in a foggy void, with the two participants circling each other like gladiators. It is opera as blood sport and in this setting simply wonderful”

Allan Ulrich - Financial Times October 12, 2015 5:59 pm

 “Director Michael Cavanagh staged the Sir Walter Scott story on which the opera is based in a modern-mythic Scotland, employing the sepulchral coldness of a banked marble-colored set. Erhard Rom’s video projections of mist-shrouded highlands and roiling coastal waters reinforced the gray mood.”

James Ambroff-Tahan - The San Francisco Examiner October 9, 2015

“This is a new production, and Erhard Rom's striking sets and Michael Cavanagh's uncluttered direction serves the opera well. The great hall of Lammermoor Castle, where Enrico strives for success, smacks of a corporate boardroom, and the slaying of Arturo in the nuptial bedroom was persuasively staged to show Lucia's final unraveling. The cold marble garden where the opera plays out underscores Edgardo's loss and demise”.

 By CAROLINE CRAWFORD - BAY CITY NEWS SERVICEOctober 12, 2015

“SF Opera’s new production of “Lucia di Lammermoor” captures our imaginations immediately with Scenic and Projection Designer Erhard Rom’s amazing, cinematic evocation of rural Scotland as the fog pours over the stage amidst convincing clouds that seem to hug the ground. The opening sequence offers moments of amazing visual enchantment.”

By Charles Kruger- TheatreStorm

THEATER REVIEW: ‘Wreckers,’ rare opera penned by woman,

opens at Bard

July 27, 2015 by MARION HUNTER

“The Wreckers” / Opera by Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) / Bard SummerScape

“Visually the production is stunning (design by Erhard Rom). The opening set features the mast of a destroyed ship, which leans into the blue-gray space like a wounded crucifix. Giant human shadows on the back wall hover over scenes. Rectangular, slatted cargo boxes are piled into the sky, offering limitless levels for the cast to use. The boxes, with their vertical slats, create a flexible pallet of lines (sometimes internally lit). The boxes, along with long boards, bring to mind a Braque painting. They morph into a mountaintop, a storm cloud, a cave with boxy stalactites and stalagmites, and finally into a giant wave that descends over the ill-fated lovers. The lovers are each bound to—what else? A cargo box. Exquisite, emotional lighting bathes every scene and clarifies who, among the crowd, is singing.”

Bachtrack:

Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers thrillingly staged in

New York

**** By Robert Levine, 27 July 2015

“Erhard Rom’s sets for Bard’s production, abetted by Hannah Wasileski’s projections and JAX Messenger’s lighting, evoke the coastline well; crates, planks of wood and sheets standing for sails litter the stage, a broken mast is seen in Act I and the projections give us the feel of the dreadful weather and harsh coast. We see the villagers plundering and murdering their latest victims during the overture – a good directorial touch by Thaddeus Strassberger – who also manages to convey the town’s desperation well. With its piles of crates, the set is an obstacle course, but it helps Strassberger keep the choral formations interesting. The acting of the soloists is natural..“

Time Out New York 

New York

By David Cote

Weekend getaway: SummerScape presents opera

rarity The Wreckers

“Erhard Rom’s unit set is built of dozens of crates littering the stage and stacked up high, forming towering grim cliffs, seashores, or suggesting church and town square. Actors step carefully from crate to crate in the downstage area, as if navigating steppingstones by the sea. The lighting by JAX Messenger was appropriately grisly red at times, shadowy at others. Hannah Wasileski’s video projection added textures of rippling water and flame as needed…. Strassberger’s staging is gently abstract but grounded in a persuasive psychological reading and maintains the period.”

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Heidi Waleson

July 27, 2015 6:30 p.m. ET

Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

The Wreckers  Bard SummerScape

 “Erhard Rom’s set, a beach packed with towering piles of crates, presumably representing many years’ worth of spoils, made movement precarious, but Mr. Strassberger’s direction kept the energy high and the villagers in a permanent state of fury and exaltation. Even the muscular Act I prelude was staged as an orgy of pillage and murder, and the act’s choral finale—an enthusiastic expectation of more of the same—had the look of Broadway’s “Les Mis.” Kaye Voyce’s period costumes were properly bedraggled, and the lighting by JAX Messenger was alternately creepy and drenched in red.”

THEATER REVIEW | Minnesota Opera's "Carmen" heats up the Ordway

By Basil Considine, TC Daily Planet

May 04, 2015

The opera Carmen needs little introduction, but much can be said about how Minnesota Opera’s current production does things well. This classic femme fatale story is presented in Spain in the 1970s, when the Sexual Revolution first began to erode the edges of a conservative Catholicism previously enforced – sometimes brutally – by the repressive fascist regime of Generalissimo Franco. (The modern stereotype of sleazy Spanish men comes from just after this period.) This decision by director Michael Cavanagh heightens many tensions within the source material, and is a splendid excuse for a retrofabulous costume excursion. The music may be the same as normal, but the updated setting makes the characters much more relatable and heightens the already elevated emotional stakes.

 The orchestra at the reviewed performance was tightly led by Aaron Breid, who injected an extra bounce into several scenes to propel the dancing along. Jessica Jahn’s period costumes are eye-catching and attractive, while the stark Modernist surfaces of Erhard Rom’s setting offset well the onstage heat. The final stabbing scene, set against a backdrop of crowds at the back of a stadium with flower petals raining down, is an especially arresting image to end the evening

TwinCities PIONEER PRESS

'Carmen' review: Minnesota Opera shifts story

  to '70s, and it soars

By Rob Hubbard
Special to the Pioneer Press                 

Who would think that the story of a promiscuous barfly and her stalker would become one of the world's most popular operas? But Georges Bizet's "Carmen" is certainly that, and Minnesota Opera's season-closing production underlines its attractiveness: Before it even opened Saturday night at St. Paul's Ordway Music Theater, it already had sold more tickets than any production in the company's half-century history.

There's a caveat with that: Minnesota Opera is offering about twice as many performances as customary. But its "Carmen" is a production with a lot of imagination and a very intriguing design (Erhard Rom sets,  Jessica Jahn costumes and Mark McCullough lighting).  And instead of being chiefly a showcase for its leads -- as "Carmen" has been known for many an opera star -- this is a very impressive ensemble piece, with minor characters fleshed out in fascinating fashion and outstanding singing coming from all corners of the cast.

But no matter which set of leads you get, the staging will give you plenty of fresh perspective on this oft-revived opera. Director Michael Cavanaugh maintains its original setting of Seville, Spain, but fast-forwards to 1975, right after the death of oppressive dictator Francisco Franco. There's chaos and corruption as military rule crumbles, and opening to the outside world involves garish wardrobes, disco dance moves and porn smuggling. Amid all this, Carmen seduces hapless soldiers and a superstar bullfighter before becoming the object of a most unhealthy obsession.

 Minnesota Opera's production deserves kudos for developing such an original approach to the work and throwing so much talent and energy into it.

International Opera Awards

On Wednesday 14 January 2015, at HUSH in Mayfair, the finalists of the International Opera Awards 2015 were announced. These were selected by the jury chaired by John Allison, editor of Opera magazine and classical music critic with The Daily Telegraph.

John Allison was joined on the jury by Peter Alward, Managing Director and Intendant of the Salzburg Easter Festival,Per Boye Hansen, Artistic Director of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, Kathryn Harries, Director of the National Opera Studio, Evans Mirageas, Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera and the Vice-President for Artistic Planning for The Atlanta Symphony and Nicholas Payne, Director of Opera Europa.

Also on the jury were Hugh Canning, chief music critic for the The Sunday Times and regular Opera contributor, George Loomis who covers opera and classical music for the International Herald Tribune, MusicalAmerica.com, The Financial Times and Opera, Belgian critic Erna Metdepenninghen, formerly of De Standaard, and a correspondent of Opera, andHugo Shirley, Deputy Editor of Opera, music critic for Gramophone and The Daily Telegraph.

http://www.operaawards.org

Nominations

Conductor

Semyon Bychkov, Edward Gardner, Lothar Koenigs, Gianandrea Noseda, Carlo Rizzi, Christian Thielemann

Designer

Es Devlin, Klaus Grunberg, Michael Levine, Erhard Rom, Jürgen Rose, Paul Steinberg

Director

David Alden, Calixto Bieito, Robert Carsen, Richard Jones, Christof Loy, Graham Vic

Female Singer

Joyce DiDonato, Anja Harteros, Liudmyla Monastyrska, Anna Netrebko, Anita Rachvelishvili, Sonya Yoncheva

Male Singer

Lawrence Brownlee, Iestyn Davies, Christian Gerhaher, John Osborn. Michael Spyres, Ludovic Tézier

Readers' Award

Piotr Beczala, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Susan Graham, Jonas Kaufmann, Aleksandra Kurzak, Mariusz Kwiecien,

Karita Mattila, Nina Stemme

OPERA NEWS

Semele

Seattle Opera

2/21/15

Seattle Opera scored an extraordinary triumph with its brand-new Semele (seen Feb. 21 and 22), a timeless and beautiful modern-dress production that delivered “endless pleasure” indeed.  Stage director Tomer Zvulun, designers Erhard Rom (sets), Vita Tzykun (costumes) and Robert Wierzel (lighting) and choreographer Donald Byrd did outstanding work on Handel’s opera, based on the myth of the mortal woman Semele and her affair with Jupiter, king of the gods.

During the overture, large headshots of gods projected on a scrim and the small figures of mortals seen through it introduced the characters and cast. While sacrificial flames rose on earth, the elevated Semele aspired to rise higher, to Jupiter in the clouds. During the choral bursts “Avert these omens” and “Cease, cease your vows,” lightning streaked the sky, and six dancers in blue leotards, faces painted and hair dyed blue, streaked the stage. When her union with Jupiter had been achieved, Semele sang “Endless pleasure” in a sensuous maroon gown, seeming to emerge from the shadowed petals of a huge pink rose.   

As Act II began, a projection of Greece’s Mt. Olympus morphed into one of gold-crowned Juno. Iris, Juno’s mercurial spy, sported a Trojan helmet with headlamp and winged shoes with lights under the heels, and her fingers shot green lasers that oscillated when she trilled. Semele sang “O sleep, why dost thou leave me” in a bedroom with elegant white curtains and a view of Olympus with gleaming glacier. The moon rose over the mountain for Jupiter’s “Where’er you walk,” stars revolved for Ino’s “But hark, the heav’nly sphere turns round,” and earth rotated for the chorus “Bless the glad earth.”

Act III’s “Cave of Sleep” was here the “Somnus Night Club & Lounge,” the somnolent god trailing a great cape light-studded with constellations. Semele’s “My racking thoughts” was staged as a clear counterpart to “O sleep,” her “visionary joys” now become “painful nights.” As she warbled “Myself I shall adore,” pictures of herself popped up all over the set. She expired before a screen of flames around an image of Jupiter and was solemnly borne off by the dancers. Apollo, his image projected onscreen and his voice amplified, foretold the birth of Bacchus from her ashes. A frieze of Bacchus, grapes and leaves hung for the joyful final chorus.

Singing her first Semele, Brenda Rae was sensual in “O Sleep” and “With fond desiring,” dazzling in the coloratura of “Myself I shall adore” and long runs of “No, no, I’ll take no less,” and moving in her death scene. Time stopped when Rae and Stephanie Blythe sang the rapt beginning of the duet “Prepare then, ye immortal choir.” Imperious as Juno and affable as Semele’s sister Ino, Blythe had fun changing the color of her voice when Juno disguised herself as Ino, shifting from baleful to sweet for the last word of the aside “And sure destruction will ensue, vain wretched fool, adieu!” Blythe’s Juno had a special resonance due to her many Seattle performances of a similarly jealous goddess, Fricka.  

Looking like a long-haired rock star as Jupiter, Alek Shrader (who also doubled as Apollo) caught the potent rush of “I must with speed amuse her,” the liquid lyricism of “Where’er you walk” and the high tragedy of  “’Tis past, ’tis past recall, she must a victim fall.” John Del Carlo was an authoritative Cadmus and an amusing Somnus, his singing commanding if rough.  As Iris, Amanda Forsythe, possessor of a superb technique, was vocal and visual perfection.  The pleasant but modest countertenor of Randall Scotting, the Athamas, was overmatched by the voices of Blythe and Del Carlo.

Gary Thor Wedow, Seattle Opera’s go-to maestro for eighteenth-century music, conducted his most persuasive local performances yet. Nuanced dynamics enhanced “Endless pleasure,” and the chorus “Now Love that everlasting boy invites” throbbed with percussive verve. Period instruments — virginal (played by Wedow), harpsichord, portative organ, theorbo, guitar — augmented modern ones in an orchestra of thirty-seven musicians; the chorus was trimmed to twenty-eight.

In the second cast, lively Mary Feminear (Semele), rich-toned Deborah Nansteel (Juno/Ino) and finely focused Theo Lebow (Jupiter/Apollo) sang their roles effectively, if not at the level of Rae, Blythe and Shrader. 

MARK MANDEL

Silent Night wins award

Silent Night wins Audience Choice Award and Best

Opera Production Award at

the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards

(Sunday, 22 February, 2015) Silent Night by American composer Kevin Puts, last year’s critically acclaimed opera set against the backdrop of WWI, proved to be both the people’s and the judges’ favorite at the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards, as the Wexford production was awarded two accolades, including Best Opera Production and the inaugural An Post Irish Stamps Audience Choice Prize, in a Gala Ceremony at the National Concert Hall, Dublin this evening.  A total of seventeen productions, predominately theatre, were nominated in this public category, with Silent Night being one of only two operas eligible for the award.  For the public to vote an opera their favorite production of last year, is an encouraging development for Irish opera in general and Wexford Opera in particular.

This  brings the total of ten wins for Wexford Festival since the awards were founded in 1997 and the first time audiences were given a say in what they thought was the ‘Best Irish theatre production’ of 2014. 

 Artistic Director of Wexford Festival Opera, David Agler accepted the award on behalf of conductor, Michael Christie and director, Tomer Zvulun.  Speaking to Ireland’s opera and theatre community, David said, “;I wish to thank the Irish Times for their dedicated support for the arts and, in particular, for opera.  Opera is merely theatre on an epic scale and Wexford is extremely grateful to have this recognized by opera’s inclusion in these prestigious awards.”;

 He added, “Silent Night was a very special opera, not only artistically, but because of its subject matter and its significance in our collective history.  It is clear from this award tonight that our audiences were truly moved by the production and I wish to thank all of those who came to Silent Night and who voted for it.  It proved challenging to realize such a large and complicated opera and this would simply have not been possible without the generous support from the Arts Council.”;

Silent Night Review-Wexford Opera

Director Tomer Zvulun and set designer Erhard Rom divide the Wexford stage vertically, so that we see the three regiments stacked above one another; this is an ingenious design which allows us to witness simultaneous actions and experiences. In particular, the gradual drawing down of a grey curtain as the ‘disgraced’ regiments are sent to different points on the front line was powerfully evocative of the deaths which surely await them. In the pit, conductor Michael Christie did much to highlight the lyricism of the score.

Opera Today

Silent Night - Wexford Opera

For Silent Night, designer Erhard Rom erected a massive three-tiered set with very few other pieces, allowing the soldiers and other actors to 'decorate' the spaces, grouped by nationality. This edifice was augmented with carefully selected drops and meaningful projections that were incorporated into the flawless lighting design by the ubiquitous DM Wood. Simplicity of presentation was the key, as was clarity of the multiple characters and their relationships to each other. To that end, Tomer Zvulun's assured direction used economy of movement, isolation of areas, and layered uses of scrims. In one brilliant directorial stroke, I was suitably startled by the house lights coming on suddenly to announce the commencement of wartime hostilities, interrupting the duet being performed onstage at the Berlin Opera, and setting the perfect tone for all that follows.

ENSEMBLE

Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards

And the nominees are...

BEST OPERA PRODUCTION

Der Vampyr by Heinrich Marschner, directed by Michael Barker-Caven and John O’Brien for Everyman and Cork Operatic Society

The Rape of Lucretia by Benjamin Britten, directed by Michael Barker-Caven for Irish Youth Opera and Wexford Festival Opera

Silent Night by Kevin Puts, directed by Tomer Zvulun for Wexford Festival Opera

Macbeth by William Shakespeare, directed by Oliver Mears for Northern Ireland Opera

Opera Warhorses

Michael Cavanagh and Erhard Rom 

Gockley, one can safely surmise, was determined to create a production that not only would be a credit to the San Francisco Opera and to Carlisle Floyd and “Susannah”, but would also help transform such skeptics as might remain as to whether such an “American Opera” belongs in a world-class opera house.

A decision on par with his excellent casting choices, was his commission for the team – Canadian director Michael Cavanagh and Wasington state set designer Erhard Rom – that created the transformative production of Adams’ “Nixon in China” recently seen at the San Francisco Opera [see 25 Years Old, “Nixon in China” Arrives at San Francisco Opera – June 8, 2012] to create the “Susannah” production.

The beautiful projections that Cavanagh and Rom envisioned and Rom created were awe-inspiring. Cavanagh’s stage direction mixed an occasional scene before the curtain, with the actions on a unit that was built around a wooden floor.  That floor served for scenes of the square dance, for the front yard of the Polks’ home and for the church.

Then the production team brilliantly added flowing projections to evoke Susannah swimming nude in the “baptismal crick” and ethereal projections to express “the pretty night” of Susannah’s ballad.

The end result was not only the best production of “Susannah” ever mounted, but another milestone in the use of projections for producing opera.

Empowered Politics by David Littlejohn

Almost 25 years after its premiere in Houston and 40 years after the events it depicts, John Adams's first opera, "Nixon in China," opened in San Francisco earlier this month in a production far better than the Peter Sellars original.