by Barbara Waldinger Charles Gounod’s FAUST, currently playing at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, is the Berkshire Opera Festival’s first foray (now in its ninth season) into French grand opera. Maestro Brian Garman (Artistic Director, co-Founder and conductor), explains what that entails: “intimate and heartfelt melodies, spirited and rousing choruses,…
Berkshire Opera Festival has restored world-class, fully-staged opera to the Berkshires with savvy productions and superlative casts. This summer’s mainstage opera is a reimagined French classic: FAUST August 24 at 1PMAugust 27 at 7:30PMAugust 30 at 7:30 PM This new production of Gounod’s timeless masterpiece about a man who sells his soul to the…
Great Barrington, Mass.—The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center and Berkshire Opera Festival (BOF) are delighted to announce that the Mahaiwe is BOF’s new long-term home, through a multi-year residency. The Mahaiwe will present BOF’s mainstage production and other programming for the coming years, beginning with Gounod’s Faust this August 24, 27, and 30. The…
This spring, BOF proudly presents the first workshop performanceof a brand new opera from the Pulitzer Prize-winning composerof The Central Park Five and X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X: THE REEF April 10Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, New York CityA new opera (Act 1) by composer Anthony DavisLibretto by Joan Ross SorkinAdapted from the…
by Roseann Cane Today one of the most frequently performed operas in the world, La Bohème premiered in 1896 in Turin, conducted by the 28-year-old Arturo Toscanini. Set in Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1830s, it focuses on four young, impoverished bohemian artists, Marcello, a painter (baritone Benjamin Taylor);…
The “innovative, clever and thoroughly professional” (Bachtrack) Berkshire Opera Festival continues its 2023 summer season with a mainstage production of La Bohème on August 26, August 29, and September 1 at The Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, MA. One of the most beloved operatic love stories of all time, La Bohème is based on Henri Murger’s 1851 novel, Scènes de la vie de…
Berkshire Opera Festival opens its 2023 summer season with Breaking the Mold: Baroque, Bel Canto, and Beyond, a concert of arias and ensembles spanning 300 years, on July 22 at Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. The program traverses a vast range of musical eras and styles, from Handel to Heggie. The afternoon’s selections are sung by strong characters who each…
Berkshire Opera Festival presents:TO PARIS WITH LOVE – Opera in the City of Light Sunday, April 16 at 2 pm Saint James Place, 352 Main St., Great Barrington, Massachusetts Paris has inspired more artists to loftier heights of creativity than perhaps any other city. From Puccini to Massenet to Strauss,…
