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…
by Barbara Waldinger In the age of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, how is a director embarking on a production of one of the many versions of the Don Juan story to approach the lasciviousness of the main character? Beginning in the Middle Ages, across multiple genres and cultures…
On August 20, 23, and 26, Berkshire Opera Festival‘s 2022 season culminates with the summer’s most ambitious undertaking: a new staging by BOF co-founder Jonathon Loy of Mozart’s comedy-tragedy masterpiece DON GIOVANNI at the historic, intimate Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, MA. BOF Artistic Director and co-founder Brian Garman, called a “wizard” with complex scores by Bachtrack, conducts the Berkshire Opera…
“In the best of times, opera companies struggle for survival. In the worst of times,they perish. Which is why it seems miraculous that Berkshire Opera Festival is still with us. Their return to live performance has made it clear that BOF is going to be a major presence in the…
