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…
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…
by Barbara Waldinger Who would have believed that here in the Berkshires we would have our own opera festival showcasing talent from all over the world, including the MET and Italy’s La Scala? Thanks to co-founders Brian Garman (Artistic Director) and Jonathon Loy (Director of Production), Berkshire Opera Festival presented…
Top (L to R): Sebastian Catana, Tamara Wilson, Thomas GlassMiddle: Alissa Anderson, Jasmine Habersham, Jonas HackerBottom: Joanne Evans, Jeremy Harr, Lucas Levy Berkshire Opera Festival‘s mainstage show will be Giuseppe Verdi‘s brilliant comic opera FALSTAFF, which was adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV. One of only two comedies written…
by Fred Baumgarten Comedy, arguably one of the two greatest human gifts – the other being music – is a timeless art. Picture an arrow pointed on two sides, flying through spacetime, picking up a Greek comedy here, a courtly farce there, a Gilbert and Sullivan here, a Seinfeld there,…
