by Jeff Maisey | Mar 13, 2019 | Musical Theater, Stage & Film
By Montage Gammon III Virginia Opera closes its current season with Giacomo Puccini’s great heartbreaker, Madama Butterfly. Arguably one of the two great tear jerkers in the operatic repertoire – Puccini’s La Boheme being the other – it’s also one of the...
by Jeff Maisey | Feb 7, 2019 | Musical Theater, Stage & Film
By Montague Gammon III A sparkling romantic comedy fueled by that dangerously explosive mix of glittering gold and fermented grape, Donizetti’s Elixir of Love comes to the Virginia Opera under the guidance of stage director Kyle Lang, whose VO productions of La Boheme...
by Jeff Maisey | Oct 22, 2018 | Musical Theater, Stage & Film
By Montague Gammon III One of Western literature’s earliest anti-heroes, Don Giovanni, a.k.a. Don Juan, returns to the Virginia Opera in Mozart’s 1787 Don Giovanni, at a time when his stereotypical persona is being viewed most attentively, in ways that are very...
by Jeff Maisey | Sep 25, 2018 | Musical Theater, Stage & Film
By Montague Gammon III Opening with a multi-genre Tony Award winner by a great 20th Century American composer, and closing with a great operatic tearjerker, Virginia Opera’s 44th Season includes a “rom-com” by Gaetano Donizetti, Mozart’s look at the romantic conquests...
by Jeff Maisey | Sep 19, 2018 | Musical Theater, Stage & Film
By Jerome Langston “She has so many hits,” says actress Sandia Ahlers with a laugh, referring to Patsy Cline, the music legend that she’s portraying in the musical play that opens the landmark 40th season of the Virginia Stage Company, Always…Patsy Cline. The actress...
by Jeff Maisey | Jul 1, 2018 | Musical Theater, Stage & Film
By Montague Gammon III The Little Theatre of Virginia Beach production of the musical Hairspray brings to their near-Oceanfront stage a happy ending “story of acceptance,” filled with upbeat early 1960s song and dance, accompanied by a big (for local community...
