Letter from Florida: Sarasota Opera's Winter Festival

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro - Sarasota Opera, 2025 - (Photo: Robert Millington for Sarasota Opera)

Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Verdi: Stiffelio, Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia, Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana, Leoncavallo: Pagliacci: Sarasota Opera; Sarasota Opera House, Sarasota, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras, 25-29 March 2025

In our latest Letter from Florida, Robert J Carreras enjoys Sarasota Opera's 2025 Winter Festival and considers what next for this enterprising company and its quirkily diminutive performance space

What’s next for Sarasota Opera? In recent years, this company seems to have covered all the proverbial operatic bases, advancing from a specialized regional outfit to something like a full-throated and fully invested international opera theatre. Sarasota Opera defies the typical classification of regional company as it has come to be known in the United States, existing more like a top-tier company homed in a quirkily diminutive performance space.

Of late, Sarasota's performers are more well-rounded, with exciting voices the rule. The stage direction is more concentrated, more diffusely assumed across even supers, and more topically informed. The music-making has kept pace, with visiting conductors adding spicy stylistic touches to already stellar orchestra playing. What’s next?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the answer to that question for many opera companies. Three of Mozart’s operas take up spots in the top ten most performed operas in the world since the millennium according to OPERABASE. Le nozze di Figaro, sixth on that count, is in repertory for Sarasota’s 2025 Winter Festival.

Letter from Florida: Stéphane Denève & New World Symphony on impressive form in Britten's War Requiem

Britten: War Requiem - Stéphane Denève, Ian Bostridge, Roderick Williams, New World Symphony - Adrienne Arsht Center, Miami

Britten: War Requiem; Christine Goerke, Ian Bostridge, Roderick Williams, New World Symphony, Stéphane Denève, Florida Singing Sons, Girl Choir of South Florida, Master Chorale of South Florida; Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras. 15 March 2025

A matter of reconciliation: Robert J Carreras in Miami is impressed with Stéphane Denève and New World Symphony in Britten's War Requiem

Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem is not meant to be enjoyed; it is meant to be suffered through. After all, it was in this spirit that Britten left the relative safety of his new home in the states and returned to England, in all its fractured remains, after the Blitz. He must have known the trying times that awaited. His contribution to the catalogue of the musical mass for the dead recreates the darkest of conditions in World War II. We return with Britten to the British Isles for madness and mayhem.

On a cloudless and sunny September 7, 1940, and for 57 straight nights, a German aerial assault tormented Great Britain. Throughout the eight months that followed, Hitler menaced overhead, as the only remaining hope seemed far away across the Atlantic, and as yet noncommittal towards the war effort.

In those long, dreadful 267 days, it is estimated that 40,000 long tons of bombs hit the Isles. More than 43,000 civilians were killed. Every night, as many as 150,000 souls sought shelter in London’s underground tube system. Electricity and gas, food and water were in short supply and rationed. By the time Britten returned in 1942, the prevalence of American servicemen on the streets of London must have been a very welcome sight to the British.

Britten: War Requiem - Christine Goerke, New World Symphony - Adrienne Arsht Center, Miami

Letter from Florida: It is hard to imagine any orchestra getting closer to playing as one, though, than The Cleveland Orchestra

Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole - Stephane Deneve, Maria Duenas, The Cleveland Orchestra - Arsht Center, Miami

Dvorak: Symphony No.8, Bizet: Suite from L’Arlesienne (compiled by Stephane Deneve), Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole; Maria Duenas, Cleveland Orchestra, Stephane Deneve; Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras (1 February 2025)

In our latest Letter from Florida, Robert J Carreras enjoys The Cleveland Orchestra as part of its Miami Residency in Dvorak and Bizet, and joined by Spanish violinist Maria Duenas in Lalo.

One violin. One contrabass. One oboe. One trombone. One harp…well, there is only one harp...I beg your indulgence. Is it possible for a full orchestra to play as one? No, not absolutely. Such a thing does not exist in nature. The possible is in the perfecting, not the perfection. It is hard to imagine any orchestra getting closer to playing as one, though, than The Cleveland Orchestra. 

Sokoloff, Leinsdorf, Szell, Boulez, Maazel, Dohnányi – the storied list of past Cleveland Orchestra musical leaders and achievements parallel those of the modern history of classical music worldwide. Most recently, Franz Welser-Möst has been added to that list, the top job at Cleveland. Most has been entrusted to maintain and expand on the musical fruits of the orchestra’s heritage.  

For this performance, however, at the helm of The Cleveland Orchestra is Stephane Deneve, himself entrusted to maintain and expand on the heritage of New World Symphony (NWS) based in Miami. NWS Co-Founder and Artistic Director Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas passed the baton to Deneve in 2022. In Deneve, both groups – and one baton – is in hands and mind with notably more nuanced notions, a wider scope, and a deliciously elegant musical approach, more perhaps than even the most celebrated of those on Cleveland’s list, and a longer one worldwide. 

[For the performance members of the New World Symphony Orchestra joined the Cleveland Orchestra in the Bizet and Dvorak].

Stephane Deneve, The Cleveland Orchestra - Arsht Center, Miami

Letter from Florida: a study in contrasts, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette at Palm Beach Opera

Charles Gounod: Roméo et Juliette - Long Long, Kathryn Lewek - Palm Beach Opera, 2025

Charles Gounod: Roméo et Juliette Kathryn Lewek, Long Long, Bernardo Medeiros, director: Tara Faircloth, conductor: David Stern, Palm Beach Opera; Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, Palm Beach, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras (24 January 2025)

Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette maintains a solid place in the operatic repertoire, brought consistently back by an audience who judges it on its merits. At Palm Beach Opera (PBO), Robert J Carreras in his latest Letter from Florida, finds strong performances from Kathryn Lewek's deeply affecting Juliette and Long Long's ardent Roméo make the production well worth a visit.

For all the success of Charles Francois Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, the work has always been considered inferior to his first great music drama, Faust. Therein lies the rub in a wider sense; for all its success, Roméo et Juliette suffers from a reputation of being dramatically deficient, and not wholly accepted as music drama. 

This is especially so in contrast to the direction opera took in the late 19th century, in the German works, and those of the verismo period. Combined with the fact that acting performance standards hadn’t veered much from overblown on the one hand and remaining static throughout the first part of the 20th century on the other, and Roméo et Juliette is hardly among the works contemporary artist’s look at to put on display and stretch their acting prowess.

Charles Gounod: Roméo et Juliette - Kathryn Lewek - Palm Beach Opera, 2025

No one seems to have told this to Kathryn Lewek. She made the most of what Gounod, Barrier, and Carre (composer and librettists) give Juliette; Lewek kept up the synergy of her significant artistic resources, from her note one to her note fin, three hours later. Her stage manner is as affecting as it is natural. It appears Ms. Lewek has not performed Juliette much out there, and it is a rare thing to exhibit such depth of knowledge of a role in such few attempts. Finally, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who truly looks the part of a love-struck teenager more.

Opera Up-Close: Unveiling the dramatic process with Paul Curran & young artists of Palm Beach Opera

Verdi: Rigoletto - Bernardo Medeiros (Rigoletto)
Palm Beach Opera (Photo: Coastal Click Photography)

Opera Up-Close: Unveiling the dramatic process with Paul Curran; Paul Curran, Palm Beach Opera; The Cornelia T. Bailey Opera Center; Palm Beach, Florida
14 December 2024, Robert J Carreras

For his latest Letter from Florida, Robert J Carreras eavesdrops on director Paul Curran working on opera scenes with young artists from Palm Beach Opera. Opera Up Close featured scenes from seven operas. Stage director Paul Curran, who was artistic director of the Norwegian National Opera from 2007 to 2011, provided expert commentary about each scene.

“Greek theatre is, for me, an examination of what it is to be an human being. It is the basis of all theater. It is the basis of all film…of cinema as a whole.” In a video precis of Phaedra, based on Euripides’ Hippolytus, Paul Curran provides the structure on which to frame his conceptual machinations of stagecraft and how he approaches the work he does with opera-artists in training. So it is that Curran, along with members of Palm Beach Opera’s Young Artists Program, set us off on a vivid voyage of self-discovery via a tilt-a-whirl of emotions.

Workshops like these – open to the public and with experts narrating, setting up scenes and ad-libbing – work toward the furtherance of opera-awareness. They attest to the healthy state of healthy competition in opera today. They serve to demonstrate how opera has moved another step on from prima la voce into the internalization of acting as a rightful and equal part of the artform. For those farther along in an opera-loving journey, these amount to positive developments – opera has a future. 

Sarasota Opera Concert Performance: The Music of Giuseppe Verdi

The Music of Giuseppe Verdi - Victor Starsky
Sarasota Opera (Photo: Sarasota Opera)

Verdi: excerpts from La forza del destino, Aida, Un ballo in maschera, Attila, La Traviata, Don Carlo, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Rigoletto; Rochelle Bard, Young Bok Kim, Virginia Mims, Jean Carlos Rodriguez, Victor Starsky, Sarasota Orchestra, Victor DeRenzi; Sarasota Opera at Sarasota Opera House
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras, 15 November 2024

Having become the only opera company in the world to have presented every work by Verdi, Sarasota Opera continues its exploration of his music. In his latest Letter from Florida, Robert J Carreras reports on Sarasota's concert, The Music of Giuseppe Verdi

Maestro Victor DeRenzi has Giuseppe Verdi right where he wants him. The conductor's world is inching closer and closer to Verdi's world, creating an intimate bond across time and musical language. Some eight years after completing (2016) Sarasota Opera's endeavor to play every note Verdi wrote for opera, now DeRenzi manages to collect a set of complete-package singing-actors to further express the composer's intentions. With lots of space and the necessary tools to grow, each of these has the chops to one day be their generation's Verdians.

More and varied hearings of tenor Victor Starsky from Queens will bring to light whether he is on track to write his own ticket. In theater, Starsky's burnished, round, and ear-catching overtone series turns more compact into the passaggio, then blooms with enough brass to make things interesting in the higher reaches. It is a sizable tenor, the kind for which the more florid singing required in the bel canto repertoire is not ideally suited. Such roles hover with cantabile lines right at the break of the voice. No matter, Starsky will have wide access to a plethora of roles he is well-suited for, like Radames. After the finely sung passages of "Celeste Aida," the tenor took the last phrase (before repeating sans high note as Verdi wrote) "un trono vicino al sol" in one breath. Word has it he has a high C too. Victor Starsky will be returning to Sarasota Opera for the Winter season as Stiffelio, Verdi's opera of the same name.

New World Symphony Veterans Day Concert: A World War II Journey with Lidiya Yankovskaya and Emily Magee

New World Symphony Veterans Day Concert: A World War II Journey - Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall (Photo: Alex Markow, courtesy of New World Symphony)

New World Symphony Veterans Day Concert: A World War II Journey; conductor: Lidiya Yankovskaya, Emily Magee (soprano), British historian James Holland (host), New World Symphony
New World Center, Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall, Miami Beach, Florida
Reviewed by Robert J Carreras, 11 November 2024

In what we hope will be the first of an occasional series from Florida, Robert J Carreras reports on the New World Symphony Orchestra's Veterans Day Concert: A World War II Journey

Thirty-six days. The severity of the coming 36 days was made plain to 20-year-old marine Richard Jessor by a U.S. Navy commanding officer: “Tomorrow night at this time, a lot of you are going to be dead.” From Brooklyn to Iwo Jima – over 7000 miles – in less than a year’s time. Such was the journey of many a young American boy soldier as of December 7, 1941.

A soldier flying with Windtalkers over the Pacific as explosions litter the sky. A soldier rushing desperately to scale a vertical wall of earth at Normandy. A soldier scanning flight plans and tactics to take on the Luftwaffe. A Tuskegee soldier from Haiti, from Puerto Rico, from Jamaica. A soldier thrust into fighting alongside other young boys from lands far and wide. A soldier from Brixton. A soldier from Portree. A soldier from Cooladdi. A soldier from Pripyat. A soldier liberating the concentration camp at Bergen Belsen. A soldier from Peoria; from Massapequa; from Snohomish; from Kalamazoo.

Richard Jessor of Brooklyn (and you had better get it right – “Brooklyn is different than New York!”) captivated and charmed with memories of his 36 days in Iwo Jima, a warm-up to New World Symphony’s (NWS) Veterans Day concert: A World War II Journey on Friday, November 9, 2024. This concert is in the larger context of the 2024-25 season’s Resonance of Remembrance, marking the 80th anniversary of World War II (WWII) and the Holocaust. As ever, NWS curates a multimedia experience; all selections for this evening demonstrate a thoughtful and creative expression of NWS’s vision to account for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

New World Symphony Veterans Day Concert: A World War II Journey - Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor - Michael Tilson Thomas Performance Hall (Photo: Alex Markow, courtesy of New World Symphony)

Classical music is experiencing a proverbial enlightenment period with women leading historically acclaimed orchestras internationally. NWS is at the vanguard of that inertia, as evidenced by the presence of Xian Zhang in October and Lidiya Yankovskaya here.