Winter Opera Saint Louis recently capped its 10th anniversary season with Georges Bizet’s Carmen, and it’s hard to know what’s sadder—that we now have to wait another seven months for the next season to begin or that so few people (a mere three performances) were exposed to such beauty. Beauty like this, we felt that Sunday afternoon at Chaminade’s Skip Viragh Center for Performing Arts, should be shared far and wide.
Lit like a Luminist painting, the production was a feast for the eyes, and the music—some of it so iconically, achingly familiar—made our hearts soar. Its sensuous tone was set at once by Italian mezzo-soprano Benedetta Orsi (no stranger to Carnegie Hall) and echoed by the female chorus, sexy and assured in gypsy skirts and bodices. A scene in Act II, in particular, was a gorgeous riot of voluptuousness in which everyone seemed to move and sing as one. This was Winter Opera’s biggest attendance in 10 years!
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ 2017 Festival Season runs May 20 to June 25 and features Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, the American premiere of Philip Glass and Christopher Hampton’s The Trial, the premiere of a new performing version of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie’s The Grapes of Wrath, Mozart’s Titus (La Clemenza di Tito), and the annual Center Stage showcase concert by Gerdine Young Artists.
The New Jewish Theatre’s production of John Logan’s Never the Sinner runs through April 2. Set in Chicago in 1924, it centers around the trial of Nathan Leopold and Robert Loeb. Considering themselves Nietzsche’s übermenschen, those above the moral and social imperatives of the world, they committed murder just for the thrill of it. This play, set to themes of crime and punishment, humanism and Nietzschean philosophy, asks what demons lurked in the minds of these two young men and investigates the complex relationship between them.
The world’s best-selling touring magic show, The Illusionists Live from Broadway, arrives at the Fabulous Fox Theatre March 31, promising jaw-dropping magic tricks, death-defying stunts and ‘acts of wonder’ by seven renowned illusionists. “The Illusionists is the most non-stop, powerful mix of outrageous and astonishing acts ever to be seen on the live stage,” says producer Simon Painter. The show runs through April 2. Disney’s The Lion King makes its triumphant return to the Fox April 19 to May 7.
The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis presents Million Dollar Quartet through April 9. This powerhouse musical features four performers representing, alternately, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, spotlighting hits from each artist. It promises to conclude The Rep’s 50th season with a bang!
Photo: Wylde Brothers Productions