Review: Der Freischütz

Vasil Garvaliev as Kaspar. Photo by Bruce Zinger.

Hey Man, Nice Shot!
by Shannon Christy
@schristy79

When Opera Atelier’s Co-Artistic Director, Marshall Pynkoski, came out and said this is the most excited he had been since 1991, the audience broke out in laughter. It was not a joke. He was excited because the Opera Atelier, he proclaims, “is taking a giant step in a different direction” and their production of the Romantic period opera Der Freischütz (The Marksman) is the first step in that direction. Apparently the excitement had spread throughout every element of the cast creating a work that hits its mark in achieving the Opera Atelier’s objective of creating historically informed period works, which take their own place in history.

Review: Armide

Photo: Bruce Zinger / Marie McDunnough & Jack Rennie, Artists of Atelier Ballet.

The One by Lully

Armide - the singer and the opera - are gorgeous

by Axel Van Chee

The story of Armida by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso about an Arabian sorceress and her unrequited love with the Christian soldier Rinaldo during the First Crusade is a popular subject in opera literature; Handel had one (of course, it is actually harder to name what he doesn't have), Gluck had one, Rossini had one, even Dvorak and Haydn, who is not exactly known for his operatic works had one. The first known rendition of the poem in operatic form however, is Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide, first performed in 1686, and it opens at the Elgin Theatre in a visually stunning production by Opera Atelier.

Reincarnated from its 2005 run, Marshall Pynkoski unfolds the story like an enchanted fairy-tale manuscript, with the sets and costumes exquisitely designed by Gerard Gauci and Dora Rust D’Eye. There are intricate details everywhere, enfolding both Asian and Western motifs to further accentuate the conflicts between the East and the West. The lighting design by Bonnie Beecher further adds a layer of spectacles to the opera.