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Barnaby Hughes
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Chicago Opera Review: DON GIOVANNI (Lyric Opera)
THE MANY LOVE(S OF) DON GIOVANNI Why does Chicago love Mozart’s Don Giovanni so much? Well-received as Lyric Opera’s first production back in 1954, and revived many times over the ensuing decades, including the company’s fiftieth anniversary in 2004, Don Giovanni just won’t go away, despite the titular character’s climactic comeuppance and ignominious death. The…
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Chicago / Tour Theater Review: THE MAGIC FLUTE (Isango Ensemble at Chicago Shakespeare)
THIS MAGIC FLUTE IS ALL TOO ORDINARY South Africa’s Isango Ensemble is undoubtedly full of talented actors, singers, and musicians, but doesn’t quite have the specialized skills required to pull of Mozart’s masterful The Magic Flute (Impempe Yomlingo). While the production doesn’t aim for a straightforward rendering of the original, it does retain much of…
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Chicago Theater Review: JOHN DOE (Trap Door)
MAD ABOUT JOHN DOE Trap Door Theatre is entered via a long narrow gap between two Bucktown restaurants. Upon arrival, Artistic Director Beata Pilch assigns audience members a number and Mike Steele seats them. Already in costume for their roles as madhouse attendants, Pilch and Steele look suitably frightening and forbidding. This disquieting introduction sets…
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Chicago Theater Review: REASONS TO BE HAPPY (Profiles Theatre)
REASONS TO BE CRITICAL Neil LaBute seems to have a penchant for ironic titles. His 2002 play The Mercy Seat was anything but merciful; LaBute described it as a “kind of emotional terrorism.” His newest play, Reasons to Be Happy (2013), concerns two pairs of best friends who are both sleeping with each other’s exes….
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Chicago Theater Review: THE ARSONISTS (Strawdog)
THIS SHOW’S ON FIRE “Ich bin ein Biedermann” isn’t what President Kennedy famously said in Berlin in 1963, but it’s something playwright Max Frisch might have said while writing Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter in 1958. Now translated as The Arsonists in Alistair Beaton’s 2007 version, Frisch’s comedy explores the complex interplay between perception and reality….
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Chicago Theater Review: ALL OUR TRAGIC (The Hypocrites)
A TRAGEDY OF EPIC PROPORTIONS Writing a play of more than 800 pages that takes twelve hours to perform is both an act of hubris and an act of genius. Written and directed by The Hypocrites’ founder Sean Graney, All Our Tragic distills all 32 surviving Greek tragedies into one nearly seamless narrative. The result…
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Opera Review: MADAMA BUTTERFLY (Center Stage Opera)
A BUTTERFLY WITHOUT WINGS Madama Butterfly (1904) is understandably one of the most popular operas in the world. Not only does it boast a tragic story that is incredibly moving, but the drama at its core is heightened and given beauty by Giacomo Puccini’s score. However, Center Stage Opera’s production fails to do the opera…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: LA CALISTO (Pacific Opera Project in Highland Park)
BAROQUE AND LOVING IT It begins innocently enough with two nymphs singing, swinging and blowing bubbles’”until the gods intervene and mayhem ensues. There are transvestites, lusty satyrs, and phalluses galore. There is a blonde bimbo, an ice queen, and a goddess scorned. There is mischief, ribaldry, cuckoldry, tomfoolery, and slapstick. Underscoring it all are Francesco…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: A COFFIN IN EGYPT (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
A NAIL IN OPERA’S COFFIN As the opera’s West Coast premiere, A Coffin in Egypt is frankly disappointing. As the first opera production at the new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (co-produced with Houston Grand Opera and Opera Philadelphia), A Coffin in Egypt is doubly disappointing. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Horton Foote’s similarly…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: DOVER QUARTET (The Da Camera Society at Artemesia Estate)
HISTORY: CHECK. BEAUTY: CHECK. MUSIC: CZECH. The concerts organized by the Da Camera Society are as notable for their historic venues as they are for the quality of their performers and the beauty of their repertoire. The society’s April 27 concerts at 2:00 and 4:00 pm will feature the Dover Quartet playing an all-Czech program…
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San Diego Opera Review: DON QUIXOTE (San Diego Opera at the Civic Theatre)
SAN DIEGO OPERA’S SWAN SONG SPEAKS TO DREAMING IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS Don Quixote (“Don Quichotte” in its original French spelling) serves as a fitting final production with which to close San Diego Opera (SDO)’s distinguished history. Founded in 1950, the company staged its first production in 1965, regularly mounting four or five operas per season. Despite…
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Los Angeles Music Review: TEMPUS (Metropolitan Master Chorale in West Hollywood)
MUSIC OF THE MOMENT “There is a season for everything: a time for losing, a time for keeping: a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking. A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace” (Eccl. 3:1ff.) There is also a time for singing about time, and…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: JONAH AND THE WHALE (LA Opera at Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels)
A FISHY MONSTROSITY What is it about the story of Jonah that has so captured the world’s imagination? Is it the stupidity of a man trying to run away from God, as if that were even possible? Is it the preposterous idea of a man living for three days inside a whale? Or perhaps it…
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Los Angeles / Regional Opera Review: LA TRAVIATA (Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa)
ORANGE COUNTY GOES GREEN, I.E. VERDI Opera is alive and well in Orange County! Since the demise of Opera Pacific (1985-2008), Pacific Symphony, aided by Pacific Chorale, has emerged as the company’s most likely heir. Its current production of Verdi’s La Traviata is the final production of a successful three-year experiment initiated in 2010 by…
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San Diego Opera Review: THE ELIXIR OF LOVE (San Diego Opera at the Civic Theatre)
THIS ELIXIR IS A TONIC FOR WHAT AILS YOU Some artistic works are such a product of their time that it is difficult for later generations to understand them without spending a considerable amount of time studying the work’s context. Others are immediately recognizable because they resonate easily with contemporary audiences. Gaetano Donizetti’s The Elixir…
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Opera Review: THE MERRY WIDOW (Independent Opera Company in Los Angeles)
ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK To open their second season, the Independent Opera Company (IOC) is performing Franz Lehar’s 1905 operetta The Merry Widow. It appears to be a scaling back after the company’s fairly ambitious production of Verdi’s Macbeth, which closed out their first season. In contrast to Macbeth, The Merry Widow is…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: THE TURN OF THE SCREW (Pacific Opera Project)
A TURN FOR THE BETTER A Henry James novella first published in 1898, The Turn of the Screw tells one of the most ambiguous ghost stories ever written. It involves a brother and sister (Flora and Miles), a housekeeper (Mrs. Grose), an unnamed governess, and two ghosts (Peter Quint and Miss Jessel). Not a lot…
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Opera Review: MACBETH (Independent Opera Company in Los Angeles)
VERDI ON THE VERGE Hearing Giuseppe Verdi’s Macbeth is a rather disorienting experience, at least at the beginning. The difference is that we’re used to Shakespeare’s English, even if it is archaic. Translating his tragic play into Italian makes it seem like something else entirely. Then add to that the very Italian flavor of Verdi’s…
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Opera Review: THE ELIXIR OF LOVE (Center Stage Opera in Canoga Park)
FALLING FOR DONIZETTI’S VALLEY GIRL Opera in Los Angeles seems to be thriving these days. In addition to established companies like LA Opera and Long Beach Opera, there are smaller companies cropping up all over the place, such as Pacific Opera Project, the Independent Opera Company and Center Stage Opera (CSO). While the first two…
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San Francisco Opera Review: LES CONTES D’HOFFMANN (THE TALES OF HOFFMAN) (SF Opera)
OFFENBACH’S REQUIEM Just as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in the middle of writing his famous Requiem so did Jacques Offenbach die composing his fantastical opera Tales of Hoffmann. Both works have been seen as highly personal compositions: Mozart writing his own requiem and Offenbach standing in for Hoffmann, his protagonist. The similarities do not end…
Music Review: NELLIE McKAY (City Vineyard)
by Rob Lester | April 29, 2026
in Cabaret, New YorkOff-Broadway Review: BROKEN SNOW (Theatre 71)
by Gregory Fletcher | April 28, 2026
in New York, TheaterTheater Review: THE SECRET SHARER (DNAWorks at Emerson Paramount Center)
by Lynne Weiss | April 27, 2026
in Boston, TheaterBroadway Review: JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE (Barrymore Theatre)
by Paola Bellu | April 25, 2026
in New York, Theater
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