Seattle Opera is a great opera company, with some world-class productions. They are known best for the Ring, but have put on some other great productions, incl. their 2005 production of "Florencia in the Amazon".
The good part of the programming is Speight Jenkins goes an extra step when putting his productions together. He travels the world, checks out opera productions, and manages to put together a great production, or bring the best productions to Seattle. And when he brings a production to town and sees room for improvement, he makes an improvement on it.
The downside of the programming is it can be too much of one thing or another; too much of a heavy/light contrast. Some composers are conspicuously missing from the programming, while others are mysteriously there. I guess when you're only doing a few operas a year, it's hard to do everything, but I'd like to see at least one opera a year that shows more of a broad view of opera.
Though there are hits and misses, all in all, Seattle Opera is worth the price of admission. People come from all over to go to The Ring. Seattle is the only place I know of that has "opera tourism". But there's a reason why... The Ring is what they do best. Can it live up to the hype each year? I think so, but they could bring in a top conductor for the price they charge. :)
The singing is good, particularly with the Gold cast.
Regarding the new building. I was a bit skeptical of it at first-- Seattlelites has plenty of time to scrutinize the exterior before it opened. From the outside, it looked forbidding, the stream in the passageway looked pointless, the banners arbitrary, and then there were lights, which would come off and on randomly (as if the building wasn't Kafkaesque enough!). When the interior was finally revealed, we entered to find a lobby area that looked like a Microsoft building (not surprisingly Microsoft was their first season sponsor). Inside, the hall looked dark and mysterious, but borderline dreary.
Then the performance began. It was Parsifal... and it was incredible. The set, the lighting, the singing.. wow, special effects too! Wagner would approve. And then came the next production, and the next... Suddenly the space didn't feel uncomfortable anymore. The lobby didn't remind me of Redmond. I started to like the light show outside. I felt myself getting pensive looking at the stream. I guess what happened was that there were so many good productions, that I forgot about the space, or rather the space took on a new quality. Or maybe I simply got used to it!
The last thing I'd like to mention is the acoustics. They're very good! The acoustics have helped to bring nuances of the music forward, which you really didn't hear before. Even quiet passages that usually get lost can be heard precisely and with clarity. Some would say the hall brings too much clarity, but I disagree!
I put Seattle Opera in my top 10- - And I've sat through quite a few... Here are my favorite 20 Opera Companies (in order)
1 The Metropolitan
2 The Australian
3 Covent Garden
4 La Scala (tied with the Met for best singers)
5 Chicago
6 Houston
7 San Francisco
8 Vienna State Opera
9 NY City Lyric
10 Seattle
11 Paris National
12 Deutsche Oper
13 Hungarian State (best orchestra)
14 Komische Oper
15 Staatsoper
16 Volksoper
17 Opéra National du Rhin
18 Opéra National de Bordeaux
19 Zurich
20 Liceu (Barcelona) read more