Glimmerglass: 'Lost in the Stars'

Weill, Lost in the Stars, G. Hopkins, A. Woodley, Orchestra of St. Luke's, J. Rudel

Charles T. Downey, Weill’s “Lost in the Stars” proves a bit lost itself at Glimmerglass (The Classical Review, July 29)

After many seasons mounting four operas each summer, the Glimmerglass Festival is presenting only two operas this year, while it spends the other half of its budget on musicals. Glimmerglass’s flirtation with musicals began in 2008 — not counting Gilbert and Sullivan operettas earlier in its history — with a staging of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate. That was prior to the tenure of Francesca Zambello as artistic director, but she has pledged to stage a musical each season, beginning with Annie, Get Your Gun last year and continuing this year with The Music Man. To make matters worse for opera fans, the fourth production this summer is Kurt Weill’s Lost in the Stars, the last musical that Kurt Weill managed to complete for Broadway in the final phase of his multifaceted career. If the trend continues this way, Glimmerglass is on its way to becoming a sort of glorified summer stock theater. Nothing wrong with summer stock musicals, if you like that sort of thing, but it is a step in the wrong direction for an opera festival seeking an international reputation.

[Continue reading]

Kurt Weill, Lost in the Stars
With Eric Owens and Sean Panikkar
Directed by Tazewell Thompson
Glimmerglass Festival

This production continues through August 25.