The performing arts do love a new label, especially for an old idea. Take “poperetta,” a recent coinage for musical theater that mixes high and low, sophistication and popular appeal. Gilbert and Sullivan might reasonably ask what took us so long. Nearly 150 years after “The Pirates of Penzance” first set sail, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ exuberant revival finds this Victorian confection still afloat, still tuneful and still very funny. Apparently, nobody told it that it was old.
Director and choreographer Seán Curran knows precisely what keeps this gloriously improbable work moving. His production, first staged at OTSL in 2013, has since been mounted by opera companies across the country. Back where it began, the production remains fresh and remarkably sure of itself. The stage is rarely still. Gesture, rhythm and split-second timing accumulate into comedy, grounded by characters who treat every ridiculous circumstance with complete seriousness.
James Schuette’s sets and costumes announce the game before Sullivan’s score gets underway. A grand gilt Victorian proscenium, crowned by a skull and crossed swords, frames the thrust stage. Red curtains, vivid painted backdrops and a pirate ship cheerfully wheeled into place suggest a pop-up book sprung to life. The machinery shows. That’s part of the point.
Daniel Luis Espinal gives Frederic a bright, ardent tenor and a winning innocence. Jana McIntyre’s Mabel brings character and wit to the role’s coloratura demands. Their romantic sincerity gives the surrounding lunacy something firm to bounce against.
Jana McIntyre and Daniel Luis Espinal, Photo by Eric Woolsey.
The production has comic talent to spare. William Socolof’s Pirate King swaggers and blusters with comic authority, while Meredith Arwady brings a formidable contralto and deft comic timing to Ruth. Robert Mellon makes Major-General Stanley a beaming monument to cheerful foolishness, dispatching the famous patter song with impressive clarity. Shyheim Selvan Hinnant makes the Sergeant of Police one of the evening’s comic highlights, leading his hapless constables through some of Curran’s funniest physical comedy.
George Manahan conducts members of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with equal attention to Sullivan’s melodic beauty and the propulsion that keeps Curran’s production moving. The chorus, prepared by Andrew Whitfield, contributes power, verbal clarity and distinct comic character.
After nearly 150 years, “The Pirates of Penzance” has nothing to prove. Curran and company trust the music, sharpen the comedy and keep the whole improbable contraption moving. The old thing sails beautifully.
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ production of “The Pirates of Penzance” was performed May 23 through June 27 as part of the company’s 2026 Festival Season.
Robert Mellon as the Major General. Photo by Eric Woolsey.
CB Adams is an award-winning fiction writer and photographer based in the Greater St. Louis area. A former music/arts editor and feature writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, his non-fiction has been published in local, regional and national publications. His literary short stories have been published in more than a dozen literary journals and his fine art photography has been exhibited in more than 40 galley shows nationwide. Adams is the recipient of the Missouri Arts Council’s highest writing awards: the Writers’ Biennial and Missouri Writing!. The Riverfront Times named him, “St. Louis’ Most Under-Appreciated Writer” in 1996.
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis closes its 2026 festival season with a production of Charles Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet” that understands exactly what makes the opera work.
Director Keturah Stickann, conductor Ramón Tebar and a superb cast place the relationship between the young lovers at the center of the evening. Every scene, every duet and nearly every design choice serves that relationship, allowing the opera’s final moments to land with uncommon emotional force.
Emma Marhefka and Leonardo Sánchez establish that foundation from their first encounter at the Capulet ball. Over the course of four duets, attraction deepens into devotion, devotion deepens into intimacy and intimacy collides with tragedy. By the opera’s final moments, the fate of Romeo and Juliet feels like a personal loss.
Although the opera bears the lovers’ names, this production finds its emotional center in Juliet. Marhefka charts the evening’s most significant journey, carrying Juliet from youthful exuberance and certainty toward hard-won understanding. Her buoyant “Je veux vivre” captures a young woman delighted by life’s possibilities and confident in her place within them.
Marhefka uses the aria to establish the emotional ground beneath the entire performance. Experience, loss and consequence gradually reshape that confidence, and Marhefka traces every step of the transformation.
Sánchez proves an ideal partner in that journey. His clear, ardent tenor and openhearted stage presence ground Romeo’s devotion in genuine feeling. He also captures the impulsiveness that repeatedly transforms emotion into action and action into consequence. Together, Marhefka and Sánchez accomplish the production’s central task. They make the relationship real.
Stickann follows the emotional architecture that Gounod built into the score. The four great duets become milestones in the relationship’s evolution. At the ball, attraction arrives with the force of discovery.
At the balcony, discovery deepens into commitment. In the bedroom, longing yields to intimacy. In the tomb, intimacy confronts consequence. Marhefka and Sánchez make each stage feel earned, allowing the relationship to grow before our eyes rather than simply advancing it from one familiar scene to the next.
The masked ball pulses with youthful energy. Seán Curran’s choreography fills the stage with movement while Marhefka and Sánchez create an immediate connection that feels spontaneous and authentic.
The balcony scene narrows the world around them. Family loyalties, social obligations and old grievances lose their hold as the lovers construct a private universe of their own making. They move forward with complete certainty. They trust feeling to overcome circumstance.
The bedroom scene reveals the relationship at its fullest expression. The lovers move beyond longing and into intimacy. Reality waits outside the room. Neither lover recognizes how quickly it will arrive.
By the tomb scene, reality has arrived in full. The final duet devastates because the production earns it. Marhefka and Sánchez carry the emotional weight of everything that came before. The audience mourns two people rather than two symbols.
The supporting cast defines the forces pressing against that increasingly fragile private world. Benjamin Taylor’s Mercutio embodies the exuberance the production spends its first act celebrating and its remaining acts dismantling.
His Queen Mab scene sparkles with wit, confidence and youthful vitality. His death shifts the emotional temperature of the evening and signals that the world surrounding the lovers has begun to harden.
Micah Perry’s Tybalt burns hot and fast. His bright tenor matches a temperament that seems incapable of imagining a future beyond the next insult, challenge or grievance. The emotions arrive with the same force as his blade. Perry captures the moment when youthful certainty hardens into catastrophe.
Nicholas Newton gives Friar Laurence the confidence of a man who believes wisdom and planning can master events. The opera steadily exposes the limits of that confidence.
Vinicius Costa commands the stage as Lord Capulet, embodying the expectations and obligations that increasingly constrain Juliet’s choices. The certainty of the older generation proves no more reliable than the certainty of the younger one.
Edmond Rodrigues brings quiet steadiness to Benvolio, while Veronica Siebert’s spirited Stephano, Imara Ashton’s warm Gertrude, Jason Edelstein’s authoritative Duke of Verona, Cole Bellamy’s Paris, Julia Mariah Johnson’s Lady Capulet and Kevin Douglas Jasaitis’ Gregorio give shape and texture to the world surrounding the lovers.
Tebar understands that Gounod often advances the drama by suspending it. Again and again, the orchestra creates moments in which time seems briefly to stop and attention narrows to the emotional lives of the lovers. Tebar draws feeling from melody, phrasing and texture rather than sheer volume. The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra illuminates the drama without overwhelming it.
Stickann’s collaborators reinforce the production’s focus on emotional clarity. Scenic designer Liliana Duque Piñeiro embraces fluidity and metaphor. At first glance, the set’s broad expanse of masonry and geometric forms resembles a public swimming pool emptied of water.
As the evening unfolds, however, its logic reveals itself. Steps, balconies, platforms and even convenient toe holds for Romeo gradually emerge from the design, creating a flexible environment for the opera’s succession of intimate encounters. Large movable columns continually reshape the playing space, suggesting both a divided society and shifting emotional terrain.
Their movement occasionally draws attention to the mechanics of the staging, but never enough to pull the audience from the drama. The architecture rarely competes for attention. Instead, the eye naturally returns to the performers and Robert Perdziola’s richly colored costumes.
Costume designer Robert Perdziola externalizes the feud through color. The Montagues inhabit a world of blue while the Capulets move through shades of red, rose and violet. The visual contrast immediately clarifies the barriers the lovers spend the evening attempting to cross.
Eric Southern shapes mood and focus through light, while Andrew Whitfield’s chorus establishes the conflict that shadows the lovers from the opening moments.
The achievement of OTSL’s “Romeo and Juliet” lies in how completely it earns its emotional ending. By the time the lovers reach the tomb, the exuberance that animated the ball has collided with the realities waiting outside the lovers’ private world. The story remains familiar. The ending still hurts.
“Romeo and Juliet” runs June 7-26 at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. The production concludes OTSL’s 2026 festival season, which features all four productions in rotating repertory at the Loretto-Hilton Center on the campus of Webster University. For tickets and additional information, visit Opera Theatre of Saint Louis at opera-stl.org.
CB Adams is an award-winning fiction writer and photographer based in the Greater St. Louis area. A former music/arts editor and feature writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, his non-fiction has been published in local, regional and national publications. His literary short stories have been published in more than a dozen literary journals and his fine art photography has been exhibited in more than 40 galley shows nationwide. Adams is the recipient of the Missouri Arts Council’s highest writing awards: the Writers’ Biennial and Missouri Writing!. The Riverfront Times named him, “St. Louis’ Most Under-Appreciated Writer” in 1996.
In Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ shimmering new production of Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the familiar Shakespearean tale is reborn with a rare blend of musical precision, visual poetry and theatrical wit.
Under the baton of maestro Leonard Slatkin and the direction of Tim Albery, this staging is less a retelling than a re-enchantment—an immersive journey into a world where fairies glide, lovers quarrel and rustic clowns stumble through tragedy with comic brilliance.
The production is anchored by a cast of world-class singers and actors, each bringing nuance and vitality to their roles. The creative team, led by designer Emma Kingsbury, conjures a forest that breathes and transforms while the children’s chorus and mechanicals add layers of charm and humor.
What follows is a breakdown of the production’s key contributors—principal cast, lovers, mechanicals, fairies and creatives—each of whom helps weave this dream into something unforgettable.
The heart of Britten’s dreamscape lies in the ethereal authority of its fairy royalty. Oberon and Tytania, portrayed with vocal finesse and dramatic poise, anchor the supernatural world with a sense of grandeur and mystery. Puck, though silent in song, is a kinetic presence who threads the narrative with mischief and grace.
James Laing – Oberon: A commanding OTSL debut, Laing’s countertenor voice is smooth and powerful, embodying the regal and mystical presence of the fairy king.
Jana McIntyre – Tytania: Also making her OTSL debut, McIntyre dazzles with a silvery bel canto soprano, bringing both elegance and emotional depth to the fairy queen.
Matisse Carmack – Puck: In this non-singing role, Carmack is a kinetic force—quick, agile and mischievous. Her delivery of Puck’s final monologue is masterful.
The quartet of young lovers brings emotional volatility and romantic confusion to the forest, their entanglements rendered with vocal clarity and dramatic charm. Each performer navigates the shifting affections and magical manipulations with humor and heart, grounding the opera’s fantasy in human longing.
Anthony Léon – Lysander: A strong and expressive tenor, Léon brings warmth and charm to the role.
Jennifer Johnson Cano – Hermia: A returning OTSL favorite, Cano delivers a sterling performance with emotional nuance and vocal richness.
Theo Hoffman – Demetrius: A standout among the lovers, Hoffman’s powerful baritone is one of the production’s vocal highlights.
Teresa Parrotta – Helena: Parrotta brings humor and heart to Helena, rounding out the quartet with a vibrant performance.
Comic relief arrives in the form of the “rude mechanicals,” whose earnest attempt at theatrical tragedy becomes a riotous farce. Their scenes are a masterclass in physical comedy and ensemble timing, with Bottom’s transformation into an ass providing one of the production’s most memorable visual gags.
Ben Brady – Bottom: A comedic triumph, Brady is hilarious in both human and donkey form. The donkey’s head is described as a miracle of stagecraft—realistic with a moving mouth that allows Brady’s voice to project clearly and powerfully.
Christian Sanders – Thisbe: Sanders delights with a playful and endearing portrayal of Thisbe.
Robert Mellon, Dylan Gregg, Adam Partridge, Sam Krausz – Mechanicals Ensemble: This troupe delivers classic low-comic charm, wringing every laugh from their vaudevillian rehearsal scenes.
The enchanted forest is populated by a chorus of fairy sprites, led by four charming attendants. Their presence adds a layer of visual and vocal delicacy, transforming the stage into a living, breathing dreamscape. The children’s chorus, under expert direction, brings both innocence and eerie beauty to the production.
Emily Kealani – Cobweb
Veronica Siebert – Mustardseed
Laura Santamaria – Peaseblossom
Zoe Brooks – Moth: These young performers lead the children’s chorus with grace and whimsy, adding a magical layer to the production.
St. Louis Children’s Choruses – Fairy Sprites: A visual and vocal delight, these young singers enhance the enchanted forest with charm and precision.
Behind the scenes, a visionary creative team shapes the production’s aesthetic and emotional tone. From the conductor’s podium to the costume shop, each contributor brings a distinct artistry that elevates the opera’s dreamlike world. Their collaboration results in a production that is as visually arresting as it is musically rich.
Tim Albery – Stage Director: Albery’s minimalist Shakespearean-inspired staging is both magical and emotionally resonant.
Emma Kingsbury – Scenic & Costume Designer: Her designs are exquisite with transformative sets and timeless costumes that elevate the production’s visual storytelling.
Krystal Balleza & Will Vicari – Wig & Makeup Designers: Their work is brilliant, especially in crafting the ethereal looks of the fairy realm.
Seán Curran – Choreographer: Curran’s choreography adds fluidity and charm, enhancing the dreamlike atmosphere.
Leonard Slatkin – Conductor: A celebrated return to OTSL, Slatkin leads the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra with finesse, bringing Britten’s haunting score to life.
Andrew Whitfield – Chorus Master: His direction of the children’s chorus is superb, contributing to some of the production’s most enchanting moments.
CB Adams is an award-winning fiction writer and photographer based in the Greater St. Louis area. A former music/arts editor and feature writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, his non-fiction has been published in local, regional and national publications. His literary short stories have been published in more than a dozen literary journals and his fine art photography has been exhibited in more than 40 galley shows nationwide. Adams is the recipient of the Missouri Arts Council’s highest writing awards: the Writers’ Biennial and Missouri Writing!. The Riverfront Times named him, “St. Louis’ Most Under-Appreciated Writer” in 1996.
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has always balanced reverence for tradition with a bold embrace of innovation, and its 50th anniversary season is no exception. The world premiere of “This House,” a new commission, looks squarely at the present and future of American opera (through and examination of the past), while the season’s revival of Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” casts a backward glance—albeit through a sharply contemporary lens.
In remounting the company’s inaugural production from 1976, director Christopher Alden returns not with nostalgia, but with a bracingly modern aesthetic that reimagines the comic core of “Don Pasquale” as a meditation on aging, delusion and desire.
Alden, known for his psychologically incisive and visually stylized productions, sets the action in a Rococo-inspired espresso bar (by way of Botero and Fellini) populated by grotesque old men—figures who mirror the titular character’s absurd longing for youth. The setting is witty and revealing, a hallmark of Alden’s work, and it allows the production to comment on the opera’s themes without sacrificing its buoyant charm.
Sheri Greenawald, who played Norina in the original 1976 staging, returns in a newly created role as the espresso bar proprietor and faux notary. Though the role is modest in scale, Greenawald’s presence is quietly commanding, and her final duet with Susanne Burgess adds a poignant, intergenerational resonance to the production.
Susanne Burgess as Norina with (L to R) Sheri Greenawald as the Notary, Kyle Miller as Dr. Malatesta, and Patrick Wilhelm as the Waiter in Don Pasquale. Photo by Eric Woolsey
The creative team is uniformly strong. Marsha Ginsberg’s set and costume designs are richly evocative, from the frescoed walls and oversized granite-patterned floor to the exaggerated silhouettes that underscore the opera’s farcical elements.
Krystal Balleza and Will Vicari’s wigs and makeup heighten the grotesquerie, while Eric Southern’s lighting and the inventive use of video and shadow in Act Three add layers of visual storytelling. Seán Curran’s choreography, particularly in the Act Two finale, is a kinetic delight, echoing the protagonist’s unraveling psyche with physical wit.
One of the most striking aspects of this production is its use of English—a choice that proves both practical and profound. While operas often lose some of their musicality or nuance in translation, this Don Pasquale gains immediacy and clarity, allowing the humor and emotional stakes to land with unforced precision with an English translation by Phyllis Mead. The vernacular enhances accessibility as well as also deepens the audience’s connection to the characters’ foibles and desires.
This aligns with a long-standing debate in American opera circles, dating back (at least) to 1908 when critic Henry Krehbiel observed that opera in America would remain “experimental” until “the vernacular becomes the language of the performance and native talent provides both works and interpreters.”
(L to R) Patrick Carfizzi as Don Pasquale and Kyle Miller as Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale. Photo by Eric Woolsey
More than a century later, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis proves the prescience of Krehbiel’s vision. By embracing English, the company underscores its commitment to making opera a living, breathing art form—rooted in tradition, yet unmistakably of the moment.
This linguistic approach also distinguishes OTSL within the broader St. Louis opera landscape. While OTSL performs exclusively in English to foster immediacy and inclusivity, Union Avenue Opera often presents works in their original languages, preserving the musical and cultural authenticity of the repertoire. Winter Opera St. Louis similarly favors original-language performances, particularly in its focus on classic Italian and French works.
Together, these companies offer a rich spectrum of operatic expression—balancing accessibility with tradition—and contribute to a vibrant, multilingual arts scene that reflects the diversity and sophistication of St. Louis’s theater and entertainment culture.
Musically, the production is anchored by Kensho Watanabe’s elegant conducting of the St. Louis Symphony, which brings Donizetti’s score to life with warmth and precision. The orchestra does more than underscore the action; it articulates its momentum, its pauses, its turns.
Sheri Greenawald as the Notary in Don Pasquale. Sheri played Norina in OTSL’s first-ever production of the same title on May 22, 1976. Photo by Eric Woolsey
Far from a passive presence in the pit, it engages in a dynamic exchange with the stage—less an accompaniment than a co-author of the drama. Watanabe’s sensitivity to the singers and the comic pacing of the bel canto style is evident in the subtle dynamics and impeccable timing throughout.
The chorus, under Andrew Whitfield, is a comic force in its own right, first as leering old men and later as a chorus of women under Norina’s rule.
Among the principals, Patrick Carfizzi’s Don Pasquale is a masterclass in comic timing and pathos. He brings clarity and vocal lucidity to the role, embodying the pompous bachelor with a mix of bluster and vulnerability. Kyle Miller’s Malatesta is a charismatic schemer, his bold baritone matched by an energetic, almost acrobatic stage presence.
The ongoing sight gags with his pork pie hat were a nice touch of visual whimsy and an indication of the level of attention to detail that reveals the production’s quality (that is, they sweated the details).
Susanne Burgess (center) as Norina with members of the chorus in Don Pasquale. Photo by Eric Woolsey
Charles Sy’s Ernesto offers a sweet, lyrical tenor that soars in his serenade to Norina, a moment of romantic magic that culminates in a duet of sublime beauty. As Norina, Susanne Burgess dazzles with a performance that is both vocally virtuosic and emotionally grounded.
Her coloratura passages are delivered with effortless charm, and her comedic instincts are as sharp as her high notes are stratospheric. If forced to choose from the cast, Burgess’ performance was a knock-out, stand-out.
Adding to the comic texture is baritone Patrick Wilhelm in a delightful turn as the waiter-servant-factotum. His silent antics—managing Norina’s extravagant gown, delivering messages with canine devotion, and bouncing through scenes with Chaplinesque flair—contribute to the production’s surrealist tone.
That surrealism is further amplified by Alden’s visual wit: Don Pasquale perched Edith-Ann-like (ala the vintage “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” television show) in an oversized chair; a veiled Sofronia wheeled in on a dessert cart like a birthday surprise; and a lavish shopping spree that name-drops every luxury brand from Armani to Ferrari.
Norina’s ritzy entourage spans a spectrum of chic identities, and her redecorating spree replaces Pasquale’s furnishings with pastel sectionals, which he and Malatesta later use to build a childlike fort.
Ernesto’s serenade is staged with a projected silent film of the lovers strolling through a wooded glen, and silhouette play cleverly underscores the shifting power dynamics—Pasquale literally diminished in Norina’s towering presence.
(L to R) Susanne Burgess as Norina and Charles Sy as Ernesto in Don Pasquale. Photo by Eric Woolsey
At one point, the cast unfurls a banner reading “VIVA LA RESISTENZA,” a gesture that flirts with political commentary but is so deftly woven into the scene that it feels both subversive and theatrically organic—especially as it culminates in the mummy-like wrapping of Sheri Greenawald’s character, blurring the line between satire and stagecraft.
This Don Pasquale is a vivid example of theatrical reinvention. It bridges past and present, celebrating five decades of OTSL’s forward-looking vision. At the risk of sounding highfalutin, this production exemplifies Regietheater—director’s theater—a mode of staging that has become ubiquitous across the global opera landscape.
Yet ubiquity does not guarantee success. What distinguishes this production is how deftly Christopher Alden wields the tools of Regietheater to craft a theatrical experience that is as intellectually stimulating as it is viscerally entertaining. In his hands, Donizetti’s comedy becomes something richer, stranger and altogether more delightful. It’s a production not to be missed.
Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ production of “Don Pasquale” continues in repertory at the Loretto-Hilton Center of Performing Arts at Webster University through June 29. For more information, visit https://opera-stl.org.
(L to R) Patrick Wilhelm as the Waiter and Kyle Miller as Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale. Photo by Eric Woolsey
CB Adams is an award-winning fiction writer and photographer based in the Greater St. Louis area. A former music/arts editor and feature writer for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, his non-fiction has been published in local, regional and national publications. His literary short stories have been published in more than a dozen literary journals and his fine art photography has been exhibited in more than 40 galley shows nationwide. Adams is the recipient of the Missouri Arts Council’s highest writing awards: the Writers’ Biennial and Missouri Writing!. The Riverfront Times named him, “St. Louis’ Most Under-Appreciated Writer” in 1996.
