The star in Opera Hong Kong’s new production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s singspiel “The Magic Flute” is the staging. That is not to take anything away from the singing: Mexican tenor Andrés Moreno Garcia as Tamino, Americans John Chest and Sofia Troncoso (Papageno and Pamina) all sang credibly. Local soprano Rachel Kwok was a sparky Papagena and the “three ladies” (Candice Chung, Ashley Chui and Carol Lin—done up as airline stewardesses, more of which later) more than held their own.
Category Archive: Opera
This being the centenary of Giacomo Puccini’s death, operas from the popular Italian composer featured often in the list of operas performed in 2024 in Hong Kong and nearby.
Hong Kong rounded out the Puccini centenary year with Musica Viva’s new production of Il Trittico (“The Triptych”), a trio of one-act operas. Each is sufficient in itself, yet the whole magically becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Il tabarro (“The Cloak”) leads off with tragic melodrama, Suor Angelica is both spiritual and a tear-jerker, while Gianni Schicchi is Puccini’s sole foray into comic opera buffa.
Opera Hong Kong’s Turandot, the classic story of a Chinese ice princess melted by implacable love, debuted in a new atmospheric production by well-known Chinese Director Jia Ding at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on 10 October 2024.
A “fairy-tale” family/children’s version of George Bizet’s opéra-comique Dr Miracle premiered at the Guangzhou Opera House on 30 September 2024 with six schedule performances.
Opera Hong Kong chose Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail for its annual summer semi-staged production at the Hong Kong City Hall, held 17-18 August 2025. The production, directed by Tang Xinxin and conducted by Michael Koehler, was sung in German with dialogue in English (and a large smattering of Chinese).
Le toréador (1849) is a opéra-comique by Adolphe Adam, a French composer best known for the ballet Giselle. The story is of a ménage–a–trois between an erstwhile soprano, her oft–absent and unfaithful husband, and a previous lover. The work features famous variations on the folk–song Ah! vous dirai–je, maman (better known as Twinkle, twinkle, little star in the English–speaking world).
The Grand Opera entry in this year’s French May was a reprise of Opera Hong Kong’s 2016 production of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, performed 10-12 May at Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Scènes de la vie de bohème is an intimate dramatic adaptation of Giacomo Puccini’s classic opera. Reduced to the four principal roles in a new musical arrangement by Marco Iannelli, this new version is designed to focus on the emotional ties between the two couples. It debuted in April 2024 in a run of special performances on Hong Kong’s iconic Star Ferry in a new production for Dante Alighieri Society and The Peninsula Hong Kong to commemorate the Puccini centenary.
Anna Bolena (1830) is the first of Gaetano’s Donizetti’s trio of Tudor operas, with Maria Stuarda (produced by Musica Viva in 2022) and Roberto Devereux following later in the decade. Like much of bel canto that went into relative eclipse with the rise of verismo late in the 19th century, Anna Bolena was rarely performed in the first half of the 20th century, and while today it is back in the standard repertoire, it is close enough to the edges to amount to a bold choice for a Hong Kong opera company.
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