Arizona Opera

Can you spare about 30 minutes for experiencing a mini-buffet of Opera? "Opera for Lunch" is for you then! They had little tables where you could set your box lunch if you ordered in advance or just bring your own. You could tell this was a very casual event and fortunately most people finished their meal before the two performers began, but there was still some paper rustling and chip crunching so maybe quieter food in quieter packaging would help in the future ;) I loved how before the performance the garage door style wall was up so we had plenty of fresh air and light, and I was impressed with the screen image of curtains on the stage which as you can see in the pictures, really gave an excellent trompe l'oeil effect! On January 28, 2026, Sam Krausz (tenor),Yichen Xue (baritone), and Wan-Ting Yu (pianist) were all superb, and Yichen Xue was a real hoot as he really got into his role in the Così fan tutte piece where he is trying to convince a woman that he is the best man for her so he flexed his muscles and mimed reading a book, and showed how he could dance and sing. Not all pieces had adequate introductory information which was too bad as it is crucial since there were no projected subtitles as we had hoped. The online program just listed the songs and which opera they were from, but didn't even give an English translation or any helpful context for the song, so I think that should be considered for the future. It would also be a great encouragement to attend their big production if they could have one piece from it, even if it's just some piano music to tease people into attending. Perhaps they could also offer a little perk like a 1/2 price drink at Symphony Hall if you show you attended the Opera for Lunch production. Cultivating new patrons with little perks is always a good idea.

Went to "Opera at Lunch" and it was a blast! Two Opera singers sang songs from well known operas, with an excellent piano accompanist. Lasted about 30-40 minutes or so. You can bring your own lunch, or buy a box lunch there. Tables are scattered among the seats. And it's free.

Symphony Hall is a nice venue. The opera singers for Aida were wonderful. The orchestra is fantastic. Adding the worst cartoon/AI movie/video game as a background to the singers and Orchestra was the worst and funniest thing I've seen on a long time. It was absolutely a terrible idea but thanks for the laugh during a tragedy. Seriously, we couldn't stop giggling. Please don't do that again. Too stupid and an insult to the talent of the performers. We, as well as many, many others, made our escape at intermission.

My daughter had a strings concert here, very intimate space, acoustics sound great

The singers were absolutely superb and the orchestra was great. The AI was a catastrophe. The Greek chorus that stared at the audience for the entire performance was unsettling and distracting. The at times random AI, that mixed paintings, animation, real life video and out of sync singing, along with the performers was truly a distraction. There are many more things to criticize, but the mixed epoch’s also was a distraction. While I won’t go so far as to say there is no role of AI in opera, this was not it. A really well crafted CGI approach with live actors interacting in that kind of set would’ve seemed more appropriate. The performers and Orchestra truly save this one.