Press Review - Denis & Katya - Opera Philadelphia

Denis & Katya © Opera Philadelphia i

From the Press "Unconventional new opera Denis & Katya challenges the ear, the eye, and the soul"

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20 September 2019

Philadelphia / United States

Denis & Katya

Winners, FEDORA Prizes

Composer Philip Venables and Director Ted Huffman

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: Opera Philadelphia’s Festival O19 opens with game-changing world premiere Denis & Katya
September 19, 2019
“Opera Philadelphia opened its Festival O19 Wednesday on a level that eclipsed the expectations created by the unusually high success rate of past festivals, this time with the world premiere of Denis & Katya. Highly experimental in its manner, the piece exudes great confidence of purpose plus gritty, thoughtful artistry — in the spirit of O19’s commitment to making opera a distinctly 21st century thing.”

MUSICAL AMERICA: Philadelphia’s O19 gets underway with with the brilliant Denis & Katya
September 20, 2019
“Not only is Venables’s newest creation the most brilliantly original operatic work I’ve seen in a decade, it’s a sensitive, subtle, and deeply questioning meditation on youth, voyeurism, and the age of social media.”

OPERA NEWS: Denis & Katya
September 18, 2019
“Miller's luminous personal timbre and Hoffman's wide-ranging plangent security and exceptional diction complement one another; both artists call on affecting emotive coloration and keen dynamic shading”

BROADWAY WORLD: The world premiere of Denis & Katya at Opera Philadelphia
September 19, 2019
“Each piece of Denis & Katya is impeccably thought out … There has not been a piece of theater that has made me think so deeply in a very long time.”

OPERA TODAY: Edgy, Haunting Denis & Katya
September 20, 2019
“Composer Philip Venables and Librettist Ted Huffman’s unsettling, unconventional new opera Denis & Katya challenges the ear, the eye, and the soul to accept a wholly new hybrid form of operatic expression.”

PARTERRE BOX: Total Ellipse
September 21, 2019
“What I really want to leave you with is the sense that this is an important, out-of-the-box work, superbly performed. Denis & Katya deserves to have a long afterlife, and with luck, it will.”
“In addition to their beautiful voices, Miller and Hoffman display something perhaps even rarer: a sense of complete ease and comfort onstage, while at the same time bringing laser-like focus to the drama.”