SELECTED REVIEW EXCERPTS
of Jose Maria Condemi’s directorial work
(hardcopies of
the original reviews are available upon request)
“SPECTACULAR…Fly to the California Theater as Opera San Jose is presenting
a production of The Magic Flute that is big fun, deeply cast, stunning to look
and sophisticated in whole new ways for this company…the key to the production
if director Jose Maria Condemi, who has universalized
the story by layering in an Asian element…the final scene is a spangled fairy
tale come to life”
Richard Scheinin for SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
“LAVISHLY STAGED...Opera San Jose continues to enthrall audiences
with a completely rethought and lavishly stage production. The concept that
director Jose Maria Condemi brought to life was a
mixture of Asian influences ranging from Japanese Noh play to giant puppets and
masks…it all operated on several levels with an opening night audience
appreciating the voices on display as much as the intricate staging”
Mort Levine
for
“CHARMING
PRODUCTION…Some singers, with highly
trained voices, merely walk on stage and do mediocre
acting. When you get the whole package of singer and actor rolled into one it
is electrifying. As it happened, Jose Maria Condemi’s
production was pretty good and we even got a glimpse of the entire package.”
“FLAWLESS….Seattle Opera’s handsome, impressively crafted La Bohème. Director Jose Maria Condemi
gives us the piece straight…this production expertly realized some many of
those moments that make the opera beloved, living an breathing as a Bohème ought do to…it left me not only thoroughly engaged
but freshly amazed at what a supreme example of music-theater this is”
Gavin Borchert for
“GEM OF LA BOHÈME AT
Melinda Bargreen for
“THIS BOHÈME IS FRESH AND WARM AND TRUE
TO PUCCINI…Seattle Opera’s
production is old-fashioned in style and intentions. It is also splendid and
immensely satisfying. Jose Maria Condemi’s staging works in defining character, creating
tableaus and keeping the action moving. I suppose this is all predictable but
the question is whether a production is fresh and warm. This one is”
R.M
“
Thomas May
for CROSSCUT
“IT’S EASY TO FALL IN LOVE WITH THIS
BOHÈME….Seattle Opera’s production
is a winning combination of sets, costumes, imaginative staging and strong
vocal performances. Director Jose Maria Condemi
brings all the elements together to create a charming and irresistible production”
Deborah
Stone for NORTHWEST NEWS
“BRILLIANT…a sumptuously traditional production and a fine end
to a season… Jose Maria Condemi’s nuanced stage
direction is a cohesive, no-nonsense approach in which everything works
dramatically to the service of the story and the singers”
Mike Murray
for HERALD NET
“ALL THE RIGHT NOTES…Under the able
direction of Jose Maria Condemi, the singers have
scrupulously developed their characters and relationships so that every moment
builds on the one before it in an production that is
emotionally gratifying and anything by stale”
MAGGIE
LARRICK for QUEEN ANNE NEWS
“A GREAT DEAL OF PLEASURE… the stage action is managed in masterful fashion by
director Jose Maria Condemi…he never puts a foot wrong,
whether in the intimate scenes of the outer acts or in elucidating the
tumultuous crush of persons that congregate in Act II”
Bernard
Jacobson for SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL
“CENERENTOLA BEFITS MEROLA’S GOLDEN
ANNIVERSARY….what training program?
The young artists produced a near-flawless, thoroughly professional production.
There have been many notable Merola productions in
the past but I cannot remember one with more all-around excellence, quite
without a weak link. Director Jose Maria Condemi was
the self-effacing, efficient stage director”
Janos Gereben for
“A FAIRY-TALE CINDERELLA…Jose Maria Condemi’s
direction often coordinated the action with the phrasing of the music…he let
the personalities of the singers and their acting come through while
occasionally obtruding his own work”
John Bender
for
“SOLID…Big thumbs up for this
solid, colorful, thoroughly professional and eminently enjoyable production. It
surpassed all expectations in every area we rate opera productions. Director Jose Maria Condemi
blended the production into a single whole so that no one part ever looked out
of place or detracted from the quality of this truly entertaining production”
Paul Joseph Walkowski for OPERAONLINE.us
“WITTY
AND INTELLIGENT….inventive direction and a chorus that was not merely a singing appendage
but a lively participant in the fun…what is really admirable about Jose Maria Condemi’s direction is that he didn’t find it necessary to
add bawdy burlesque at
every turn of phrase. There were plenty of funny bits but like the music
itself, Condemi’s production was witty and
intelligent”
Doug de Lisle for THE
l
“IMAGINATIVE…Lake George Opera opened
its 45th season with a strong, imaginative and visually appealing
Barber of Seville. Director Jose Maria Condemi used every
entrance and exit in the hall. The audience loved it. It added to the comic
atmosphere that was done at full tilt with fast pacing throughout”
Geraldine Freeman for DAILY GAZETTE
“A CUT ABOVE….Lake George Opera’s Barber of Seville is a cut
above… a smashing production. Director Condemi uses the
entire theater as a playground, working it like a malleable lump of clay. There
are many comic turns and the opera played at a lively pace throughout”
Mae. G Banner for THE SARATOGIAN
“EMERGING TALENT …Minnesota Opera is presenting a major emerging talent
in director Jose Maria Condemi, a thoughtful man whose creative vision is at
the service of opera and audience”
William
Randall for MINNEAPOLIS/SAINT PAUL MAGAZINE
“
Rob Hubbard
for Pioneer Press,
“DELECTABLE RARITY …Jose Maria Condemi’s direction was efficient and particularly
effective in the handling of the large chorus, which had and ominously military
precision of movement, all contributing to a thoroughly enjoyable evening”
Heidi
Waleson for the
“MARIA PADILLA GETS BEL-CANTO BRAVO ...
thoughtfully staged by Jose Maria
Condemi, dramatically telling touches”
Michael
Anthony for the STAR TRIBUNE
“OPERATIC TREASURE…Minnesota Opera has
found operatic treasure with its new production of Donizetti's Maria
Padilla…Stage director Jose Maria Condemi's
movement told the story clearly”
John Koopman for OPERA NEWS
“Stage
director Jose Maria Condemi took a rather old
fashioned story and made it come alive with an excursion into the psychology of
a troubled mind in symbolic setting containing cages and picture frames that
represented the inability of the characters to break out of their habitual ways
of thinking”
Maria
Nockin for OPERA JAPONICA
“THIS TIME THEY GOT IT RIGHT ... the San Francisco Opera Summer reprise of last fall’s
production of Cosí fan Tutte
opened with changes in personnel that turned the trick…the four principals who
returned from last time all seemed much surer and in command than before, more
interesting, more nuanced…the production went smoothly this time under the
direction of Jose Maria Condemi”
Robert
Commanday for
“THIS COSĺ
DOES NOT CHEAT …Jose Maria Condemi’s
revival continues to illuminate this familiar work with the help of just a few
well-chosen directorial conceits, balancing the demands of comedy and
seriousness”
Joshua
Kosman for
“YOUNG TALENT STRONG WITH ENSEMBLE ENERGY …one feels the singers
working genuinely with one another. They actually act as well as sing, moving
in ways that trained actors do but not always singers….everything made sense,
aided by Jose Maria Condemi’s staging. Condemi has a sprightly hand, at once exuberant and
extravagant”
R.M Campbell for the
“Director Jose Maria Condemi kept the comedy light on its feet with pitch
perfect characterizations wedded to clever staging…. the company’s emphasis on
credible acting was evident”
Maggie Larrick for the
QUEEN ANNE NEWS
“STUNNING” ... the production,
directed by Jose Maria Condemi, made excellent use of
the stage;
people appeared and disappeared
through a series of trap doors. Playing spaces were well defined and the
atmosphere was appropriately dark and foreboding. There were marvelous details”
Brian Kellow for OPERA NEWS
“SUPERB” …Director Condemi’s
staging never overdoes the slapstick and he inserts clever stage business that heighten the character’s personalities. It all
moves gracefully and is a successful mesh of music and movement”
Anne Arenstein for CITYBEAT
“ARRESTING…..The Mozart
opera, directed here by Jose Maria Condemi, was
visually arresting, proceeded with the right kind of ambiguous tone (despite
the comic elements, this is, after all, a tale of callous and murderous
amorality) and featured a strong cast that impressed for its individual
strengths and its sense of ensemble
Wayne
Gooding for OPERA
“COMPELLING …five years ago, Jose Maria Condemi was an apprentice stage director in the San Francisco
Opera Merola Program. Today, he is one of the most promising and impressive
directors in all opera. Condemi’s production of Roméo
et Juliette would be a fine
accomplishment anywhere but here in
Janos
Gereben, for
“CLEVERLY PRESENTED …if ever there was a testament to the virtues of
making do, it’s the surprisingly effective production of Roméo
and Juliette being presented by Festival Opera.
Condemi deployed his players with understated cunning.”
Joshua
Kosman for
“STRIKINGLY SIMPLE …the performance began on a striking visual note: as
the curtain rose on a backdrop of blue sky filled with birds, Roméo and Juliette stood center
stage, their backs to the audience as petals fell from the sky around them.
That quality of striking simplicity was evident throughout the production”
Georgia
Rowe for CONTRA COSTA TIMES
“INVENTIVE…..Condemi’s
direction is filled with inventive staging and the performers respond with
whole-hearted enthusiasm and vibrant energy. Together, they fill the opera with
plenty of zest and charm. Touching moments also get their due, in particular
the moment when Norina slaps Don Pasquale: Condemi sensitively scaled down the moment to give it the
right touch of pathos for it to stand in contrast to the whirlwind of activity
the story generates”
Kelly Snyder for CONCERTONET
“YOUNG CAST DAZZLES …An operatic performance as wondrously vibrant and moving as Saturday’s
La Bohème does more than just provide a grand night
of musical theater. It gives you hope for the future. The singing was
beautiful…yet there was something else at work here, a sense of the importance
of making opera into more than simply vocal display. One got the feeling that
these singers understood what it meant to inhabit a role fully and to use their
vocal abilities toward dramatic ends. Part of that was due to the production, a
sumptuously detailed and imaginative staging directed by Jose Maria Condemi. “
Joshua Kosman for the
”A
WINNING BOHÈME …Few things in theatrical life are as certain as the
electric effect of a
well-managed production of La Bohème. The Merola Opera
Program proved that again on Saturday
night. Director Jose Maria Condemi placed the
production in the
Michael Zwiebach for
“LA BOHÈME DOES IT AGAIN …The young Argentine
Director Jose Maria Condemi came up with some fresh,
often charming and always effective bits of stage business…if you weren’t
there, you missed out on a terrific performance”
Heuwell Tircuit for
“AN IRRESISTIBLE BOHÈME … Last weekend those
who were involved in Merola’s charming version of La Bohème produced a shining
work of marvelous staging, direction, casting and sterling vocal performance.
On the small stage, director Jose Maria Condemi
remained true to the vastness of Puccini’s timeless opera”
Eleanor Ohman for THE SUN REPORTER-SAN FRANCISCO
“OH, WHAT A FINE SUSANNAH … STAGING ENHANCES THE
STORY” …Festival Opera’s powerful
new production boasts the same musical and dramatic assurance that enlivened so
many of its earlier offerings…Saturday night’s performance was a keeper, marked
by first-rate singing, starkly evocative stage direction by Jose Maria Condemi and strong conducting…the production wisely
underscores the plain-spokenness of Floyd’s writing to create an effect of
rough-hewn eloquence…”
Joshua Kosman for the
“WELL-TOLD TALE OF TREACHERY… EXCELLENCE IN ALL
ASPECTS …Carlisle Floyd surely would
be ecstatic with the riveting production of his masterpiece at Festival
Opera…The show benefited from excellent direction…Jose Maria Condemi’s production built on Floyd’s taut pacing. Condemi
has marvelous cinematic eye, especially useful in crowd scenes and his use of
slow motion movement to shift focus is effective and wholly in keeping with the
music. He also has done excellent work with the actors; the singers are
emotionally committed and clearly thinking what’s going on and they actually
listen to each other”
Michael Zwiebach for
“AIN’T IT A MEMORABLE NIGHT? … Those who were present at the opening night of
Floyd’s Susannah must agree that the production surpassed anything that one had
seen or heard at the Dean Lesher Center in recent memory…The simple and elegant
production design by Jose Maria Condemi features
atmospheric sets, costumes and projections…I was reminded once again how acting
and singing are inseparably fused in opera at its finest, and that one would be
hard pressed to tell where costumes, make-up, lighting, acting and singing
severally end or begin – infused as they are into a grand, organic whole that
is opera”
Truman C. Wang for CLASSICAL VOICE REVIEW
“FESTIVAL OPERA’S PRODUCTION REVERBERATES WITH PASSION,
CONFLICT AND DRAMA …the power of
this production reflects Jose Maria Condemi’s
effective stage direction. Susannah’s nude bathing scene is exquisitely
presented; in the final scene, a creatively deft piece of symbolism, a broken
swing, whispers about the loss of innocence”
Alice Grace Chalip for THE
“Jose Maria Condemi’s
adroit stage direction and coaching of the principal characters, as well as the
well honed chorus, galvanized the production giving it intelligence and
cohesiveness while leaving room for a certain amount of spontaneity”
Patricia Beach Smith for THE
“Festival
Opera’s opening-night performance of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah offered a
level of artistic accomplishment worthy of a major company. Jose Maria Condemi’s stage direction consistently added import to the
proceedings”
JASON
SERINUS for OPERA NEWS (Online)
“ROLLICKING
…stage director Jose Maria Condemi provided the alchemy that established and sustained
the tissue of wit that filled the intimate Capitola Theater…Condemi
choreographed blocking, posing, facial expressions, gestures and asides with
fastidious detail and enchanting results but rather than call attention to
itself it all fit within the larger spirit of Rossiniesque comedy”
Scott McClelland for METRO
“BSLO LA CENERENTOLA TRIUMPHS …the amazing thing about this presentation is the
startling fact that something of this high caliber can be performed in this
quirky beach town…I cant’ say enough fantastic things about this
Cenerentola…clearly it is not an easy opera to pull off; the music, the pace,
the vocal artistry needed ….it is all handled with expertise by the combined
efforts of the conductor Alex Katsman and stage director Josemaria Condemi”
Greg Archer for GOOD TIMES/SANTA CRUZ
“DONIZETTI
DONE RIGHT …San Jose Opera fans got their first look at Argentinian
director
Jose Maria Condemi
and I’m guessing they’ll be wanting more. Condemi
pulled together a
rollicking
production full of general buffoonery and synchronized sight gags and closed
the deal
by
eliciting wonderful comic performances from his principals.”
Michael Vaughn for METRO
“AN IDEAL COMBINATION ….from the start things move swiftly….Belcore
has witty
stage
movements, as do his enlisted men –simple but effective choreography that put
to shame the
basic
strut-and-march routines exhibited in the San Francisco Opera’s recent
production of the
opera….much
to recommend in this production”
Leslie Valdez for
“LAVISH FARCE STAGED WITH JUST THE RIGHT BALANCE …The Western
Opera Theater traveling production hit just the right comic balance …director
Jose Maria Condemi let the popular speak for itself
with few of the pratfalls and broad asides that often mar productions by
pushing the material too far…”
Milton
Moore for THE DAY (CT)
“A VERY
FULLFILLING FLEDERMAUS …I was incredibly impressed by this production of
“Die Fledermaus …some opera productions focus
entirely on the music but this production made great use of the sets, chorus
and props…I enjoyed the interplay between characters and the great physical
presence each performer had on stage. None of them were stodgy or stiff and at
the same time the actions were not distracting. They made the stage more
animated, drawing the audience into the hilarity of each situation…”
Russel King for THE DAY CARDINAL (
"Director Jose Maria Condemi
deserves much of the credit for the success of this particular production. He
pushes his performers into more realistic actions and stage business that both
enlivened the scenes and brought more than the usual numbers of laughs.
Condemi's direction was so entertaining, the casting so right and the singing
so sublime, the opera's nearly three-hour length
seemed to fly by in a wink..."
Pam Kragen for NORTH
"…Jose Maria Condemi’s
production featured plenty of physical comedy, paying enough attention to stage
movement that one could follow the notoriously disjointed plot. Stage direction
underlined the myriad charms of Mozart's orchestration. Part of the pleasure in
such a production is watching young singers develop their own interpretations
of familiar roles; it makes one appreciate how much more there is to opera than
just words... "
Heather Hadlock for
"…DON
GIOVANNI PERFORMED TO PERFECTION …the combination of Mozart's genius and
the lively performance of the San Francisco Western Opera Theater made this
production one of the most delightful to hit this city….this young opera
ensemble has developed the ability to make something old fresh and new
again…"
THE
"A
BRAVURA PERFORMANCE BEGS AN ENCORE …In
its third production in the city in the last four years, the Western Opera
company of the San Francisco Opera didn't disappoint. Too many regional opera
performances are over-directed and under-sung but "Don Giovanni" was
on the right mark. The one-set-fits all production
worked well and the costuming was lavish, with a real-life, slightly worn
feel"
Milton Moore for NEW
Lukas Schulze for THE
·
For “River of Women” (World premiere/ Music
Theatre Collective/Theater Artaud)
“Receiving its formal world premiere, Hector Armienta’s
Despite the bare-bones production values, this performance was an effort
quite evidently directed by a mature creative team with a clear understanding
of artistic priorities”
Ching Chang
for