Reviews
“…bursts of instrumental color and vocal solos whose shape and urgency hinted at an expressive subtext.”
- Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
\"A Gripping monodrama, My Lai evokes a dark moment of the Vietnam War.\"
- John von Rhein, The Boston Globe
\"A fierce musical look at the hero of My Lai...a richly evocative score, vivid and poignant. The music, written for the Kronos Quartet and the Vietnamese instrumental virtuoso Van-Anh Vo, underscored the drama with unerring clarity.\"
- Joshua Kosman, The San Francisco Chronicle
Rime Sparse… explores the psychic dimensions of desire…spasms of intensity and eerie…phrases of aching lyricism.
- Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
The soprano sings in plaintive phrases of disarming poignancy in parts. Yet, the lines keep slipping into fractured, volatile passages where not just words, but single syllables are obsessively repeated. The instruments sometimes cushion the vocal line with mystical, piercing harmonies, until emotions break loose and the music becomes fiendish.
- Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times
\"My Lai is a gripping affair from beginning to end.\"
- James Oestreichi, The New York Times
- James Oestreichi, The New York Times
“The instrumental score… moved in and out of tonality like a vision that briefly pulls into focus before dissolving into a blur.”
- Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times
“…riveting…the music shifted from alienating dissonance to archetypal familiarity”
- Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times
“Berger, like Schoenberg, calls upon the instrumentalists to hold the listeners in the psycho-musical realm. The instrumental writing fascinates at just the right moments, supporting what is otherwise a delicate psychological experience.”
- Heather Heise, New Music Box
“…a fascinating compliment of extremely colorful, skillfully contrasted dissonant orchestral sounds…”
- San Francisco Classical Voice
“…taut… hauntingly beautiful choral harmonies that bled tellingly into Leon’s mad reveries.”
- Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times
“[Visitations]…charted new directions for a hybrid kind of operatic-performance art theater.”
- Mort Levine, Bay Area News Group
“Powerful, chilling, haunting….This production is calling out to be toured around the world-”
- Be’eri Moalem, San Jose Classical Music Examiner
“Berger’s operas stood out for their emotional honesty and the intense performances”
- Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, The New York Times