In Review: McIntyre, Thurman receive raves for "Jane Eyre" with the Center for Contemporar

New York Chronicle, Music: Jane Eyre by Louis Karchin

"[Louis Karchin] tells the story through the orchestra, as much as the singers, with their words. This is a symphonic opera as much as a vocal one. Karchin writes like a man who has lived with opera, although Jane Eyre is only his second opera, and his first full-length one. Ah, well: Beethoven wrote just one opera. So did Gershwin. In the Kaye Playhouse, Jane Eyre was served by a very good production, overseen by the director Kristine McIntyre. Use of video was intelligent. At every turn, the production enhanced the story, libretto, and music, rather than overtaking them... The composer, and the librettist, and the stage director—and the novelist, Charlotte Brontë—had me the whole way. That may seem like faint praise. But it is not. The ending was moving, as Jane returns to Rochester, in his wrecked physical state. I thought, “This opera, in its warmth, beauty, and goodness, is brave. . . Outstanding in a smaller role was Katrina Thurman, another soprano, who played Blanche Ingram: bitchy, catty, well-nigh villainous. The soprano sang with confidence and lyric power.” -Jay Nordlinger, New Criterion Read full review.