In Review: McIntyre directs "Flight" at Des Moines Metro Opera

Flight Soars High in Des Moines

"Jonathan Dove’s innovative opera Flight is being lavished with an absolutely riveting new production at Des Moines Metro Opera’s resoundingly successful 2018 Festival… I am not sure what other opera companies are doing for world class singers at the moment, since they seem to all have been assembled in Indianola, Iowa to people this exquisitely realized performance... Director Kristine McIntyre has inspired this miracle of an ensemble cast to the highest possible level of achievement. The personal journey of each character has its own arc and together the team has not only defined the individual’s quests, but also has woven them together so that in the end, they are all surprised as they embrace their interdependence… And therein lies one beauty of Flight. It allows us to speculate. It gives us vignettes and lets us struggle to resolve them. It challenges us to face dynamics in our lives, relationships, situations, where we ourselves were tempted to flee. It tells us that life is not always linear, but sometimes parenthetical. And it makes us reflect upon how well we treat not only “others,” but the “Other.” And Team Flight accomplished this with humor, tireless physical movement, utter belief in the material, limitless application of talent, and profound compassion for the frailty of their (and our) characters. Back to the unerring staging from Ms. McIntyre, she used every possible inch of the playing space with variety and abandon… Flight was a uniquely satisfying journey with echoes of today’s headlines, musically vibrant and theatrically engaging, passionately presented by a thoroughbred team of interpreters who simply could not have been bettered. Bravi tutti!"

-James Sohre, Opera Today Read full review.