Press Aclaim Components

"Delightful, albeit unusual, holiday fare... "Becoming Santa Claus'" complex score and clever libretto (with a plot just begging for a Pixar adaptation) were both written by Adamo; though the subject matter is child-centric, Adamo’s dense and vocally challenging score is anything but."

"A minute after the music began, I knew that I was in the hands of a brilliant theatre composer."

“...Little Women is a carefully structured, sophisticated score that finds a workable balance between 12-tone techniques -- many of the major recurring themes are built from tone rows -- and unabashed lyricism.”

“Mark Adamo's Little Women is some sort of masterpiece.”

“The composer’s libretto captures much of the grace and fluency of Alcott’s writing…”

“Mr. Adamo, who also wrote the libretto, invents characters and conflicts and makes the story a richer human drama…”

“...delivering more genuine laughs than just about any comic opera since Gianni Schicchi...His amusing, slang-strewn libretto uses the Aristophanes original only as a point of departure.”

“...he has an extraordinary ear for vocal writing and a knack for theater, and has written an engaging, coherent, and beautiful work.”

“Adamo has the ingenious knack for creating memorable themes whose recurrences serve as signposts for the drama, and his vocal writing is both urgent and shapely.”

“Mr. Adamo knows how to set English so that the words come through clearly when sung, a technique that too many opera composers struggle with.”

“By emphasizing the humanity of its characters – disregarding Christian dogma and supernatural dissonances (virgin birth, miracles, resurrection) – Adamo has located the story’s more universal aspects and created a compelling, dramatic journey.”

“...Adamo’s opera, which aims to reconcile sexuality with a Christian life, and which argues for a woman’s right to possess a physical identity without abandoning spirituality, could not have found a more appropriate home than the San Francisco Opera.”

“The resulting work is not a “children’s opera”, but a musically sophisticated fantasy, that explores a 13-year old boy’s psyche.”

“Even when dizzyingly difficult, the angular vocal lines are singable and memorable—the hallmarks of effective opera whether composed by Mozart, Verdi, Gounod, Wagner, or Adamo.”

“Adamo creates a completely new legend for his Santa Claus and sets a Pixar-esque opera with an explosion of kaleidoscopic music.”

“It’s merry, it’s bright, and, in the best possible, most imaginative ways, it is very, very Adamo...Claus’s magical childhood kingdom sparkles with mystery thanks to inventive orchestration.”

“The opera cleverly combines Euripides’ Bacchae with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. If that sounds like solely an intellectual exercise, it actually works well.”

“...a searing account of the monster inside us all.”

“The Lord of Cries is challenging stuff—a complete theatrical immersion … Contemporary politics and even the world of pandemic we have been living through all seem relevant to one of the basic ideas of the opera—fear of the ‘other.’”

“The libretto is by Mark Adamo, Corigliano’s husband, who is himself an opera composer of considerable accomplishment... Adamo’s double-layered conceit is a good match for Corigliano’s aesthetic, which thrives on the collision of disparate spheres.”

“...The Lord of Cries is a major addition to the canon of new operas.”

“Mark Adamo mines a hitherto academic stance connecting the ancient Greek god of wine to the most penetrating supernatural creature born from the fertile end-of-century Gothic imagination, and presents a libretto grounded in poetic repetition.”

“Mark Adamo's Little Women is some sort of masterpiece.”

"Delightful, albeit unusual, holiday fare... "Becoming Santa Claus'" complex score and clever libretto (with a plot just begging for a Pixar adaptation) were both written by Adamo; though the subject matter is child-centric, Adamo’s dense and vocally challenging score is anything but."

"A minute after the music began, I knew that I was in the hands of a brilliant theatre composer."

“...Little Women is a carefully structured, sophisticated score that finds a workable balance between 12-tone techniques -- many of the major recurring themes are built from tone rows -- and unabashed lyricism.”

“Mark Adamo's Little Women is some sort of masterpiece.”

“The composer’s libretto captures much of the grace and fluency of Alcott’s writing…”

“Mr. Adamo, who also wrote the libretto, invents characters and conflicts and makes the story a richer human drama…”

“...delivering more genuine laughs than just about any comic opera since Gianni Schicchi...His amusing, slang-strewn libretto uses the Aristophanes original only as a point of departure.”

“...he has an extraordinary ear for vocal writing and a knack for theater, and has written an engaging, coherent, and beautiful work.”

“Adamo has the ingenious knack for creating memorable themes whose recurrences serve as signposts for the drama, and his vocal writing is both urgent and shapely.”

“Mr. Adamo knows how to set English so that the words come through clearly when sung, a technique that too many opera composers struggle with.”

“By emphasizing the humanity of its characters – disregarding Christian dogma and supernatural dissonances (virgin birth, miracles, resurrection) – Adamo has located the story’s more universal aspects and created a compelling, dramatic journey.”

“...Adamo’s opera, which aims to reconcile sexuality with a Christian life, and which argues for a woman’s right to possess a physical identity without abandoning spirituality, could not have found a more appropriate home than the San Francisco Opera.”

“The resulting work is not a “children’s opera”, but a musically sophisticated fantasy, that explores a 13-year old boy’s psyche.”

“Even when dizzyingly difficult, the angular vocal lines are singable and memorable—the hallmarks of effective opera whether composed by Mozart, Verdi, Gounod, Wagner, or Adamo.”

“Adamo creates a completely new legend for his Santa Claus and sets a Pixar-esque opera with an explosion of kaleidoscopic music.”

“It’s merry, it’s bright, and, in the best possible, most imaginative ways, it is very, very Adamo...Claus’s magical childhood kingdom sparkles with mystery thanks to inventive orchestration.”

“The opera cleverly combines Euripides’ Bacchae with Bram Stoker’s Dracula. If that sounds like solely an intellectual exercise, it actually works well.”

“...a searing account of the monster inside us all.”

“The Lord of Cries is challenging stuff—a complete theatrical immersion … Contemporary politics and even the world of pandemic we have been living through all seem relevant to one of the basic ideas of the opera—fear of the ‘other.’”

“The libretto is by Mark Adamo, Corigliano’s husband, who is himself an opera composer of considerable accomplishment... Adamo’s double-layered conceit is a good match for Corigliano’s aesthetic, which thrives on the collision of disparate spheres.”

“...The Lord of Cries is a major addition to the canon of new operas.”

“Mark Adamo mines a hitherto academic stance connecting the ancient Greek god of wine to the most penetrating supernatural creature born from the fertile end-of-century Gothic imagination, and presents a libretto grounded in poetic repetition.”

“Mark Adamo's Little Women is some sort of masterpiece.”