SUSAN STROMAN:

"Congratulations on your translations. They are terrific!"

FREDERICA VON STADE:

"This is wonderful! I wish someone would ask me to sing it again!" MERRY WIDOW

KENT NAGANO:

"Opera's mad genius!" (MAGIC FLUTE)

ROD GILFRY:

"If it were possible to ask Mozart and Schikaneder how their MAGIC FLUTE should be performed in the United States, I think they would say 'do Ross Halper's English version!' It's as close as it gets to the spirit of the original work. This FLUTE's a hoot!"

"Ross Halper truly has a way with words. His translation puts real flesh on the characters and makes an occasionally muddy plot crystal clear. This reworking is heads and shoulders above any other translation I've seen, and it should be the first choice of any company producing MERRY WIDOW for an English-speaking audience.

Singers will love how Halper accomodates the voice: wordy passages flow easily off the tongue, high notes are infallibly set on vowels that are a pleasure to sing. Actors will love the plethora of opportunities afforded by this clever script. Audiences will be entertained, moved and enchanted.

Ross Halper has tastefully and cleverly crafted The MERRY WIDOW into an operetta that is more coherent, more clever, more entertaining and more charming than even the original German version! It's as if English were its original language! Halper's reworking deserves to become THE standard English version of MERRY WIDOW!"

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GRAHAM CLARK

"You are brilliant! Great fun!"

OBERLIN OPERA THEATER. 2009

"What ensued was one of the most enjoyable evenings of opera we’ve experienced in recent memory. Besides the generally excellent singing and orchestral playing, much of the credit goes to Field for choosing to use Ross Halper's English recasting of the German libretto. Halper recaptures Mozart’s often raunchy sense of humor, and provides the perfect counter to the serious goings-on in Schikaneder’s original." www.clevelandclassical.com

OBERLIN OPERA THEATER

"Here's the scoop from Vienna: Mozart and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder have been seen not spinning in their graves, but dancing on them. The collaborators are gleeful after hearing about the Oberlin Opera Theater production of their masterpiece, "The Magic Flute." A grand helping of ingenuity has gone into the making of this newfangled version, which is sung in a hip English translation by Ross Halper that often finds the audience almost rolling in the aisles. Yet the work's rustic humor and spirituality are balanced to splendid effect. Papageno, the merry bird-catcher, is the chief messenger of Halper's text, which abounds in cheeky contemporary references and riotous rhymes. The translation becomes more dignified when Sarastro weaves his philosophical spells, but even here a 21st-century awareness pervades the narrative."
www.cleveland.com/musicdance/index.ssf/2009/03/oberlin_operas_magic_flute_is.html

PALO ALTO WEEKLY

"Halper's English translation just about steals the show...brilliant...well within the irreverent spirit of Schikaneder...so full of fun, you might forget you're at the opera." (MAGIC FLUTE)

THE NEWS GAZETTE, URBANA ILLINOIS

"Ross Halper's English translation produced waves of laughter ...and squeals of delight...excited salvos of applause...."

ROBERT DE SIMONE, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS OPERA THEATER

"I can’t think of THE MAGIC FLUTE with any other words, not even the German, after producing this version."

UNIVERSUTY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN 2007

"Ross Halper's snappy modern English translation came to the rescue, with Prince Tamino's goofy sidekick rapping his own introduction: " 'Yo, Papageno, they all shout/ Yeah that's my name, don't wear it out." wear it out." The student cast made the most of the rollicking translation and its frisky overtones.... "

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Allen Boehmer, SAN LUIS OBISPO TRIBUNE

"The Performing Arts Center stage came to life with a dazzling performance of [THE MERRY WIDOW], given new life by stage director Ross Halper's new, contemporary translation. Halper actually transformed the period libretto into a production no one could fail to love. THE MERRY WIDOW was the most successful production yet for Pacific Repertory Opera."

OAKLAND TRIBUNE

"Perhaps the greatest strength of this MAGIC FLUTE production was Ross Halper's updated translation. It is quite frankly a riot. This FLUTE was as light as helium."

JONATHAN KHUNER, conductor and prompter, Met and Bayreuth

"The most entertaining FLEDERMAUS I've ever seen."

ANDREW PORTER, THE NEW YORKER

"A deft new translation by Ross Halper"
EXCURSIONS OF MR. BROUCEK (Janácek) American Premiere, Kent Nagano, cond

LEOPOLD SIMONEAU

"Ross Halper is our modern Schikaneder." (MAGIC FLUTE)

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