It’s a Wonderful Life • Press Coverage
Critical Acclaim
“A cathartic, life-changing experience… The opera hit me like a ton of bricks and left such a deep mental and emotional impression in me. It completely worked on every level.”
Parterre Box
“It’s a Wonderful Life is a tight, beautifully crafted opera that tells its story in high operatic terms — it is a string of lyric moments woven into compelling episodes. Jake Heggie now has resolutely proven himself the Great American Composer with It’s a Wonderful Life, following Moby Dick and Dead Man Walking, works that embody the American spirit in flowing, intensely lyrical, American middle high-art musical terms.”
Opera Today
“Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer have transported the beloved classic Christmas movie to the stage.”
Texas Classical Review
“I wish every music listener and musician I know could experience It’s a Wonderful Life. I didn’t know quite what to expect from a “family-friendly holiday” opera. I most certainly did not expect to be completely overwhelmed and moved to the point of tears, which flowed freely from a heart inexplicably opened by the sheer aching beauty of every sound uttered by South African soprano Golda Schultz, and from the universal, yet deeply personal resonance of the lyrics, so perfectly crafted by librettist Gene Scheer. Most importantly, I was moved by the music itself, the best work Heggie has thus far composed.”
Bachtrack
“It’s a Wonderful Life soars!”
Houston Chronicle
“As a composer Heggie can set words to music with melodic lines that settle gratefully on the voice. His musical gestures can conjure a mood or feeling with a few deft strokes.”
Seen and Heard International
“The music is frosted with glittering bells and chimes: lush, tonal and frankly romantic.”
The Spectator
“This operatic adaptation is on the side of the angels… Jake Heggie’s take on the heartwarming Christmas classic has a glittering, melodic score with a gift of a role for soprano Danielle de Niese as goofy guardian angel Clara.”
The Guardian
“Heggie's score is at turns filmic and dramatic, but there is plenty of festive sparkle and colour to it. Some recurring themes worm into the brain, while the discordant hauntings of "Hark the Herald Angels" brilliantly capture the unravelling of George's senses.”
What’s on Stage
“It’s a Wonderful Life begins with a handsome overture that [Heggie] refracts through a glitzy prism of Richard Rodgers and golden-age Hollywood…It is that rare operatic bird, a crowd-pleaser.”
Opera Magazine
“It’s a Wonderful Life just might be the opera we need right now. Heggie delivers a score filled with exuberance and longing. It’s a shapely mix of arias, duets, and ensembles, with outstanding writing for chorus and many highlights throughout: character-defining numbers for George, a vibrant quartet in Act I, and a beautiful Act II duet for Clara and George’s wife, Mary Heath, and a big, show-stopping finale.”
Mercury News
“Jake Heggie’s score is filled with innovation, experimentation and some fantastic orchestration.”
ENO Response
“It’s fizzy and funny, heartwarming and sentimental, and full of just enough poster-board moralism to leave everyone (except perhaps money-grubbing slumlords) feeling pretty gosh-darned good about the world. [It’s a Wonderful Life] boasts a lithe, streamlined libretto by Gene Scheer and an ingratiatingly tuneful score by composer Jake Heggie that hovers with cheerful insouciance in a stylistic middle plane between opera and musical.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Heggie’s most delightful concoction…”
TheaterJones
“Theatre has pantomime, ballet has The Nutcracker… opera has It’s a Wonderful Life. Heggie, together with librettist Gene Scheer, has made fine festive work of his adaptation, without shying away from any of the power and difficulty of the story. Heggie’s score is beautiful and haunting…The formal solemnity of opera suits this story very well.”
iNews