Taking Up Serpents

Chicago Opera Theater

Chicago, IL

“COT’s rehearsals must have gone quite well since this immaculate performance was done in a single unbroken take with multiple cameras. Music director Lidiya Yankovskaya conducted the 13-player chamber orchestra with characteristic skill—sure pacing [and] keen dramatic focus…
–Lawrence A. Johnson, Chicago Classical Review

“With Lidiya Yankovskaya conducting the eloquent 13-member orchestra, it is Sankaram’s intricately layered score and the poetry of Dye’s libretto that keep us riveted.”
–Wynne Delacoma, Musical America

“Conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya led the appropriately socially-distanced orchestra through the eclectic score with precision and verve, which was all the more impressive given that this was largely accomplished through live video feeds.”
–Mark Thomas Ketterson, Opera News

“Conducted surely by Lidiya Yankovskaya…a tightly coiled piece. It pulls you in so much, you have to rewatch it.”
–Patrick O’Brien, Chicagoland Musical Theatre

“With an excellent 13-piece orchestra under the blistering direction of Lidiya Yankovskaya, [Serpents is] a powerhouse, richly theatrical, regionally tinged score by composer Kamala Sankaram and a feverishly colloquial libretto by Jerre Dye. The opera coils around itself you like the poisonous snakes so emblematic to the story. And it never lets go.”
–Hedy Weiss, WTTW