La traviata
The orchestra played beautifully under Baril’s direction: supportive, precise, never overshadowing the singers.
— Peter Alexander Boulder Weekly July, 2015
La traviata
Maestro John Baril and the festival orchestra deliver an exquisite rendition of Verdi’s fabulous melodies.
— Bob Bowes ColoradoDrama.com July, 2015
La traviata
Conductor and CCO Music Director John Baril has mastered the way the orchestra and singers can mix in the cozy place.
— Ray Mark Rinaldi Denver Post July, 2015
La traviata
CCO Music Director John Baril, always superb in the pit, again leads a polished, professional orchestra through a sensitive reading of the score. Baril knows what the singers need and consistently provides it.
— Kelly Dean Hansen Boulder Daily Camera July, 2015
Il barbiere di Siviglia
Conductor John Baril wielded effective control, and the orchestra performed incisively.
— Peter Alexander Boulder Weekly July, 2013
Dead Man Walking
Ken Cazan’s evocative and efficient staging, John Baril and the festival orchestra’s spirited and well-shaded palette, and the Colorado Children’s Chorale underscore the emotional punch.
— Bob Bows ColoradoDrama.com July, 2014
Dead Man Walking
The lines are a Stephen Sondheim-style puzzle of interruption and overlap that is put together with stunning precision. The show also has influences of Bernstein, Gershwin and, in one of its lighter moments, Elvis Presley. It is that mix of Broadway liveliness and cinematic intimacy that define this work (and many recent American operas). The music swells and stops to drive emotion the way a movie score does. At Central City, conductor John Baril let his orchestra play as if it were recording a soundtrack and it sounded melodramatic in all the right ways.
— Ray Mark Rinaldi Denver Post July, 2014
Dead Man Walking
Saturday night’s opening of Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking,” performed with the composer in attendance, was an emotionally shattering but spiritually edifying experience of a kind that is rarely repeated. CCO Music Director John Baril leads the orchestra through Heggie’s dense but melodius score, making sure that the music’s difficulty does not draw attention to itself or away from the story and its characters. Although it sounds like a modern opera, no audience member will leave without subconsciously humming some tune or other, possibly the unforgettable hymn “He Will Gather Us Around,” maybe the heaving descents of the parents’ laments, or even the restless five-note figures that open the opera and constantly return.
— Kelly Dean Hansen The Boulder Daily Camera July, 2014
Don Giovanni
Conductor John Baril’s expansive reading brought its own rewards;[the] contrasting swift tempo adopted for “Mi tradì” proved most telling…
— Opera News October, 2008
Don Giovanni
Mozart has too much wit and humor, and his lines are too pure and transcendent to cloy. Some people say this is the greatest opera – perhaps the greatest piece of music – ever written, and they’ll get no argument from me. And under the sure baton of John Baril, Central City Opera has assembled voices that do the score justice.
— Westword July, 2006