“Opera San José’s music director and principal conductor led with tenderness and power.”
“Saturday’s performance, conducted with crisp dexterity by Music Director Joseph Marcheso, was as sensual and fluid as one could ask for, with lovely orchestral playing and attentive contributions from a large cast.”
“Joseph Marcheso drew brisk and atmospheric playing from the orchestra”
“Joseph Marcheso brings out both the delicacy and the fervor of the music”
“It helped, too, that the entire cast, suavely led by Music Director Joseph Marcheso, delivered the music with a combination of textural transparency and expressive urgency.”
— San Francisco Chronicle
“Conductor Joseph Marcheso led a balanced performance, relishing both the sensuous atmospherics and the metric discipline needed.”
“Joseph Marcheso interprets Wolf-Ferrari’s score with a fresh, rounded brightness.”
“Music director Joseph Marcheso conducted with unobtrusive excellence, supporting the singers beautifully and pacing the work with stylish grace.”
— Opera News
“Joseph Marcheso made Saturday’s performance an engrossing experience.”
— Mercury News
“Conductor Joseph Marcheso inspired confidence from the moment Scarpia’s whole-tone motif entered, and the balance of his orchestra with the warm, lush singing of Puccini’s melodies was particularly satisfying and moving throughout.”
— Times Herald
“Maestro Marcheso displayed full command of this almost bare bones structure of the middle Verdi canon, and he managed to invest the repetitive bass-chord-bass-chord progressions with meaningful forward motion. He also partnered his vocalists with consummate collaborative effort"
“Marcheso paced the evening with skill and obvious enjoyment and he drew impressive results that the most celebrated houses would take pride in. He also proved to be a highly capable partner with a cadre of exciting vocalists.”
“When it came to the expansive Puccini ‘money moments,’ the maestro elicited lustrous results, the kind of goose bump inducing music-making that characterizes the very best interpretations.”
— Opera Today
“While Marcheso firmly gripped us with the opera’s intense bolts of madness and action, his finesse with the introspective elements successfully threaded the two acts of the whale chase with its exploration of the meaning of life itself.”
— Operawire
“I sat closer than usual to the pit and really savored watching Joseph Marcheso; his conducting possesses a fascinating intensity that certainly translates to his orchestra. The brass lent a particular richness to the angel-march.”
— Operaville
“Maestro Joseph Marcheso had the orchestra go all out, the music was powerfully played.”
— The Opera Tattler
“Joseph Marcheso brought out the rich variety of the very listenable Heggie orchestration.”
— ArtsSF