ANGELA MEADE

An historic recording of golden age tenor Richard Tucker singing “Sound an Alarm” from Handel’s JUDAS MACCABEUS” set the tone for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s Gala concert at Carnegie Hall. There was wonderful singing ahead of us—but of a certain kind. Like many other classical organizations, the Tucker Foundation, has found that, as Charles Dickens said in “A Tale of Two Cities,” “It was the best of times, the worst of times.” The “best” is for the quality of the singers that the foun...

One of the troubles of being a major institution like the Met is that when they produce a new production of a major opera--and Verdi’s UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, which opened in revival the other night, certainly falls into that category--it’s an expensive undertaking. It's true that sometimes a production can be pulled out of its death tumble, with a new cast or simply time making the absolutely awful suddenly make sense. In the case of the current run of the opera, with Angela Meade, Charles Castro...

Usually, when long-neglected works somehow find their way to the forefront, we find there’s a pretty good reason for the lack of interest. Happily for us, this does not apply to Donizetti’s POLIUTO, which Will Crutchfield’s Teatro Nuovo performed last weekend at Montclair State’s Kasser Theatre and on July 19th at Jazz from Lincoln Center’s Rose Theatre. It’s filled with wonderful music that the current performers--particularly the suave tenor of Argentine Santiago Ballerini in the title role an...

Award-winner Angel Blue started off the proceedings at the Richard Tucker Gala (after Barry Tucker’s usual introduction/ode to his father, the great tenor) with a bang: Puccini’s justly famous aria “Vissi d’arte” from TOSCA. For those of us who’ve only heard her as Bess in Gershwin’s PORGY & BESS at the Met, it was a revelation to hear her lush, velvety voice raise the rafters on the hall, with no warm up....

Bass baritone Ryan Speedo Green was named as a winner of the 2021 Beverly Sills Artist Award by the Metropolitan Opera. Given in honor of the famed American soprano, this annual award is given to artists of exceptional ability with rising operatic careers at the Met. ...

The Met has announced a specially-curated, three-week schedule for its Nightly Met Opera Streams, a free series of encore Live in HD presentations and classic telecasts streamed on the company website during the coronavirus closure. The schedule includes an All-Verdi week, a 20th-Century Classics week, and an All-French week....

The Bilbao Opera has announced its 2021-22 season, just shortly after announcing its 2020-21 season....

The Met has announced the Weeks 13 and 14 schedules for its Nightly Met Opera Streams, which feature the Met's acclaimed productions of Philip Glass's Akhnaten and Satyagraha, both available to the public for the first time on the Met's streaming platforms....

Luckily for viewers on the Metropolitan Opera's “Met on Demand”—with selections available free in this time of COVID-19, on your laptop or as apps for your phone or tablet—there were a couple of knee-slappers thrown in among the drama of AIDA, PARSIFAL and ROMEO ET JULIETTE this week. Two of my favorites were there: Donizetti's DON PASQUALE and Verdi's FALSTAFF....

The Met on Demand had another week of exciting performances, from the divine [Rossini's IL  BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA] to the, well, the divine [Adams's NIXON IN CHINA]....

The 23 young opera singers who have won regional auditions around the United States will compete in the semifinal round of the country's leading vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, on Monday, February 24. The closed semifinal competition, held on the Met stage before a panel of judges, will determine the select group of finalists who will advance to the final round of the competition-the Grand Finals, which is open to the public and will be held on the Met sta...

This week's opera performances--Teatro Nuova's LA STRANIERA by Bellini and Mostly Mozart's MAGIC FLUTE--proved that opera can be considered alive and well (and living in New York), as long as those producing it believe in it and give us some voices worth hearing....

In its 9th summer season, Russian Opera Workshop presents Tchaikovsky's Iolanta (June 25, 26 & 27), and The Maid of Orleans (July 30, 31 and August 1). Other events include a series of master classes and concerts of Russian Romances....

The Metropolitan Opera has named soprano Lisette Oropesa as the winner of the 14th annual Beverly Sills Artist Award. The $50,000 award is given to extraordinarily gifted singers with rising Met careers. Given in honor of the legendary American soprano Beverly Sills, the award was established in 2006 by an endowment gift from the late Agnes Varis, a managing director on the Met's Board of Directors....

After a months-long series of auditions involving more than 1,000 singers at the district, regional, and national levels, a panel of expert judges named five singers as the winners of the 65th annual Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Each winner receives a $15,000 cash prize....

Following yesterday's highly competitive semifinal competition, nine singers will advance to the final phase of the 65th annual Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, America's largest vocal competition. The winners will receive individual cash prizes of $15,000, while the remaining finalists will receive prizes of $7,500....

Well, it's that time of the year again--time for a look-back on what was worth making note of during the calendar year that's about to come to an end. It's from a totally personal, subjective point of view, of course, but frankly that's the way opera-lovers always seem to like it, n'est-ce pas? The productions worth noting come from places big, small and in-between, from composers old as the hills to freshly minted or somewhere in between (likewise the performers), from traditional or boldly mod...

I caught up with rising star bass-baritone Christian Van Horn the other day, to find out what the devil was going on with his starring role in the Met's first performance of Arrigo Boito's MEFISTOFELE in almost 20 years. Were you nervous as hell (pun intended) on the first night, I asked Van Horn, winner of this year's prestigious Richard Tucker Award, in your role as the Devil?...

The Met is offering Robert Carsen's 1999 production of Arrigo Boito's MEFISTOFELE to show us what bass-baritone Christian Van Horn--winner of this year's Richard Tucker Award--could do in his first starring role at the house and the answer was: plenty....

Sometimes, it's nice to remember a time when opera was all about wonderful singing, singing and more singing. Sunday's annual concert of the Richard Tucker Foundation--celebrating the current winner of its top prize, bass-baritone Christian Van Horn--was a great salute to this artist in particular but to the form in general. And the presence of opera-loving Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—still doing her best to keep the flame at 85--was the cherry on the sundae....

Metropolitan Maestro Carlo Rizzi's 2018-19 season includes Tosca and Mefistofele at the Met, Falstaff in Tokyo, a new production of Un ballo in maschera at Welsh National Opera and symphonic concerts in Japan, Italy and Spain...