LA FORZA DEL DESTINO

Brian Jagde sings an excerpt from Don Alvaro’s Act III aria in a recent performance of La Forza del Destino at the Metropolitan Opera....

Much was made of the fact that it’s been almost 20 years since Verdi’s LA FORZA DEL DESTINO was last seen at the Met. For its heralded return, they picked a choice cast (starting with Lise Davidsen), a fine conductor (Music Director Yannick Nezet Seguin) and a director (Mariusz Trelinski) who’s, well,… Two out of three ain’t bad, considering the cast. So we might as well start there....

Don't miss the live transmission of Daniel Catán's 1996 opera Florencia en el Amazonas, the first Spanish-language opera at the Met in nearly a century. Join in for this historic cultural and artistic moment as a majority Latinx cast brings this magical realism-inspired production to life....

The Metropolitan Opera somehow managed to upstage itself on Thursday, when it offered audiences a spectacular recital by Norwegian soprano Lisa Davidsen, with her excellent musical partner James Baillieu, on piano, 12 days before the company’s official opening night (the Jake Heggie-Terrence McNally DEAD MAN WALKING on the 26th). It’ll be a hard act to follow....

Latvian star soprano Kristine Opolais has compiled the programme for her aria recital on 17 September 2023 at the Hungarian State Opera. Learn more about the full programme for the performance here!...

​​​​​​​Ivo van Hove, the Tony Award–winning director of Broadway's A View from the Bridge, makes a major Met debut with Mozart's Don Giovanni (May 5–June 2), re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape and shining a light into the work's dark corners....

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....

Metropolitan Opera’s General Manager Peter Gelb has spoken with several artists via a Zoom series, and revealed many future productions the company will take on....

In the latest in the Met’s live, pay-per-view concert series from varied fascinating locales around the world, Radvanovsky boldly chose Verdi’s “Pace, pace” from LA FORZA DEL DESTINO as her “warm up”--a whopper of a piece under any circumstances--while Beczala went for the composer’s “Quando le sere al placido…” from LUISA MILLER to tune up his tonsils. The result gave us a good preview what lay ahead in the next 90 minutes....

Soprano Sondra Radvanovsky and tenor Piotr Beczała will perform a live concert on Saturday, January 23, at 7:00pm CET/1:00pm ET, from the historic Stadthalle in Wuppertal, Germany, as part of the Met Stars Live in Concert series....

Opera singer Denyce Graves recently performed as part of a memorial for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg....

The Festival Little Opera de Zamora has announced its 2020 edition....

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....

Yusif Eyvazov will sing Hermann in the performances of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades on November 29 and December 2 and 5, replacing Aleksandrs Antonenko, who has withdrawn due to illness. As previously announced, Eyvazov is also singing the role on December 8, 14, and 21. Kristian Benedikt will perform the role on December 18....

The Metropolitan Opera presents the company premiere of Philip Glass's modern masterpiece Akhnaten on November 8, 2019, with performances continuing through December 7....

Yusif Eyvazov will sing Calàf in the October 3, 6mat, 9, and 12mat performances of Puccini's Turandot, replacing Roberto Aronica, who has withdrawn for personal reasons. Riccardo Massi will sing the role in performances on October 19mat, 23, 26; the singer for the role in the October 31 performance will be announced at a later date....

The Marquis of Calatrava forbids his daughter Leonora to marry the South American nobleman Don Alvaro. The lovers attempt to elope, but the Marquis catches them. In the ensuing altercation, Alvaro accidentally kills the Marquis, who curses his daughter as he dies. Leonora and Alvaro become separated during their escape. Leonora's brother Don Carlo di Vargas decides to find them and avenge his father....

On March 23 and 30, Fusion Theatre will present Spinto Soprano Eilin O'Dea and Tenor Byron Holman in 'A Night at the Opera,' an evening of extracts (duets and arias) from 'Aida,' 'Tosca' and 'Madama Butterfly,' at Marc A. Scorca Hall of National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Ave., 7th floor.  Musical direction is by pianist Maestro Brian Holman. ...

Verdi's tragic jester returns in Michael Mayer's neon-bedecked, Las Vegas-themed production. Baritones Roberto Frontali and George Gagnidze share the title role, and soprano Nadine Sierra reprises her portrayal of Gilda, the role that helped launch her now-blossoming Met career. Tenors Vittorio Grigolo and Bryan Hymel share the role of the lascivious Duke, and Nicola Luisotti conducts....

The Metropolitan Opera presents Donizetti's comedy La Fille du Régiment, with performances February 7 to March 2, 2019. Pretty Yende stars as Marie, the young canteen girl of the local regiment. Javier Camarena is the boy with whom she falls in love, Tonio, whose show-stopping aria “Ah! mes amis” is famous for its remarkable nine high Cs. Stephanie Blythe is the outlandish Marquise of Berkenfield, and Alessandro Corbelli and Maurizio Muraro share the role of the comical sergeant Sulpice....

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met's Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducts five performance of Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy's mysterious meditation on love and betrayal, January 15–31, 2019. The classic production by Sir Jonathan Miller returns to the Met for the first time since the 2010–11 season, and the cast features three young Met stars at the heart of a passionate love triangle: Isabel Leonard as Mélisande, Paul Appleby as Pelléas, and Kyle Ketelsen as Golaud. Ferruccio Furlanetto...

The traffic in midtown Manhattan was its usual horror at lunchtime last Friday--and Anna Netrebko was stuck in it. She was on the way to Cipriani 42nd Street, across from Grand Central Station, where the Metropolitan Opera Guild was celebrating the soprano at its 84th Annual Luncheon. Despite her delayed arrival, the soprano made some time to talk to me about her voice, her roles and what lies ahead--and, by the way, to be absolutely charming and laugh prodigiously in between her serious discuss...

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Yonghoon Lee will sing Radamès in tonight's performance of Verdi's Aida, replacing Aleksandrs Antonenko, who is ill....

The Metropolitan Opera presents the North American premiere of Marnie, an original Met commission by composer Nico Muhly and librettist Nicholas Wright, on October 19, 2018, with performances continuing until November 10. Based on Winston Graham's haunting novel, which also inspired the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, Marnie is conducted by Robert Spano in his Met debut and directed by Michael Mayer, who created the staging for the opera's world premiere at English National Opera in 2017. The Nov...