LA SONNAMBULA

OPERA America has announced the induction of seven exemplary artists, administrators, and advocates to the Opera Hall of Fame as the Class of 2023. They join a distinguished roster of previous inductees who are honored in OPERA America's National Opera Center....

Looks can be deceiving, as the New Year’s Eve edition of the Met’s “Live in Concert” series proved in abundance. But could even the talent of four wonderful singers--sopranos, Angel Blue and Pretty Yende and a matching pair of tenors, Javier Camarena and Matthew Polenzani-- breathe new life in a program filled with warhorses, from “Che gelida manina” from BOHEME to that Neopolitan classic, “O sole mio”? In a word: Yes. ...

It's been a big year for soprano Lisette Oropesa, with starring roles at major European houses. But in this country, it's something else entirely: She won the Richard Tucker Award and the Met's Beverly Sills Award. That was followed by a pair of name-above-the-title roles, her first at the Met: her role debut in Massenet's MANON and, this week, her house role debut as Verdi's Violetta in LA TRAVIATA....

Park Avenue Armory will embark on the eighth year of its Recital Series, a series of intimate chamber music performances in the austerely elegant Board of Officers, intended to continue the salon tradition of chamber music performances. The 2020 Recital Series will open with two performances by young Italian soprano Rosa Feola, Monday evening, January 13, 2020 and Wednesday evening, January 15, 2020, both at 7:30pm....

With apologies to Gluck, “Che faremmo senza Jamie Barton?”—'Where would we be without mezzo Jamie Barton?”--in the revival of Mark Morris's production of ORFEO ED EURIDICE at the Met, under Mark Wigglesworth's firmly rhythmic baton. ORFEO, written in the mid-18th century, was an opera of a different stripe for its time. (The Met uses the 1762 Vienna version, one of many.) It leans heavily on dance and choral singing, as well as recitative....

Tenor René Barbera is set to take on the role of Alfredo at the Teatro alla Scala next July 2020....

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....

Judging by the number of small opera companies in New York alone--see the 2019 New York Opera Fest that starts performances next month--there's no shortage of up and coming opera singers trying to make their way on the scene. But there's no showcase like the Finals Concert of the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions to give a singer a leg up--and this year's group of talented performers seemed to give us more hope than usual that all's right with the world…at least when it comes to op...

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...