LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

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...

When composer Rene Orth came across the story of investigative reporter Nellie Bly’s expose of the abuse of women at an asylum in New York at the end of the 19th century, she immediately knew that “this story needed to be told as an opera.” She was right. The result of her efforts, with the first-rate creative team including librettist Hannah Moscovitch, is 10 DAYS IN A MADHOUSE, a 90-minute work that opened Opera Philadelphia’s festival (this year, called O23) with its world premiere at the Wi...

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...

​​​​​​​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....

The Met presents the winners of the 2023 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition: tenor Anthony León, mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis, soprano Teresa Perrotta, mezzo-soprano Sarah Saturnino, bass-baritone Christian Simmons, and soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth. ...

​​​​​​​Wagner's soaring masterpiece Lohengrin returns to the Met stage after 17 years, in a new production by internationally renowned director François Girard. The production runs from February 26th-April 1st....

Donizetti wrote more than six dozen operas in the course of around 30 years, so it must have been hard for him not to steal from himself. Still, it always strikes me during the overture to his great comedy L’ELISIR D’AMORE, whose run at the Met opened the other night, when I hear echoes of the oh-so-dramatic LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, which would come just a few years later. Yet, the similar music somehow works in both operas....

Two Ukrainian opera companies were celebrated for their outstanding work in challenging circumstances at the International Opera Awards 2022 this evening [28 Nov]. The international opera world came together at Teatro Real in Madrid for the glittering ceremony celebrating the best of the past year....

Opera stars from across the globe will perform works from some of the most beloved operas of all time at the International Opera Awards 2022, as the opera world comes together to celebrate the best of the past season. Taking place this year at Teatro Real in Madrid on Monday 28 November, the first in-person event since 2019, the International Opera Awards 2022 is once again sponsored by Mazars....

O22, as Opera Philadelphia's festival was called this year, wasn’t exactly “something old, something new” but more like big fat sandwich cookie. On one side, there was a kind of “traditional” contemporary opera, Hosokawa’s THE RAVEN , a big filling of Rossini’s OTELLO opera seria in the middle, and finished with the Little-Waldman BLACK LODGE, a rock opera that was half ear-blasting concert performed live, half film....

Written over 400 years ago, Cherubini’s MEDEA finally made it to the Met on the season’s opening night, in a new production by David McVicar. Was it worth the wait? If you take it for Sondra Radvanovsky’s performance in the title role, a chilling, a Herculean task, it earns an unqualified yes. She’s not afraid to rant and rave, or emit ugly sounds to show off her anger....

New York City Opera will present an abridged version of Verdi's classic La traviata on Friday, August 12, 2022 at 7pm as part of Bryant Park Picnic Performances presented by Bank of America. The one-night-only performance is accompanied by live music, with instantly recognizable tunes famously featured in the movie Pretty Woman....

Tenor Yusif Eyvazov, who was scheduled to sing Rodolfo in the upcoming four performances of Puccini's La Bohème, is ill and has withdrawn. He is being replaced by Matthew Polenzani, who will sing the performances on May 16 and 24; Stephen Costello, who will sing on May 20; and Russell Thomas, who will sing on May 27....

Well, no one can say that the Met doesn’t have guts. After the tepid response that subscribers gave its Las Vegas version of Verdi’s RIGOLETTO by Michael Mayer, no one would have suspected that they’d come up with a version of Donizetti’s LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR that made anything else it’s produced look tame. And while the new LUCIA isn’t something that will send every Met attendee into quivers of excitement--I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many pros and cons discussed at an intermission before--i...

Lucia di Lammermoor is undoubtedly, together with L’elisir d’amore, the most famous opera by Gaetano Donizetti and the most performed throughout the world. Thanks to a 1985 donation by the Perolari family, the city of Bergamo was able to acquire the autograph score of this opera, which was first performed at the San Carlo Theatre in Naples in 1835. The score is preserved in the Mai Library. In a few weeks this precious manuscript will travel across the ocean for the first time to be exhibited at...

Nadine Sierra’s childhood intuition – that she was born to sing opera – has proved correct in every way and is reflected in the title of her second solo album, Made for Opera, out today on Deutsche Grammophon. The dramatic presence, searing passion and technical brilliance for which the American lyric soprano regularly scores rave reviews are captured in this new album, which trains the spotlight on three of the most demanding roles in the repertoire. ...

Can we talk—about live opera in New York and elsewhere on the East Coast in the coming months?...

Guatemalan tenor Mario Chang has joined the roster of Promethean Artists for General Management. Mr. Chang regularly appears with leading houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Oper Frankfurt, and Washington National Opera....