Paul Bentley

The 2024–25 Season includes six mainstage opera productions along with concert presentations including a one-night-only performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on October 26, honoring the work's 200th anniversary and, in the summer of 2025, a special Pride Concert celebrating San Francisco's LGBTQIA+ community.

Paul Ruder's opera, based on Margaret Atwood's celebrated novel, has, frighteningly, gained more relevance since its premiere in 2000

This February, multi award-winning actress Juliet Stevenson makes a highly anticipated return to the West End in the English National Opera’s (ENO) acclaimed operatic adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale opera will return to the ENO in a highly anticipated production. Read more about the upcoming show including how to get tickets, and all about the new arrival.

Poul Ruder's 1998 operatic take on The Handmaid's Tale takes flight once again at the English National Opera featuring a new production and the West End debut of Camille Cottin (Killing Eve, Call My Agent).

The previously unrecorded Drone Mass was described by its composer, the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, as “a contemporary oratorio.” Written for voices, string quartet and electronics, it was commissioned and premiered by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, aka ACME, who toured and recorded with Jóhannsson for almost ten years.

Today, Canadian Opera Company General Director Alexander Neef was named the next General Director of Opéra national de Paris. The official announcement was made in Paris at a meeting of the French Cabinet. Neef's term will begin in the 2021/2022 season, succeeding Stéphane Lissner as current head of Opéra national de Paris; until then, the COC General Director will remain in Toronto, guiding the company through to the close of its 2020/2021 season.

Boston Lyric Opera will offer 50 free student tickets for each performance of its upcoming production, The Handmaid's Tale.  High school and college students may reserve tickets online (one per student), and pick them up at the box office starting 90 minutes (and no later than 15 minutes) before curtain time.  Additionally, BLO will offer $25 tickets for teachers, professors and other educators (limit two per order with code TEACHER). Details and links to student online order forms are available at blo.org/mayday.  ("Mayday" is the code word used by revolutionaries opposing the authoritarian laws of Gilead in Atwood's book.)

One day before the East Coast premiere of the opera "The Handmaid's Tale," Boston Lyric Opera and WBUR bring author Margaret Atwood and composer Poul Ruders to WBUR CitySpace at the Lavine Broadcast Center to discuss the galvanizing 1985 novel, its resurgence in contemporary culture, and its reimagining as a contemporary opera.

Contemporary vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices, along with Artistic Director Paul Hillier, return to Zankel Hall on Wednesday, March 20 at 7:30 p.m. for the world premiere of the complete cycle of David Lang's the writings. Also on the program is the New York premiere of Songs from the Soil, with music by Arvo Pärt and a visual poem by award-winning Danish filmmaker Phie Ambo. On this program, Theatre of Voices is joined by Yale Voxtet.

Boston Lyric Opera's (BLO) season of rebels and dissenters continues into Spring 2019 with tales of strong women helmed by women directors. BLO's productions of THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA and THE HANDMAID'S TALE tell startlingly relevant stories -- both with extraordinary music, and both produced in distinctive, non-traditional spaces. Artistic and General Director Esther Nelson says the spring season highlights stories from which female characters emerge as moral and societal touchstones.

The Canadian Opera Company announced today a new mainstage commission: The Old Fools by celebrated Montreal-based composer Ana Sokolovi? and seasoned British librettist Paul Bentley. La Reine-Garcon, first announced in 2015, is moving forward as a co-commission with the Opera de Montreal; it's the first mainstage collaboration of its kind between the two major Canadian opera companies and at its helm are two exceptional Canadian artists: Julien Bilodeau as composer and Michel Marc Bouchard as librettist.

With a formidable cast of three, and a brilliant ensemble of voices and instrumental musicians, Kaija Saariaho's ONLY THE SOUND REMAINS swept through town last weekend, created with director Peter Sellars. Once again, she left us in awe of how she can fill an impossibly large theatre with what seems on paper to be the tiniest of works.

ACME, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, will perform three concerts at this year's Big Ears Festival, on March 23 and 24, 2017, celebrating their new album, Thrive on Routine, released in February on Sono Luminus, as well as collaborating with Icelandic composer and performer Johann Johannsson, Denmark's Theatre of Voices, and Blonde Redhead.

Celebrate the Bay Area Reporter's 45th Anniversary and the 2016 Sixth Annual Besties party at Oasis on Today, April 7, 6 to 9 p.m. (398 11th Street at Folsom), with guest-host Shawn Ryan.

Celebrate the Bay Area Reporter's 45th Anniversary and the 2016 Sixth Annual Besties party at Oasis on Thursday, April 7, 6 to 9 p.m. (398 11th Street at Folsom), with guest-host Shawn Ryan.

THE IRON LADY is coming to theaters on December 16h from The Weinstein Company. The historical drama is directed by Phyllida Lloyd and written by Abi Morgan. The cast includes Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Anthony Head, Richard E. Grant and Roger Allam.

THE IRON LADY is coming to theaters on December 16h from The Weinstein Company. The historical drama is directed by Phyllida Lloyd and written by Abi Morgan. The cast includes Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Anthony Head, Richard E. Grant, Roger Allam, Harry Lloyd, Alexandra Roach, Susan Brown, Olivia Colman, Nick Dunning, Julian Wadham, Michael Pennington, David Westhead, Richard Dixon and Hugh Ross

The Bay Area Reporter (B.A.R.) the country's oldest, continuously published newspaper serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, will celebrate its 40th Anniversary on April 7, 2011.

The Bay Area Reporter (B.A.R.) the country's oldest, continuously published newspaper serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities, will celebrate its 40th Anniversary on April 7, 2011.