Alek Shrader News

Today (April 27) in live streaming: it's all about Annie and Sandy on Stars in the House, Ben Rimalower and Daniel Nolen are back with Next Year, Some Year, and more!

Today's top stories: Cameron Mackintosh defends decision to reduce Phantom orchestra, get a first look at the upcoming West Side Story and In The Heights films, and more!

The Met has announced themed lineups for two weeks of its Nightly Met Opera Streams, the company’s ongoing series of encore Live in HD presentations and classic telecasts streamed on the its website during the coronavirus closure.

On April. 23, 2021, San Francisco Opera presented its first drive-in opera, Rossini’s rollicking comedy, The Barber of Seville. As the boisterous Spanish hair stylist, baritone Lucas Meachem opened the show with a vigorous, rousing version of his famous “Largo al Factotum”. California COVID restrictions limited the show to ninety minutes. Using the Zedda edition of the Ricordi piano/vocal score, Conductor Roderick Cox and Director Matthew Ozawa treated the audience to all the opera’s major arias, duets, and ensembles,

Opening on April 23, the eleven performances running through May 15 are the Company’s first live performances in 16 months since the onset of the global pandemic, which caused the cancellation of the Company’s Summer and Fall 2020 seasons.

On Wednesday, April 21, We begin this week’s tour with one of the Los Angeles Opera website’s most popular “Living Room Recitals.” Soprano, Latonia Moore sings with pianist Roberto Berrocal. After the recital, we leave for NYC. On arrival, we go to Shut Up and Eat, a most generous Toms River restaurant that offers a discount to patrons in pajamas. 

San Francisco Opera stages its first live opera performances with a new, specially adapted production of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville offered in a drive-in setting on the bucolic grounds of San Rafael's Marin Center.

The schedule includes a week featuring operas centered around morally admirable characters and the power of the human spirit, and a week of operas set in Paris, entitled City of Light. The April 23 stream of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha is being presented in partnership with Carnegie Hall as part of their Voices of Hope festival.

On the Los Angeles Opera website, tenor Russell Thomas and collaborative pianist Kyung-Mi Kim present a program of song that includes Schumann's song cycle, Dichterliebe (Poet's Love),  Handel's aria “Total Eclipse” from Samson, and love songs by Adolphus Hailstork and Robert Owens that was filmed recently at Spivey Hall in Atlanta, Georgia. 

San Francisco Opera Tad and Dianne Taube General Director Matthew Shilvock announces re-envisioned Spring 2021 programming including a return to live performances with a new production of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville and concerts offered in a drive-in setting at San Rafael's Marin Center in April and May.

Los Angeles Opera was the first to launch original programming in response to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Because of the success of its online  programming, LAO decided to make that feature a permanent part of its offering and to give it a name that reflects fresh and innovative interpretations of the art form. Welcome to LA Opera On Now.

Los Angeles Opera’s Modulation, presented in collaboration with the Prototype Festival, adapts opera and theater to a new interactive format. The voices of extraordinary artists show us the irrepressible power of music to provide comfort and instigate contemplation of ourselves, our art, our world. Access to Modulation, available January 8–16, 2021, costs $25 per viewing household. Access will enable you to enjoy Modulation for one week.

Broadway might be dark, but that doesn't mean that theatre isn't happening everywhere! Below, check out where you can get your daily fix of Broadway this weekend, December 26-27, 2020.

San Francisco Opera Center Director and Merola Opera Program Artistic Director Sheri Greenawald, whose December 2020 retirement was announced in March, received the San Francisco Opera Medal at a special Zoom event organized by San Francisco Opera and Merola Opera Program. The Opera Medal, the Company's highest honor, was awarded to Greenawald for her extraordinary service and leadership with the Company. 

Los Angeles Opera has a number of excellent recitals on its website including one by baritone Craig Colclough in which he sings the Shakespeare monologues from Otello and Macbeth that Verdi set to music. Together with pianist Jeremy Frank, Colclough presents a program that also includes works by Beethoven, Wagner, Porter, and Vaughan Williams.

The Met has announced themed lineups for four weeks of its Nightly Met Opera Streams, a free series of encore Live in HD presentations and classic telecasts streamed on the company's website during the coronavirus closure. The schedule includes a week of In Plain English, an Epic Proportions week, followed by a week of Holiday Fare, and more.

In October 2015, rising soprano Lisette Oropesa made her role debut as Violetta in a new production of Verdi's La traviata at the Academy of Music, serving notice that this would be one of the definitive roles of her career. “To judge from her first attempt at the role, Lisette Oropesa bids fair to be among its great exponents in her generation,” wrote David Shengold in Opera News.

Today (October 20) in live streaming: This is Our Youth is presented by Broadway's Best Shows, John Logan visits The Producer's Perspective, and so much more!

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis announces adventurous season of streaming and out-door opera.

When the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus folded its tent for the last time, I’m not sure whether they held on to its title of “the Greatest Show on Earth.” But Atlanta is showing that there’s still a big tent around with some great shows to be seen. It’s the Atlanta Opera, headed by General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun, which starts its six-opera season with I PAGLIACCI on October 22.