Anthony Tommasini News

Teatro Nuovo, the innovative young company that brought New York its first opera performances since the pandemic shutdown, today announced its return to full indoor activity in July 2022 with Rossini's towering Maometto Secondo and Bellini's beloved La Sonnambula. The pair of operas will be performed July 9 and 10 at Montclair State University (New Jersey) and July 13 and 14 at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater. 

On Monday evening March 14, 2022, the award-winning Venezuelan American soprano Maria Brea joins forces with pianist Max Lifchitz for an intimate recital featuring music from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the US.

On Monday evening March 14, 2022, the award-winning Venezuelan American soprano Maria Brea joins forces with pianist Max Lifchitz for an intimate recital featuring music from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the US. Included will be music by Miguel Astor, Harry Bulow, Hector Campos-Parsi, Antonio Estevez, Max Lifchitz, Sheli Nan, William Ortiz, Joseph Rivers and Joel Eric Suben.

St. Ann’s Warehouse and Beth Morrison Projects, in association with PROTOTYPE: Opera | Theatre | Now and Trinity Church Wall Street, today announced that the sonically rich and visually arresting Book of Mountains & Seas will make its U.S. premiere this March 15-20.

The Met rings in the new year with the gala premiere of a bold new take on Verdi's timeless tragedy from Bartlett Sher. The Tony Award­-winning director resets the opera's action in 1920s Europe, with Art Deco sets by Michael Yeargan and elegant costumes by Catherine Zuber, themselves boasting a combined eight Tony Awards. Read all the reviews!

St. Ann’s Warehouse will again join forces with PROTOTYPE: Opera | Theatre | Now to present the U.S. premiere of the sonically rich and visually arresting Book of Mountains & Seas, January 11-15, as part of the tenth anniversary PROTOTYPE Festival.

The imposing mezzo soprano Stephanie Blythe is known for her roles in Wagner, Verdi and Stravinsky. Why would she begin a Balboa Theatre recital for the San Diego Opera with Johnny Mercer’s 'Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive?” Here’s what she said in a recent interview, “I’ve been a great fan of Johnny Mercer’s and I’ve been singing the music of his Great American Songbook for a very long time.” Rather than a concert-hall recital, Blythe was doing cabaret, and doing it far better than most of the opera singers who try to crossover. Her main problem had to be choosing which songs to include in her tribute to Johnny Mercer. He wrote 1500 of them, most often sticking to lyrics in collaboration with the A-list melodic composers of his era. At one point in the 40s he had five of the top ten on the popular radio show “Your Hit Parade.” (If you remember Snooky Lanson and Dorothy Collins, I wouldn’t mention it in your dating app bio.) Mercer’s honors include nineteen Oscar nominations with four wins. That got him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones - the first opera by a Black composer ever performed by the Met is now on stage. What did the critics think? Read all the reviews...

92Y's online concerts have drawn more than 1.7 million views since Garrick Ohlsson inaugurated the series with his March 14 concert; April alone brought over 1 million views. In May, 92Y introduces a regular schedule, with a fresh program appearing every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 pm EDT.

New Amsterdam Singers (NAS), led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will present Through the Seasons, featuring Robert Paterson's 'I Go Among Trees' - a World Premiere commissioned by NAS in honor of its 50th anniversary. The three-movement work by the New York-based award-winning composer is written for chorus and marimba on texts by Wendell Berry, May Sarton, and John Freeman; Makoto Nakura is the marimba soloist. The concert will be performed twice: Friday, March 20, 2020, at 8:00 pm at Broadway Presbyterian Church, Broadway at 114th Street, and Sunday, March 22, 2020, at 4:00 pm at The Theater of St. Jean Baptiste, 184 East 76th St.

On April 2-4, the Baruch Performing Arts Center presents the 'ever-adventurous' Talea Ensemble performing the US premiere of Manos Tsangaris' theatrical work Love & Diversity. This is a rare opportunity to hear Mr. Tsangaris' music performed in the United States, and Talea's only scheduled performance of this work. Tickets are $26 for general admission ($11 for students), and are available at this link.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, opens its 22nd season with Fun Home, the brilliant, groundbreaking 2013 musical based on the intensely personal graphic novel by Alison Bechdel. Written by Jeanine Tesori (music) and Lisa Kron (book and lyrics), with direction by Marya Mazor and music direction by Lex Leigh, Fun Home previews from January 31 through February 7, 2020, with regular performances running February 8 to March 1 on the Cripe Stage at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center.

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a brilliant new staging of Berg's masterpiece by William Kentridge, starring Peter Mattei and Elza van den Heever. On stage through January 22.

The GRAMMY Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus---recently featured in the New York Times, on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and on Fox 5 News at Six with Ernie Anastos---performs four free/cheap shows for the home borough this holiday season next week. Locals can catch the starry Chorus for free at the Brooklyn Borough President's Tree Lighting (Dec. 11 at 5:15p), and with affordable tickets to three concert programs at Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph with Holiday Harmonies (Dec. 13th at 7:30pm and Dec. 14th at 2:30pm), as well as Winter's Eve (Dec. 14th at 7:30pm). The 28-year-old Brooklyn institution draws 7-17 year old singers from all five boroughs, and has established a national profile as the go-to youth choir for classical, pop, theatrical, and out-of-the-box collaborations with A-list artists and institutions like Bon Iver, The National, Beyonce & Jay-Z, Barbra Streisand, Elton John, the New York Philharmonic, Nico Muhly, and Caroline Shaw.

When New Yorkers last saw a concert performance of Act II of Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE--in the spring of 2018 with the Boston Symphony under Nelsons--a major singer was trying on one of the title characters for size. That was tenor Jonas Kaufmann. This time, it was Isolde who was ready for her closeup, with soprano Christine Goerke in a can't-wait-for-the-whole-opera performance, under Gianandrea Noseda with the Washington Symphony at Lincoln Center's White Light Festival.

Gianandrea Noseda, Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra (NSO), leads the Orchestra in Act II of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde tonight at the Kennedy Center in a performance to be streamed live globally on medici.tv at 8:00PM Eastern Standard Time / 5:00PM Pacific Standard Time. The live stream will be free and then available to medici.tv subscribers on VOD. 

New Amsterdam Singers, led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will launch its 2019a?"20 season with A Century of A Cappella Gems, anchored by a major work, the Mass for a cappella double chorus by the Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890-1974). The two concerts will be performed Friday, December 13, 2019, at 8:00 p.m., and Saturday, December 14, 2019, at 4:00 p.m. at Broadway Presbyterian Church, 114th Street and Broadway.

Following a controversy surrounding Plácido Domingo and his last minute departure, the Met Opera's production of Verdi's Macbeth opened this week. Find out what the critics had to say!

Porgy and Bess just recently began performances at the Metropolitan Opera. What did the critics have to say?

The George London Foundation for Singers 2019-20 season marks the centennial of the birth of its namesake, the legendary Canadian-American bass-baritone who was one of the greatest opera singers of the 20th century. The season opens at The Morgan Library and Museum on Sunday, October 20, 2019, at 4:00 pm, with a recital by two young American rising stars and George London Award winners: Latonia Moore, soprano, and Ryan Speedo Green, bass-baritone, with Ken Noda, piano.