Daniel Okulitch News

Lyric Opera of Kansas City General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler today announced the four conductors for the 2015-2016 season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Gary Thor Wedow (pictured, left, Mozart's Don Giovanni), and David Charles Abell (Bizet's Carmen) will be returning to the Lyric Opera. Alexander Polianichko (Dvorak's Rusalka) and Christopher Allen (Donizetti's The Elixir of Love) will be making their Lyric Opera debut.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City opens its 58th season with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's haunting Don Giovanni September 26 and 30 and October 2 and 4 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The production will be sung in Italian with English titles.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler today announced the four conductors for the 2015-2016 season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Gary Thor Wedow (pictured, left, Mozart's Don Giovanni), and David Charles Abell (Bizet's Carmen) will be returning to the Lyric Opera. Alexander Polianichko (Dvorak's Rusalka) and Christopher Allen (Donizetti's The Elixir of Love) will be making their Lyric Opera debut.

American Lyric Theater (ALT) has announced that three operas programmed in Forth Worth Opera's 2016 Season, announced earlier today by the company, are works commissioned and developed by ALT in New York City.

Tonight, February 20 the Palm Beach Opera will present the first world premiere in its 53-year history with Ben Moore's Enemies, A Love Story. Hailed as “one of the most eagerly anticipated premieres of the season” (WQXR), the unprecedented new production is one of several original projects designed to bring opera to a wider audience at the Florida house, which remains one of American opera's most inspirational recent success stories. Highlighting the company's creative audience engagement initiatives, ticket prices have been substantially lowered on more than 600 seats per performance this season, and tickets for family concerts reduced to a single flat fee of just $5, giving an unprecedented level of accessibility to Palm Beach Opera's current offerings.

On Friday, February 20 the Palm Beach Opera will present the first world premiere in its 53-year history with Ben Moore's Enemies, A Love Story. Hailed as “one of the most eagerly anticipated premieres of the season” (WQXR), the unprecedented new production is one of several original projects designed to bring opera to a wider audience at the Florida house, which remains one of American opera's most inspirational recent success stories. Highlighting the company's creative audience engagement initiatives, ticket prices have been substantially lowered on more than 600 seats per performance this season, and tickets for family concerts reduced to a single flat fee of just $5, giving an unprecedented level of accessibility to Palm Beach Opera's current offerings.

An all-star cast of renowned singers and instrumentalists comes together on one CD to sing for hope and in the cause of supporting AIDS research.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra opens the 2014.15 Classics series with Don Giovanni tonight, September 13-14 & 16, 2014, led by Music Director Edo de Waart. This concert production features an international cast alongside the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for an unforgettable operatic event.

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra opens the 2014.15 Classics series with Don Giovanni on September 13-14 & 16, 2014, led by Music Director Edo de Waart. This concert production features an international cast alongside the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra for an unforgettable operatic event.

Fort Worth Opera (FWOpera) in collaboration with American Lyric Theater (ALT) announced today the star-studded cast of the highly anticipated 2016 world premiere opera JFK. Based on the final twelve hours of the 35th president's life and time spent in Fort Worth, Texas, JFK is the next major statement from the celebrated creative team of composer David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek, who made waves with their critically acclaimed debut opera Dog Days (2012).

At a time when so many opera companies find themselves forced to cut back, Palm Beach Opera has succeeded instead in breaking new ground, presenting the first world premiere in its 53-year history. Set to a libretto by Nahma Sandrow, Ben Moore's Enemies, A Love Story - a dark comedy based on Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer's eponymous novel and the subsequent Academy Award-nominated film adaptation - marks a major new addition to the repertoire. Starring bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch, now creating his fourth leading role in a Hollywood-inspired opera, Enemies, A Love Story will debut on February 20, with conductor David Stern leading Sam Helfrich's new production.

Audiences be warned: a dangerously attractive aristocrat will be in Vancouver when VO's Don Giovanni hits the Queen Elizabeth Theatre stage in just a few weeks. The serial seducer will captivate audiences for five passionate performances only, tonight, March 1 to 9, 2014. Based on the captivating figure of Don Juan, Mozart's treatment is comedic and tragic, complex, and a towering achievement of music and drama.

No es facil que Madrid se convierta en la capital operistica del mundo, sin embargo, con el estreno de Brokeback Mountain lo ha conseguido.

One of the highlights of the 2014 operatic season, Brokeback Mountain is a new opera composed by Charles Wuorinen after the original short story of Annie Proulx. On February 7, medici.tv streamed the world premiere opera live, and now you can watch the full production HERE.

Month in and month out, medici.tv takes music lovers to one-of-a-kind concert happenings around the world - the next best thing to being there. The next great medici.tv experience is tomorrow, Friday, February 7, at 2pm EST, with the live webcast of Charles Wuorinen's opera Brokeback Mountain, in its much-anticipated premiere production at Madrid's Teatro Real. Wuorinen, the 75-year-old composer who has both a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur 'genius' grant to his credit, based his opera on the short story of the same name by fellow Pulitzer-winner Annie Proulx, who also penned the libretto (her first). The heartbreaking story of a complex emotional-sexual relationship between two Wyoming cowboys over 20 years starting in 1963 earned wide renown in Ang Lee's 2005 film version, which won three Academy Awards among many other international prizes. The New York Times first-night review of the Madrid production called Wuorinen's opera 'a serious work, an impressive achievement,' praising the 'intricate, vibrantly orchestrated and often brilliant score that conveys the oppressiveness of the forces that defeat these two men.' The review also described the stage production by Belgian director Ivo van Hove as 'starkly beautiful,' with the conducting by Titus Engel drawing 'a pulsing, incisive performance' from the orchestra. The opera stars Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch and American tenor Tom Randle as the closeted ranch hands Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist. The Times review pointed out: 'The cast, to a member, embraces every chance to maximize every lyrical bit in the vocal writing.'

Audiences be warned: a dangerously attractive aristocrat will be in Vancouver when VO's Don Giovanni hits the Queen Elizabeth Theatre stage in just a few weeks. The serial seducer will captivate audiences for five passionate performances only, March 1 to 9, 2014. Based on the captivating figure of Don Juan, Mozart's treatment is comedic and tragic, complex, and a towering achievement of music and drama.

Whether you've been living under a rock for the past week or you're just in the mood for a recap, BroadwayWorld's 'This Week in Pictures' is here to satisfy your end of the week fix. Take a look below to catch up on the latest happenings from the Great White Way to The West End (and everywhere in between) with coverage of press events, rehearsals, opening nights and more. Highlights this week include a look at the cast of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY in previews, Broadway Bares coverage, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN - the opera , and more!

Gerard Mortier and the New York City Opera have commissioned Charles Wuorinen, an American composer, to turn Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain into a work for the operatic stage. Proulx wrote the libretto, and Wuorinen completed the opera in 2012. The premiere was postponed after New York City Opera's General Director, Gerard Mortier, resigned. The project was then again taken up by Mortier at the Teatro Real in Madrid and is set to premiere today, January 28, 2014.

Under the direction of Gerard Mortier, the Teatro Real is fast becoming one of the world's most innovative and exciting opera houses. With eight performances scheduled for early 2014-January 29 to February 11-Teatro Real will mount the first-ever production of Charles Wuorinen and Annie Proulx's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.