Jake Heggie News

The multiple GRAMMY-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is widely recognized as one of the world's great opera singers.

The multiple GRAMMY-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato is widely recognized as one of the world's great opera singers. The New Yorker has proclaimed her “perhaps the most potent female singer of her generation,” and The New York Times has described her as “the perfect 21st-century diva—an effortless combination of glamour, charisma, intelligence, grace and remarkable talent.” She is known not only for her extraordinary virtuosity, but also for her impassioned social engagement. Perhaps more than any project in her career to date, DiDonato's new album, In War and Peace: Harmony through Music, epitomizes this combination of qualities. The collection of Baroque arias arose from her pondering the question, in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris and Brussels, “In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?” DiDonato hopes the album, out November 4 on Erato / Warner Classics, and concert presentation, with which she will tour 12 countries between November 2016 and June 2017, will help listeners answer the same question. Please see below for an itinerary of live performances.

Three dazzling new opera productions are at the core of the inaugural Vancouver Opera Festival, April 28 to May 13, 2017. Full-scale productions of Giuseppe Verdi's late-career masterpiece Otello, featuring powerful tenor Clifton Forbis in the title role, and Jake Heggie's modern classic Dead Man Walking, with charismatic bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch as Joseph De Rocher, will be presented in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

On October 10, Soprano Melissa Wimbish makes her DCINY Artist Series solo debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, in a performance featuring the American contemporary vocal music of Jake Heggie, Andre Previn, Jessica Meyer, Tom Cipullo, and Gregory Spears. The concert highlights new contemporary vocal works including the world premiere of Meyers' Space In Chains.

A century's worth of treasures emerge from the shadows of both memory and history in this new CD, OUT OF THE SHADOWS: REDISCOVERED AMERICAN ART SONGS, out on digital Sept. 2 and physical CD on Sept. 9, 2016.

Washington National Opera (WNO) today announced full programming details for the fifth season of the American Opera Initiative, its comprehensive commissioning program that brings contemporary American stories to the stage while fostering the talents of rising American composers and librettists. For the first time, all of the program's world premiere operas will be presented during an American Opera Initiative Festival weekend, January 13-15, 2017 in the Kennedy Center Family Theater.

War Paint has become the most successful musical in Goodman Theatre's history, extended (for a second and final time) through August 21.

Works & Process at the Guggenheim is pleased to announce its fall 2016 season.

21C MEDIA GROUP just released its season preview of opera, vocal and choral music for 2016-17. Scroll down for details!

Works & Process at the Guggenheim is pleased to announce its fall 2016 season. Since 1984 the performing-arts series has championed new works and offered audiences unprecedented access to leading creators and performers. Each intimate program blends performance with stimulating conversation with the creators, and takes place in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's Frank Lloyd Wright-designed, 285-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. Described by the New York Times as 'an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process,' Works & Process is produced by founder Mary Sharp Cronson. A season preview video is available and further details can be found at worksandprocess.org.

Houston Grand Opera will present four pinnacles of the operatic repertoire during the company's 2016-17 season, which also features the highly anticipated world premiere of It's a Wonderful Life by composer Jake Heggie with libretto by Gene Scheer, and much-loved comedies by Donizetti and Mozart. Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers will lead Gotterdammerung, the final installment of Wagner's epic Ring cycle, featuring a new generation of leading Wagnerians includingSimon O'Neill as Siegfried and Christine Goerke as Brunnhilde. HGO will bring back its popular production of Gounod's Faust, with the HGO debut of international star tenor Michael Fabiano in the title role partnered by Houston favorite Ana Maria Martinez as Marguerite, along with the role debut of prominent bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni as Mephistopheles. The company will celebrate the 30thanniversary of HGO's world premiere of John Adams's pivotal Nixon in China by presenting James Robinson's production, of which HGO is a co-producer, with HGO Studio alumnus Scott Hendricks as Richard Nixon and soprano Andriana Chuchman as his wife, Pat. Patrick Summers will conduct Verdi'sthrilling Requiem, which critics at the time termed "an opera in ecclesiastical robes," with soloists Angela Meade, soprano, in her HGO debut; Sasha Cooke, alto; Alexey Dolgov, tenor; and Peixin Chen, bass; and the HGO Orchestra and Chorus. HGO's 62nd season will open with a whimsical production of Donizetti's buoyant The Elixir of Love, featuring tenor Dimitri Pittas as Nemorino and HGO Studio alumna Nicole Heaston as Adina and led by the eminent English conductor Jane Glover, HGO's 2016-17 Lynn Wyatt Great Artist, in her first HGO appearance. Mozart's zany yet deeply emotive comedy TheAbduction from the Seraglio-featuring Russian coloratura soprano and HGO Studio alumna Albina Shagimuratova as Konstanze and leading American tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Belmonte in HGO's inventive 2002 co-production-will close the main-stage season.  

A century's worth of treasures emerge from the shadows of both memory and history in this new CD, OUT OF THE SHADOWS: REDISCOVERED AMERICAN ART SONGS, out on digital Sept. 2 and physical CD on Sept. 9, 2016.

General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler today announced the Explorations Series, a new initiative of Lyric Opera of Kansas City.

Known for staging “the ultimate in intimate productions” (The New York Times), On Site Opera begins their sixth annual season on September 29-30 with an evening of powerful monodramas including Dominick Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night and Hector Berlioz's La Mort de Cléopâtre (The Death of Cleopatra) in the exquisite grand ballroom at The Harmonie Club. The evening stars soprano Leah Partridge as Miss Havisham and mezzo-soprano Blythe Gaissert as Cleopatra and features the string quintet SYBARITE5 at the center of a chamber orchestra. Conducted by OSO's Music Director, Geoffrey McDonald, and directed by the company's General & Artistic Director, Eric Einhorn, the site-specific production features lighting design by Shawn Kaufman and costume design by Fay Leshner. OSO invites audiences to join as Miss Havisham's wedding guests for the evening – there's champagne and cake for all!

Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) is proud to announce its seventh season, beginning in October of 2017.

 The Dallas Opera is pleased to announce that single tickets for its eagerly-anticipated 2016-2017 '60th' Season and popular Family Performances Series will go on sale to the general public on Monday, July 11, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. 

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson announced today the three exciting new productions that will comprise the company's 2017 Summer Festival, which will build on the company's commitment to producing masterpieces from the operatic cannon, important American works, and works in which dance plays an integral role.

The Dallas Opera is delighted to announce the winner of the 2016 'Maria Callas Debut Artist of the Year' Award: transcendent American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato.

San Francisco Opera General Director David Gockley today announced the Company will present the world premiere commission of Girls of the Golden West, a new opera set during the 1850s California Gold Rush, by the internationally-renowned team of composer John Adams and director/librettist Peter Sellars. Presented at the War Memorial Opera House for seven performances opening November 2017, San Francisco Opera will announce casting, conductor, design team and ticket information in January 2017 as part of the Company's 2017–18 repertory season.