James Levine News

One of the most celebrated singers of our time, Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky will return to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for a recital at 7:30pm on Thursday, May 22, 2014.

The Pasadena Symphony will celebrate the music of Beethoven in back to back powerhouse concerts with his Symphony No. 9 and No. 5 on Saturday February, 15 and Saturday March 29, 2014 at Ambassador Auditorium with both matinee and evening performances at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

The Cinema Audio Society announces the nominees for the 50th Annual CAS Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for 2013 in six categories.

Coming off the acclaimed and wildly popular LumenoCity event in August and the first half of Louis Langrée's blockbuster inaugural season as Music Director, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is positioned for an extraordinary 2014-15 season that will not only feature musical performances at the highest level, but also continue the Orchestra's focus on groundbreaking initiatives and collaborations that have garnered international attention. The CSO's 2014-15 season includes 20 subscription programs and reinforces Cincinnati's position as a richly diverse cultural destination in the United States.

Live From Lincoln Center will broadcast the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's 2013 gala concert, one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, from Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. The concert event will celebrate the legendary tenor's centenary with an illustrious all-American group of singers, and honoring this year'sRichard Tucker Award winner Isabel Leonard. The 'Richard Tucker at 100: An Opera Celebration' broadcast-hosted byAudra McDonald and featuring interstitial interviews with the artists, segments from backstage, and a short documentary on Richard Tucker's life-is taped from a concert on November 17, and will air on PBS stations tonight, January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).

Vermont Symphony Orchestra (VSO), Vermont's only statewide symphony orchestra, announced this week that Robert De Cormier is retiring as founding director and conductor of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus. De Cormier has held this position for twenty years.

A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met tonight, December 31, with two Broadway stars appearing.

“Dying is easy; comedy is hard” says the old show business quip. If anything, opera comedy is even harder. Why is it so difficult? Because it offers so many opportunities to do a disservice to the composer, the artists and the art form in one fell swoop. However, Robert Carsen's antic new production of Verdi's FALSTAFF at the Met, vividly conducted by Music Director James Levine, makes it look easy.

A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met on December 31. Jeremy Sams, writer and creator of the Met's Baroque pasticheThe Enchanted Island, makes his company debut as director with the new staging, which is set in Vienna at the turn of the 20thcentury. Sams also contributes new lyrics for Strauss's work, which will be performed entirely in English; Tony Award-nominated playwright Douglas Carter Beane makes his Met debut with new dialogue. Adam Fischer conducts a cast of rising opera stars and Broadway performers. The cast is led by Susanna Phillips and Christopher Maltman as the unhappily married Rosalinde and Eisenstein; Jane Archibald as Rosalinde's feisty maid, Adele; Anthony Roth Costanzo as Prince Orlofsky; Michael Fabiano as Rosalinde's former lover, Alfred; Paulo Szot as the bumbling Dr. Falke; and Patrick Carfizzi as the prison superintendent, Frank. Broadway stars Danny Burstein and Betsy Wolfe make Met debuts as the drunken jailer, Frosch, and Adele's sister, Ida. Robert Jones is set and costume designer for the production, with lighting design by Jennifer Schriever and choreography by Stephen Mear in their Met debuts.

The Metropolitan Opera and The Juilliard School announce casting for 'A Concert of Comic Operas' featuring varied excerpts and scenes from operas by Berlioz, Donizetti, and Mozart, and Stravinsky's rarely-performed Mavra, conducted by James Levine. The program includes Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Act 1); Stravinsky's Mavra; Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini (Act 1, Scene 1); and Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore (Act 1, Part 2). Performances take place on Tuesday, February 11 and Friday, February 14, 2014 at 8 PM; and Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 2 PM in Juilliard's Peter Jay Sharp Theater. Met Opera Music Director James Levine conducts the Juilliard Orchestra and singers from the Met Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, as well as singers from the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at Juilliard. Director Edward Berkeley will direct the program in a semi-staged concert version.

This February, Carnegie Hall presents the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in two performances led by esteemed conductor Bernard Haitink as part of the orchestra's annual visit to Carnegie Hall. The BSO's first program on Tuesday, February 11 at 8:00 p.m. features Mr. Haitink conducting Steven Stucky's arrangement of Purcell's Funeral Music for Queen Mary and Brahms's Symphony No. 4 in E Minor. In addition, Murray Perahia joins the orchestra for Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54.

Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce will take a star turn together when they co-host the Ninth Annual Opera News Awards, set to take place on Sunday, April 13, 2014, in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza Hotel in New York City. They will be joined by a distinguished line-up of presenters – Luca Pisaroni, Susan Graham, Renata Scotto, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Francesca Zambello – who will pay tribute to five superb artists who have made an invaluable contribution to the art form: the late director Patrice Chéreau, tenor Juan Diego Flórez, mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig,bass-baritone James Morris, and soprano Nina Stemme. First introduced in 2005, the Opera News Awards gala dinner, which features the hosts and presenters speaking about the awardees and introducing video performance clips, has become one of the most anticipated opera events of the season: an evening of celebration, appreciation, reuniting and celebrity-spotting that is without parallel in the industry.

The world-renowned Joffrey Ballet School presented Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker this past weekend with 355 dancers - the largest cast in the school's 60-year history

Verdi's Falstaff starring Ambrogio Maestri will be Live in HD at The Ridgefield Playhouse from the stage of The Metropolitan Opera in New York today, December 15, at 5 p.m.

The Met: Live in HD series continues on the big screen with Verdi's Falstaff. An undisputed master of this work, Music Director James Levine conducts Verdi's opera for the first time at the Met since 2005. Robert Carsen's production-the first new Met Falstaff since 1964-is set in the English countryside in the mid-20th century. Ambrogio Maestri sings the title role of the blustery Sir John Falstaff, opposite a marvelous ensemble that includes Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, LisetteOropesa and Franco Vassallo. The live transmission begins today, December 14 at 12:55 PM ET with an encore on December 18 at 6:30 PM local time.

Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS continues its 2013-14 Michael Palm Series of benefit house concerts in New York City with an intimate performance by rising-star soprano Angela Meade tonight, December 12. The event - held at the magnificent TriBeCa loft of Simon Yates and Kevin Roon - begins with wine and hors d'oeuvres at 6:30 p.m., with the concert starting at 7:30 p.m.

The Met: Live in HD series continues on the big screen with Verdi's Falstaff. An undisputed master of this work, Music Director James Levine conducts Verdi's opera for the first time at the Met since 2005. Robert Carsen's production-the first new Met Falstaff since 1964-is set in the English countryside in the mid-20th century. Ambrogio Maestri sings the title role of the blustery Sir John Falstaff, opposite a marvelous ensemble that includes Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, LisetteOropesa and Franco Vassallo. The live transmission begins on December 14 at 12:55 PM ET with an encore on December 18 at 6:30 PM local time.

During curtain calls for the Met's recent Cosi Fan Tutte, when conductor James Levine rotated his wheelchair so he could face the audience, a prolonged ovation shook the building. He looked overcome and, perhaps, surprised. Many thought this day would never come.

Serban Vasile will make his Met debut in this evening's performance of Verdi's Falstaff, replacing Franco Vassallo, who is ill.