James Morris News

With the world on the brink of war, the judgment of an untested president is called into question. What kind of intellectual and emotional stamina does it take to make the right decision?

Ranking among today's leading conductors, Carlo Rizzi's vast repertoire ranges from the foundation works of the operatic and symphonic canon to rarities by Bellini, Cimarosa and Donizetti. He is in high demand as a guest artist at the world's most prestigious venues and festivals, not least for the insight and integrity of his musicianship and the visceral energy and psychological depths of his interpretations.

An all-star cast is set for world premiere docudrama THE TUG OF WAR by David Rambo, an L.A. Theatre Works-commissioned work that explores decision-making by a president in crisis. The production will run for five performances only, May 25-28, at UCLA's James Bridges Theater.

The Merola Opera Program launches its 60th Anniversary season on Sunday, June 11 with a Benefit Gala at City Hall and a concert immediately following at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, featuring some of the acclaimed Merola program's most illustrious participants. The 60th Anniversary concert will feature performances by Merola alumni from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and current and recent participants, including: soprano Deborah Voigt (1985); mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick (1983); Mark Morash, pianist and Merola Opera Program Music Director (1987); and soprano Tracy Dahl (1985); soprano Kristin Clayton (1993), mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook (1990), Bojan Knezevic, bass-baritone (1992, 1993, 1994), and John Churchwell, pianist (1996); baritone Quinn Kelsey (2002); 2013 Merola graduates mezzo-soprano Zanda Šv?de and tenors Pene Pati and Issachah Savage; soprano Julie Adams, and bass Anthony Reed,  all from 2014; Amina Edris and Toni Marie Palmertree, sopranos; and Brad Walker, bass-baritone, both from 2015; and 2016 artists Sarah Cambidge, soprano; Amitai Pati and Kyle van Schoonhoven, tenors; Andrew G. Manea, baritone; John Elam and Jennifer Szeto, pianists; and director Aria Umezawa.

The 2017 Schwabacher Debut Recitals series concludes on Sunday, April 30 at 5:30 p.m., with a recital by a trio of San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows featured with collaborative pianist Warren Jones in a program of Italian and French repertoire.

To celebrate UNESCO's International Jazz Day, the cream of jazz talent from South Australia and beyond will be on show at a special International Jazz Day Gala concert in the Festival Theatre on Sunday 30 April 2017.

After a lavishly praised star turn in Washington National Opera's revival of Dead Man Walking this winter, Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham turns to a U.S. tour in April of her equally successful and wide-ranging recital program, “Frauenliebe und -leben: Variations,” inspired by and centered on Schumann's iconic song cycle, with longtime recital partner Malcolm Martineau. She also joins a cast of the world's greatest opera luminaries to celebrate the Metropolitan Opera House's 50 Years at Lincoln Center in an Anniversary Gala; performs selections from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Met Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen in Carnegie Hall; and sings Berlioz's La mort de Cléopâtre, a staple of her signature French repertoire, with the San Antonio Symphony.

TexARTS' Teen Musical Theatre Academy is jazzed to present Kander & Ebb's blockbuster hit Chicago. The production will run April 1 - 9 at the Kam & James Morris Theatre at TexARTS.   

State of Jazz will promote live jazz performances and activities right across South Australia between 16 April and 7 May 2017 in the weeks surrounding UNESCO's International Jazz Day, which falls on April 30 each year.

In addition to the previously announced artists appearing at the Met's 50th Anniversary at Lincoln Center Gala on May 7, singers slated to appear include Stephanie Blythe, Joseph Calleja, Dwayne Croft, David Daniels, Yusif Eyvazov, Vittorio Grigolo, Christopher Job, Latonia Moore, Yunpeng Wang, and Dolora Zajick.

San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30.

San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30. The four-recital series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.

M. Bevin O'Gara, award-winning director and associate producer of Boston's Huntington Theatre, has been named the new producing artistic director of Ithaca's Kitchen Theatre Company, effective July 1, 2017.

The last time soprano Diana Damrau and tenor Javier Camarena appeared together at the Met, they reinvented the deadly Mary Zimmerman production of Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA and made it into something wonderful. This time around, while the duo tried their hardest, they still couldn't quite bring the company's elderly production of IL PURITANI (also by Bellini) back to life, although they came pretty close, using all the considerable star-power they could muster.

The winners of the 46th annual George London Foundation Awards Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers were announced at the conclusion of the competition's final round this evening, which took place in a front of an audience at Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. 

This smash off-Broadway hit takes you to the 1958 Springfield High School prom where we meet 'The Marvelous Wonderettes', four girls with hopes and dreams as big as their crinoline skirts! As we learn about their lives and loves, the girls serenade us with classic '50s hits including 'Lollipop,' 'Dream Lover,' 'Stupid Cupid,' and 'Lipstick on Your Collar.'  In act two, the Wonderettes reunite to take the stage and perform at their ten-year reunion.

Tomorrow afternoon, 18 young American and Canadian opera singers will perform with pianist Craig Rutenberg before a panel of judges and an enthusiastic audience at New York's Morgan Library & Museum, hoping to win a George London Award, an honor that has been conferred upon hundreds of the best young singers since 1971.

The TexARTS Professional Series closes its 2016-17 season with Austin premier of Roger Bean's Off-Broadway hit musical, The Marvelous Wonderettes, which will be presented February 17 - 26 at the Kam & James Morris Theatre in Lakeway. 

The TexARTS Professional Series closes its 2016-17 season with Austin premier of Roger Bean's Off-Broadway hit musical, The Marvelous Wonderettes, which will be presented February 17 - 26 at the Kam & James Morris Theatre in Lakeway.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2017-18 season will feature 220 performances of 26 works, including two Met premieres, one co-commissioned by the company and one an older masterpiece having its first Met performances; a variety of repertory favorites, three in new productions; and performances of Verdi's towering concert work for soloists, orchestra, and chorus, the Requiem. Of note, Broadway star Kelli O'Hara is set to return to the Met in Così fan tutte this season.