Jonas Kaufmann News

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann is scheduled to sing only two performances this season at the Metropolitan Opera, with one being Bizet's Carmen. Both shows he's scheduled to perform in sold out fast, so fast that online ticket brokers were selling for $999.75!

Jonas Kaufmann has canceled his performance as Don José in Bizet's Carmen for this Wednesday, March 4, because he is suffering from the flu and was unable to travel to New York as scheduled on Sunday. He hopes to recover in time to fly here later this week and perform as schedule on Saturday, March 7 matinee. In his place, Yonghoon Lee, who will be singing the title role in Verdi's Don Carlo later this month, has agreed to sing Don José on Wednesday.

From: Metropolitan Opera, Richard Eyre's production returns with its original star, Elina Garanca, who plays the title role of the ill-fated temptress. Roberto Alagna and Jonas Kaufmann take turns playing Carmen's desperate lover, Don José. Louis Langrée conducts. For more, click here.

The Bijou Theatre presents La Forza del Destino, as a part of their Opera in Cinema Series playing on Monday, February 16th at 6:00pm.

On Wednesday 14 January 2015, at HUSH in Mayfair, the finalists of the International Opera Awards 2015 were announced. These were selected by the jury chaired by John Allison, editor of Opera magazine and classical music critic with The Daily Telegraph.

OPERA NEWS Editor in Chief F. Paul Driscoll today announced the recipients of the 10th Annual Opera News Awards. This year's honorees—Piotr Beczala, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sondra Radvanosky, Samuel Ramey and Teresa Stratas—will be feted at a black tie gala celebration on Sunday, April 19, 2015 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Previous Opera News Award Winners Martina Arroyo,Gerald Finley and Susan Graham are among the presenters.

On February 6, Richard Tucker and Plácido Domingo Award-winner Ailyn Pérez makes her house debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera in a star-studded production of Bizet's Carmen. This marks a major milestone for the American soprano, and comes at a key moment in her burgeoning career. Having achieved star status in Europe with a string of successes at the opera houses of London, Vienna, Milan, Berlin, and Moscow - her title role performance in Verdi's La Traviata this past spring at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden made history with the company's first live streaming of a complete opera, and she made her debut at La Scala opposite Plácido Domingo in Simon Boccanegra - Pérez recently scored twin triumphs closer to home. This past summer, her Warner Classics album debut, Love Duets, was an 'irresistible' (Gramophone) Billboard bestseller, and earlier this fall she took Houston by storm in her house and role debuts as Desdemona in Houston Grand Opera's Otello, where she supplied 'white hot passion...in spades' (Houston Press).

Hosted by soprano Deborah Voigt, from the Grand Staircase of the Met, the special covers a wide range of operatic ground, from heartbreak to hilarity, delivered by such artists as Natalie Dessay, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Juan Diego Flórez, Jonas Kaufmann, and Anna Netrebko, along with Voigt herself. These extraordinary moments, selected from more than 75 productions, were initially seen as part of the Met's global Live in HD movie-theater transmissions, and later shared with PBS audiences as presentations ofGreat Performances at the Met.

During the first week of November, the Mariinsky Theatre returns to the UK for an operatic showcase of Wagner's Ring in Birmingham at the historic Hippodrome and three operas originally written for the Mariinsky including the most recent Levsha (The Left-hander) by Rodion Shchedrin. With a 300-strong troop of musicians, soloists and chorus starting the tour in Cardiff with Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery, Valery Gergiev proceeds to London to present Russia's national epic Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov followed by the UK premiere of The Lefthander, both in concert versions at the Barbican.

Richard Tucker and Plácido Domingo Award-winner Ailyn Pérez makes her hotly anticipated Houston Grand Opera debut this Friday (Oct 24), in what also marks her role debut as Desdemona in Otello. Under the baton of Patrick Summers, Houston's artistic and music director, she stars opposite Simon O'Neill as Otello and Marco Vratogna as Iago in the company's staging of John Cox's hit production of the Shakespearean tragedy, which runs through November 7.

The wonderful German singer Rene Pape made history when he made his recital debut at the Met last week—the first bass to perform a solo program at the house. He showed off his dexterity with languages, singing in German, Russian and English, and his ability to move from art songs to musical comedy, sensitively accompanied by pianist Camillo Radicke.

During the first week of November, the Mariinsky Theatre returns to the UK for an operatic showcase of Wagner's Ring in Birmingham at the historic Hippodrome and three operas originally written for the Mariinsky including the most recent Levsha (The Left-hander) by Rodion Shchedrin. With a 300-strong troop of musicians, soloists and chorus starting the tour in Cardiff with Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery, Valery Gergiev proceeds to London to present Russia's national epic Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov followed by the UK premiere of The Lefthander, both in concert versions at the Barbican.

Bizet's Carmen will open at the Met September 30 with Anita Rachvelishvili, the Georgian mezzo-soprano who has performed the role to acclaim around the world, reprising her interpretation of the title role. Spanish maestro Pablo Heras-Casado conducts the first eight performances of the run, which will also star Aleksandrs Antonenko as Don José, Anita Hartig as Micaëla, and Massimo Cavalletti and Ildar Abdrazakov as the swaggering toreador Escamillo. The production is by Richard Eyre, who also directed the Met's season-opening new staging of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. The November 1 matinee performance of Carmen will be transmitted worldwide as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 2,000 movie theaters in 69 countries around the world.

Marking a new era in the 134-year history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons will make his highly anticipated debut as the BSO's new music director tonight, September 27, at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall.

Marking a new era in the 134-year history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons will make his highly anticipated debut as the BSO's new music director tonight, September 27, at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall. When Mr. Nelsons takes on the title of BSO Music Director tonight, September 27, he will be, at age 35, the youngest conductor to hold that title with the orchestra in over 100 years. The fifteenth music director since the Boston Symphony Orchestra's founding in 1881, Mr. Nelsons is also the first Latvian-born conductor to assume the post.

Marking a new era in the 134-year history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons will make his highly anticipated debut as the BSO's new music director on today, September 27, at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall. When Mr. Nelsons takes on the title of BSO Music Director on September 27, he will be, at age 35, the youngest conductor to hold that title with the orchestra in over 100 years. The fifteenth music director since the Boston Symphony Orchestra's founding in 1881, Mr. Nelsons is also the first Latvian-born conductor to assume the post.

Already the undisputed 'reigning new diva of the 21st century' (Associated Press), Anna Netrebko scored a fresh triumph this past month, winning ECHO Klassik's 'Female Singer of the Year' award for a record-breaking third time. Never content to rest on her laurels, however, the ever-evolving Russian-born soprano continues expanding her horizons in 2014-15. She makes two American role debuts at the Metropolitan Opera, as Verdi's Lady Macbeth in an all-star Macbeth that will be beamed live around the world to launch the company's Live in HD season, and headlining a new staging of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta that will be broadcast Live in HD on Valentine's Day. In Europe, she makes house role debuts in the title roles of a new Manon Lescaut at the Bavarian State Opera and Anna Bolena at the Zurich Opera, besides reprising her portrayal of Anna Bolena at the Vienna State Opera and completing her season's quartet of leading roles as Mimì in La bohème at Covent Garden, where her final performance will again be broadcast live to cinemas worldwide. In concert this season, Netrebko remains the soprano of choice for gala appearances, in the Richard Tucker Gala at New York's Lincoln Center and in Munich and Salzburg, as well as singing a recital in Colorado, 'Verdi and Verismo' arias in Barcelona, selections from Macbeth in Rome, Strauss's Four Last Songs in Paris, and revisiting her acclaimed Iolanta on a European concert tour that culminates at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Marking a new era in the 134-year history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons will make his highly anticipated debut as the BSO's new music director on Saturday, September 27, at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall. When Mr. Nelsons takes on the title of BSO Music Director on September 27, he will be, at age 35, the youngest conductor to hold that title with the orchestra in over 100 years. The fifteenth music director since the Boston Symphony Orchestra's founding in 1881, Mr. Nelsons is also the first Latvian-born conductor to assume the post.

The Last Symphonies: Mozart's Instrumental Oratorium Nikolaus Harnoncourt 2-CD Set Now Available Preview: https://soundcloud.com/nikolaus-harnoncourt/sets/nikolaus-harnoncourt-mozart On The Last Symphonies, Nikolaus Harnoncourt explores his fascinating new interpretation of the composer's last three symphonies; that they are one whole work which he calls Mozart's “Instrumental Oratorium.” Harnoncourt argues that, in terms of structure, the first movement of Symphony No. 39 is the Prelude of the “Instrumental Oratorium,” while the last movement of Symphony No. 41 is the Finale.

Described by Opera News as the “lyric soprano who truly seems to have it all,” Ailyn Pérez takes the stage at leading opera houses on both sides of the Atlantic in 2014-15 for an exciting new season that features house debuts at both the Metropolitan Opera and Houston Grand Opera, the latter also serving as a role debut for Pérez as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello.