Los Angeles Opera News

The Metropolitan Opera will open its 130th season on Monday, September 22 with a new production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and directed by Richard Eyre.

San Francisco Opera presents the Company premiere of Carlisle Floyd's two-act opera Susannah today, September 6 at the War Memorial Opera House.

San Francisco Opera recently announced a cast change for the Company's season-opening new production of Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, presented September 5-30, 2014 at the War Memorial Opera House. American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton--recent winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition--will make her Company debut as Adalgisa for five of the opera's seven performances today, September 5 and September 10, 14, 27 and 30. Ms. Barton replaces Daveda Karanas, who has withdrawn from the production for personal reasons. A casting update for the September 19 & 23 performances will be announced at a later date.

San Francisco Opera's 2014-15 Season opens tonight, September 5, 2014 with a dramatic new production of Vincenzo Bellini's bel canto masterpiece Norma, starring American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in one of opera's most dazzling and demanding roles. American mezzo-soprano Daveda Karanas is the young priestess Adalgisa; Italian tenor Marco Berti is Pollione; and American bass-baritone Christian Van Horn is Oroveso. Music Director Nicola Luisotti conducts the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and Chorus and Director Kevin Newbury and set designer David Korins return to San Francisco Opera to premiere this vivid, large-scale new co-production with Toronto's Canadian Opera Company, Barcelona's Gran Teatre del Liceu and Lyric Opera of Chicago. Norma runs for seven performances through September 30.

Due to popular demand, American Opera Projects and LivelyWorks have added a second performance of Two Premieres and a Reunion, a special evening of music by composer Conrad Cummings Wednesday September 10th, 2014. The second performance will take place at 9:00 p.m., immediately after the initial 7:30 p.m. performance. Both performances will be held at The National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan.

For the first time in North America, the complete film trilogy The Lord of the Rings will be presented live, in concert, at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, New York, April 8-12, 2015. Beneath a giant screen, the Academy Award-winning scores by Howard Shore will be performed by 250 musicians, on stage, including symphony orchestra, chorus and soloists, in two trilogies, Wednesday-Friday, April 8-10, and Saturday-Sunday, April 11-12. The production is created by CAMI Music, and follows acclaimed concert presentations of the first two films of The Lord of the Rings trilogy at Radio City Music Hall (2009 and 2010).

The MidAtlantic Opera Company will present a fully-staged production of Giuseppe Verdi's well-loved classic, Rigoletto, conducted by Jason C. Tramm and stage directed by Eric Gibson.

While singing in the cast of Tobias Picker's most recent opera, Dolores Claiborne, which premiered last fall at San Francisco Opera - mezzo-soprano Renée Rapier was impressed by what she witnessed behind the scenes as well as onstage. 'Seeing Tobias's passion and involvement backstage to get things just right was a great experience,' she says. 'He's a composer who really cares about individual voices and how the singers feel about his music.'

San Francisco Opera today announced a cast change for the Company's season-opening new production of Vincenzo Bellini's Norma, presented September 5-30, 2014 at the War Memorial Opera House. American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton--recent winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition--will make her Company debut as Adalgisa for five of the opera's seven performances on September 5, 10, 14, 27 and 30. Ms. Barton replaces Daveda Karanas, who has withdrawn from the production for personal reasons. A casting update for the September 19 & 23 performances will be announced at a later date.

Houston Grand Opera's 2014–15 season, the company's 60th anniversary season, includes the world premiere of A Christmas Carol by Iain Bell—the company's 55th new commission —from award-winning Dickens authority Simon Callow; the continuation of HGO's first Ring cycle, with the American premiere of La Fura dels Baus's groundbreaking take on Die Walküre; the American premieres of Sir Nicholas Hytner's The Magic Flute and Lee Blakeley's Sweeney Todd; a 60th Anniversary Gala Concert featuring mezzo-soprano (and HGO Studio alumna) Joyce DiDonato; and a host of career-shaping role debuts that speak to Patrick Summers's gift for casting. Together with the company's first presentation of John Cox'sOtello, and the returns of Göran Järvefelt's beloved Così fan tutte and Michael Grandage's hit staging of Madame Butterfly, these rich offerings serve once again to illustrate some of the ways that HGO—still the only opera company with two Grammys, two Emmys, and a Tony—epitomizes “one model of what a forward-looking opera company could be” (Greg Sandow, Arts Journal).

'Mad Men' star Vincent Kartheiser and Broadway's Larry Pine (CASA VALENTINA) will play Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, respectively, in BILLY & RAY, Mike Bencivenga's new play -- directed by the legendary director/writer/producer Garry Marshall -- being given its NY premiere this fall at the Vineyard Theatre (108 E. 15 St.), with previews scheduled to begin October 1 prior to an official opening on October 20, it has been announced by Vineyard's Artistic Directors Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern.

According to the New York Times, Ravinia Festival music director James Conlon announced that he will depart his position after the 2015 season. He told NYT: "I have worked year-round, including every summer, since 1974. There are things I wish to accomplish, both musical and personal, and I need dedicated time to realize these projects."

San Francisco Opera today announced a cast change for the Company's revival of Giuseppe Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), presented October 4 -22, 2014 at the War Memorial Opera House. Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova, who was to have made her Company debut as Amelia for the first six performances of the run, has withdrawn from the production for health reasons. American soprano Julianna Di Giacomo, originally scheduled to sing Amelia on October 22, will now sing the role for all seven performances. She makes her San Francisco Opera debut and role debut with this production.

Following up the triumphant 'Night After the Tonys With Linda Eder', Chris Isaacson Presents has announced a one-night-only concert event at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre tonight, August 16 at 8pm.

American Opera Projects and LivelyWorks present Two Premieres and a Reunion, a special evening of music by composer Conrad Cummings Wednesday September 10th, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. at The National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan.

In celebration of Chorus Master Walter Huff's 25 years with the company, The Atlanta Opera presents a concert of masterpieces spanning 300 years of operatic choral repertoire, including well-known selections by Verdi, Mozart, Puccini, Wagner, Bizet, Britten, and Glass, among others. Each performance features the powerfully moving voice of the acclaimed Atlanta Opera Chorus, conducted by Maestro Huff and accompanied by pianist Brian Eads.

A Stonewall-era drag queen and the cop entranced by her. A princess manipulates her captor during the Crusades. A man's literal vacation from Hell. On­­­­ Friday, September 12 and Sunday, September 14 at 7:30 PM, AOP (American Opera Projects) will present these and other excerpts of new operas at COMPOSERS & THE VOICE: SIX SCENES 2014, the culmination of this season's Composers & the Voice (C&V) opera training program. Audiences will see scenes by five emerging composers - Guy Barash, Avner Finberg, Jeremy Gill, Andreia Pinto-Correia, Gity Razaz - and one composer/librettist team, Joseph Rubinstein and Jason Kim, who were chosen by AOP to spend a year creating new works focusing on the operatic voice. The performances will be held at South Oxford Space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, home of AOP. Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 for students/seniors and are available at www.operaprojects.org.

San Francisco Opera presents the Company premiere of Carlisle Floyd's two-act opera Susannah September 6 at the War Memorial Opera House. Soprano Patricia Racette returns to San Francisco Opera in her role debut as the innocent, strong-willed and falsely accused young woman Susannah Polk.

The September broadcasts of The New York Philharmonic This Week - the weekly radio series of concerts and recordings by the New York Philharmonic, hosted by Alec Baldwin - begins with Music Director Alan Gilbert launching the Philharmonic's 2014 Bravo! Vail residency with Nielsen's Maskarade Overture; Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, with the 2013-14 Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence Yefim Bronfman as soloist; selections from Grieg's Peer Gynt; and Liszt's Les Preludes. The second week, Alan Gilbert conducts the Orchestra in a performance of R. Strauss's Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks; The Marie-Josee Kravis Composer-in-Residence Christopher Rouse's Oboe Concerto, with Principal Oboe Liang Wang as soloist; and Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy. The following week, Bramwell Tovey conducts the New York Philharmonic at Bravo! Vail in Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man; Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" from Strike Up the Band; Copland's Clarinet Concerto, with Associate Principal Clarinet Mark Nuccio as soloist; and Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite. In the final week of September, Music Director Alan Gilbert conducts the New York Philharmonic in a program of Mozart's final three symphonies - Nos. 39, 40, and 41, Jupiter -recorded in November 2013.

Sel Kardan, President and CEO of the Colburn School announced today that James Conlon, artistic adviser to the Colburn School's Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices, will deliver the keynote address at the two-day, public symposium 'Music, Censorship and Meaning in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union: Echoes and Consequences,' today, August 9, 2014, at the Colburn School.