Los Angeles Opera News

Two-time Tony Award winner Patti LuPone headlines the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's 2012-13 NJSO POPS season finale in Newark and New Brunswick, June 1-2. The legendary diva, who last appeared with the NJSO in 2009, will perform songs from her latest album, 'Far Away Places,' backed for the first time by full orchestra. The star of Broadway's Gypsy will also sing signature songs from her illustrious career on stage and screen. Rob Fisher conducts.

New York Live Arts is set to present several Re: Awakenings performances as part of the inaugural Live Ideas festival. New York Live Arts' newest program initiative, Live Ideas is an annual humanities festival that will explore a different theme each year over several days. The inaugural festival, The Worlds of Oliver Sacks, will take place from today, April 17 through 21, 2013 and is comprised of more than 20 events, including performances, films and discussions that showcase works of art and spark conversations that engage the prevalent themes in the acclaimed neurologist's works.

She releases Poeme d'un jour, her debut solo album presenting French and Spanish songs, on the Opus Arte label (May 28 in the U.S., see full track list below).

Can't get enough of Patti LuPone? A documentary following the legendary performer has just been released on Youtube, titled 'Entrances, Exits, and Everything In Between.' Creator Josh Johnston writes: 'What she and I have collaborated on is our effort to show aspiring performers and fans of the arts what it's like in the shoes of a veteran of the craft: everything from the Sunset lows to the Rainbow Highs of performing, Patti LuPone has seen and lived it all.' Check out the fourth episode below!

The New York Philharmonic will present A Dancer's Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky, a multidisciplinary, theatrical reimagining of the ballets The Fairy's Kiss and Petrushka, created by Giants Are Small. Sara Mearns, New York City Ballet principal dancer, will star in the production, which will be conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, directed and designed by Doug Fitch, choreographed by Karole Armitage, and produced by Edouard Getaz - Thursday, June 27, 2013, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, June 28 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, June 29 at 8:00 p.m.

North Coast Repertory Theatre presents THE ODD COUPLE by Neil Simon, directed by Andrew Barnicle. The show will run in previews tonight, April 10 - 12, 2013 and continues April 13 - May 5, 2013.

New York Live Arts is set to present several Re: Awakenings performances as part of the inaugural Live Ideas festival. New York Live Arts' newest program initiative, Live Ideas is an annual humanities festival that will explore a different theme each year over several days. The inaugural festival, The Worlds of Oliver Sacks, will take place from April 17 through 21, 2013 and is comprised of more than 20 events, including performances, films and discussions that showcase works of art and spark conversations that engage the prevalent themes in the acclaimed neurologist's works.

Tickets go on sale today for the world premiere of new stage musical From Here to Eternity. The show will preview at the Shaftesbury Theatre from 30th September with Press Night on 23rd October 2013. Tickets can be bought from FromHereToEternityTheMusical.com or by calling box office on 020 7379 5399.

Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer's critically acclaimed new production of Verdi'sRigoletto, which moves the opera's tragic events from a decadent 16th-century Italian court to the glitzy, depraved setting of the Las Vegas strip circa 1960, will return to the Met stage on April 13. Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo, who made a much-heralded company debut in 2010, returns to the Met to sing the role of the Duke, presented in this production as an amoral lounge singer. Georgian baritone George Gagnidze sings Rigoletto, the Duke's world-weary jester, and rising American soprano Lisette Oropesa sings her first company performances as the innocent Gilda, Rigoletto's daughter and the Duke's victim. Venezuelan bass Enrico Giuseppe Iori makes his Met debut as the assassin-for-hire Sparafucile, and Spanish mezzo-soprano Nancy Fabiola Herrera sings the role of his seductive sister, Maddalena. Italian conductor Marco Armiliato returns to lead five performances of Verdi's towering drama. Mayer's production also features the work of debuting artists Christine Jones (set design), Susan Hilferty (costume design), Kevin Adams (lighting design), andSteven Hoggett (choreography).

Left Field Productions, Neil Berg, Adam Friedson and MSC OPAS at Texas A&M University welcome veteran Broadway actor Marc Kudisch to direct the world premiere project that will close the 40th Anniversary OPAS Season at Texas A&M University - Neil Berg's The Phantoms of the Opera.

OPERA America, the national nonprofit service organization for opera, is pleased to announce that 13 participants from the United States, Canada and Europe have been selected for its 2013 Leadership Intensive program. These future industry leaders were chosen through a competitive selection process.

The Metropolitan Opera will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner's birth with three complete performances of his epic four-opera masterwork, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The Ring cycles will begin April 6 at 1 p.m. with Das Rheingold and continue through the last day of the Met season, May 11, with an 11 a.m. matinee of Gotterdammerung.

David Daniels and Natalie Dessay will sing the leading roles of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra inDavid McVicar's production of Handel's Giulio Cesare, which premieres at the Met April 4. Baroque specialist Harry Bicket will lead ten performances of the popular staging, originally produced at the Glyndebourne Festival, which incorporates many innovative elements into the story of Caesar and Cleopatra's unlikely romance-including extensive choreography by Andrew George. The other principal stars of this production include Alice Coote in the trouser role of the Roman youth Sesto, Italian baritone Guido Loconsolo in his Met debut as the scheming Egyptian general Achilla, John Moore as the Roman general Curio, and three stars of McVicar's original Glyndebourne Festival production: Patricia Bardon as the Roman widow Cornelia, Sesto's stepmother; Christophe Dumaux as Tolomeo, Cleopatra's brother and co-ruler; and Moroccan countertenor Rachid Ben Abdeslam in his Met debut as the Egyptian servant Nireno. The production features set design by Robert Jones, costume design by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, and lighting design by Paule Constable. The Saturday, April 27 matinee performance of Giulio Cesare will be transmitted worldwide as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which is now seen in more than 1,900 movie theaters in 64 countries around the world.

North Coast Repertory Theatre presents THE ODD COUPLE by Neil Simon, directed by Andrew Barnicle. The show will run in previews April 10 - 12, 2013 and continues April 13 - May 5, 2013.

Spring will bring a trio of striking productions to Houston Grand Opera, starting with the return-by-popular-demand of the world's first mariachi opera - Cruzar la Cara de la Luna ('To Cross the Face of the Moon'). Cruzar - an HGO commission that the company premiered to acclaim in 2010, with the Houston Chronicle calling it 'a multicultural winner' - will run today, March 22-24 at the Wortham Theater Center. Next up is HGO's new production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (April 18-May 5), conducted by the company's music and artistic director, Patrick Summers, and starring two of today's greatest Wagnerian singers: soprano Nina Stemme as Isolde and tenor Ben Heppner as Tristan, both in their company debuts.

The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has announced that author and co-director of the Acquavella Gallery Michael Findlay, composer Elliot Goldenthal, filmmaker Mira Nair and visual artist Fred Wilson will be inducted into the NYFA Hall of Fame on Tuesday, April 23rd at Espace (635 West 42nd Street). The evening begins at 6:30 with a cocktail reception featuring interactive art by past and current NYFA grantees, followed by dinner and remarks from all the honorees. Tickets start at $500 and tables at $5,000; tickets for the Young Patrons After party, which begins at 9:30, are $250. Tickets and tables at all levels can be purchased at www.nyfa.org.

Opera San Jose will celebrate classical stars in classical voice at the Seventh-Annual Irene Dalis Vocal Competition on May 4 at 8pm at the California Theatre, 345 South First Street in downtown San Jose.

Twelve exceptionally talented young singer-actors, with previous stage experience ranging from roles on Broadway to the Metropolitan Opera House, have been named finalists in the 2013 Lotte Lenya Competition. They will compete for top prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $7,500 on Saturday, April 13, 2013, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Acclaimed soprano and 2010 Opera News Award winner Patricia Racette, British opera and musical theater conductor James Holmes, and Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization President and American Theater Wing Vice-Chairman Theodore S. Chapin will serve as judges.