Los Angeles Opera News

Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which has not been seen on the Met stage in almost a decade, opens April 22 led by James Levine, who recently announced that he would assume the new title of Music Director Emeritus at the conclusion of the Met's current season.

Dazzling Italian pianist Alessio Bax, who has headlined a succession of memorable concerts with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra in recent years, will rejoin the ensemble for a season-ending performance of Beethoven's monumental “Emperor” Piano Concerto No. 5 at the Lobero Theatre on Tuesday, May 17. Also featuring Mendelssohn's satisfying “Reformation” Symphony No. 5, the concert will begin at 7:30 pm, following the orchestra's final “Supper Club” dinner of the season. Ticket sales are underway.

Jim Schubin of Plainsboro, NJ, and Brian Vu of Los Angeles, both earned top prizes in the 2016 Lotte Lenya Competition, sponsored by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and held on April 16, 2016 in Kilbourn Hall of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.

Patti LuPone is bringing her no-nonsense Broadway swagger to the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre tonight in a new show titled, DON'T MONKEY WITH BROADWAY, as part of Symphony Space's 'Project B-Way/95' series.

Goodman Theatre has announced Broadway stars John Dossett and Douglas Sills will join the cast of War Paint, a new musical starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole as Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, respectively. Dossett will portray Tommy Lewis, Miss Arden's husband and chief marketing officer, and Sills will portray the ambitious Harry Fleming, Madame Rubinstein's clubby confidante and faithful ally.  

Albanian lyric tenor Saimir Pirgu will make his New York City Merkin Concert Hall recital debut today, April 9 at 8pm. Performing selections from his recently released album, 'Il Mio Canto,' (Opus Arte), Pirgu will be accompanied by pianist Lucy Arner.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation is thrilled to announce that soprano Tamara Wilson – whose “voice of steely beauty and great power” (Houston Chronicle) has already won international accolades – has been named as winner of the 2016 Richard Tucker Award. Dubbed the “Heisman Trophy of Opera,” the Tucker Award carries the foundation's most substantial cash prize of $50,000, and is conferred each year by a panel of opera industry professionals on an American singer at the threshold of a major international career. Featuring such luminaries as Renée Fleming, Stephanie Blythe,Lawrence Brownlee, David Daniels, Christine Goerke and Joyce DiDonato, the list of past winners reads like a who's who of American opera.

Albanian lyric tenor Saimir Pirgu will make his New York City Merkin Concert Hall recital debut on Saturday, April 9 at 8pm. Performing selections from his recently released album, 'Il Mio Canto,' (Opus Arte), Pirgu will be accompanied by pianist Lucy Arner.

Beginning April 1, Met Music Director James Levine conducts Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, with Plácido Domingo starring in the title role.

Sonia Friedman Productions announces today that tickets for the long awaited UK premiere of Tony Award-winning musical Dreamgirls go on sale this week. The brand new production begins preview performances at the Savoy Theatre from 19 November with Opening Night on Wednesday 14 December 2016.

Opera Santa Barbara's 22nd season will conclude in grand style with a pair of Giacomo Puccini's great one-act operas, the heart-warming Suor Angelica and the comic farce Gianni Schicchi, at the historic Granada Theatre on April 22 and 24. Performances will take place at 7:30 pm on Friday, April 22, and at 2:30 pm on Sunday, April 24. Ranging in price from $29 to $204, tickets can be purchased at www.granadasb.org or by calling 805-899-2222. 

The New York Choral Society will present Handel's biblical oratorio Israel in Egypt under the baton of Music Director David Hayes, on Tuesday evening, May 10th, 2016, 8pm at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium. Composed entirely from selected passages from the Bible's Old Testament, Israel in Egypt relates the harshness of the Israelites' captivity in Egypt and their subsequent triumphant escape from the Pharaoh's oppressive regime. Israel in Egypt is atypical in Handel's choral output, as it contains little solo material and is dominated by large-scale virtuosic choruses that exhibit Handel's mastery as a musical storyteller.

In THE ORPHIC MOMENT, a “dramatic cantata,” composer-librettist-conductor-poet (phew!) Matthew Aucoin takes an 18th century masterwork, Gluck's ORFEO ED EURYDICE—one of numerous operas based on the Orpheus legend--and knocks it on its ear.

Nashville Opera presents Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall located at 505 Deaderick Street in Downtown Nashville: Thursday, April 7th at 7 PM and Saturday, April 9th at 8 PM. John Hoomes, Nashville Opera's Chief Executive Officer and Artistic Director, directs the production with Maestro Dean Williamson conducting the Nashville Opera Orchestra. Amy Tate Williams, accompanist and chorusmaster, leads the 24-member Nashville Opera Ensemble. John Hoomes will present the popular Opera Insights discussion one-hour prior to curtain on the Orchestra Level and admission is free to all ticket holders.

Patti LuPone is bringing her no-nonsense Broadway swagger to the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre this spring in a new show titled, DON'T MONKEY WITH BROADWAY, as part of Symphony Space's 'Project B-Way/95' series.

It was indeed an auspicious occasion at Chapman University on Saturday night where over a thousand guests gathered for the much-anticipated official opening of the Marybelle and Sebastian P. Musco Center for the Arts. The black tie event featured a concert performance by luminaries of the opera world, including Placido Domingo, Deborah Voigt, and Milena Kitic, joined by a number of Chapman alumni, the Chapman University Singers, and Alumni Choir. 

Beginning April 1, Met Music Director James Levine conducts Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, with Plácido Domingo starring in the title role.

Faithfully following Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning play, André Previn's opera tells the story of Blanche DuBois, a fading though still attractive Southern belle whose poise is a persona she presents to shield others, but most of all herself, from her delusions of grandeur. Moving into her sister's cramped apartment, and creating all the wrong kinds of sparks with her crude and cruel brother-in-law, the dark truths about Blanche's past begin to emerge, and her world comes apart at the seams in a downward spiral.

Six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald brings her acclaimed portrayal of Billie Holiday in the Broadway smash LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR & GRILL to HBO tonight, March 12 (9:00-10:30 p.m. ET/PT).