Peter Mattei 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.

American soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen, who last week won First Prize at the prestigious Operalia competition, will make her Met debut as Countess Almaviva in this December's performances of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. Willis-Sørensen will sing the role on December 4, 8, 12, 15, and 20 matinee, replacing the originally announced Amanda Majeski, who now sings the September and October performances of the opera.

American Soprano Amanda Majeski will be singing the role of Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro in replacement of Marian Poplavskaya, who has withdrawn due to health reasons.

Expanding its slate of original programming, WGN America today announced its next straight-to-series order for the scripted drama 'Titans,'

The Warner Theatre has announced its 2014-2015 MetOpera: Live in HD Season which will feature 10 operas, 9 of which will be streaming live from the Metropolitan Opera, and 1 encore performance.

The Berkshire Playwrights Lab, whose innovative new play reading series draws works from the most exciting contemporary playwrights, celebrates its 7th season with a New Play Benefit Gala tonight, June 7 at 8PM at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

The Berkshire Playwrights Lab, whose innovative new play reading series draws works from the most exciting contemporary playwrights, celebrates its 7th season with a New Play Benefit Gala on June 7 at 8PM at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington.

The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live transmissions to more than 2,000 movie theaters in 65 countries around the world, will feature ten operas in the 2014-15 season, including all six new productions in the Met season. All ten performances, transmitted live from the Met stage, will feature the world's finest singers, conductors, and theatrical artists.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2014-15 season will feature 26 operas, three of them company premieres, in six new productions and 18 revivals showcasing the talents of the world's leading singers, conductors, and theater artists. The three operas that will have their first-ever Met performances, each staged by a director making his Met debut, are John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, conducted by David Robertson and directed by Tom Morris, opening October 20; Rossini's La Donna del Lago, conducted by Michele Mariotti and directed by Paul Curran, opening February 16, 2015; and Tchaikovsky's one-act opera Iolanta, conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Treli?ski. Iolanta will be presented in a double bill with a new staging of Bartok's one-act Duke Bluebeard's Castle, also conducted by Gergiev and directed by Treli?ski.

Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce will take a star turn together when they co-host the Ninth Annual Opera News Awards, set to take place on Sunday, April 13, 2014, in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza Hotel in New York City. They will be joined by a distinguished line-up of presenters – Luca Pisaroni, Susan Graham, Renata Scotto, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Francesca Zambello – who will pay tribute to five superb artists who have made an invaluable contribution to the art form: the late director Patrice Chéreau, tenor Juan Diego Flórez, mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig,bass-baritone James Morris, and soprano Nina Stemme. First introduced in 2005, the Opera News Awards gala dinner, which features the hosts and presenters speaking about the awardees and introducing video performance clips, has become one of the most anticipated opera events of the season: an evening of celebration, appreciation, reuniting and celebrity-spotting that is without parallel in the industry.

Marina Poplavskaya and Peter Mattei take on the roles of the lovestruck Tatiana and the imperious Onegin in Deborah Warner's new production of Tchaikovsky's fateful romance, which opened the Met season in September, directed by Fiona Shaw. Rolando Villazón is Lenski, Onegin's friend-turned-rival, in his first performances on the Met stage since 2009. Russian maestro Alexander Vedernikov makes his company debut on the podium. Check out a sneak peek below!

Carnegie Hall Presents it's calendar of events for December of 2013, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and The New York Pops.

Tonight, November 23, Deborah Warner's new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, which opened the current Met season, will return with a new cast in the central roles.

On November 23, Deborah Warner's new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, which opened the current Met season, will return with a new cast in the central roles. Peter Mattei, recently seen at the Met as Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal and in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni, will sing his first Met performances of the brooding title character. Marina Poplavskaya, star of recent Met productions of Verdi's La Traviata and Don Carlo and Gounod's Faust, sings Tatiana, the lovesick girl who evolves into a sophisticated woman over the course of the opera. Rolando Villazón, whose past starring roles at the Met include Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème and the Duke in Verdi's Rigoletto, returns for his first company performances since 2009 as Lenski, the poet whose friendship with Onegin is destroyed by jealousy. Russian conductor Alexander Vedernikov makes his Met debut leading the opera, which will also star Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova in her Met debut as Tatiana's sister Olga and Štefan Kocán as the wealthy Prince Gremin.

Carnegie Hall Presents it's calendar of events for December of 2013, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and The New York Pops.

The editors of Opera News are pleased to announce the honorees for the ninth annual Opera News Awards, paying tribute to five superb artists who have made invaluable contributions to the art form: director Patrice Chéreau, tenor Juan Diego Flórez, mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig, bass-baritone James Morris and soprano Nina Stemme. The Opera News Awards ceremonywill take place on Sunday, April 13 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. All the winners - and a host of the city's cultural, civic, and social luminaries - will be present at the gala awards dinner, which will feature celebrity presenters speaking about the awardees and introducing video performance clips.

The Metropolitan Opera will open its 2013-14 season on September 23 at 6:30 p.m. with a new production of Tchaikovsky's romantic tragedy Eugene Onegin, directed by Deborah Warner in her Met debut. Valery Gergiev returns to the Met for the first time since 2010 to conduct the performance, which will feature Anna Netrebko-the first soprano in Met history to star in three consecutive opening night performances-in her first company performances as the naive heroine Tatiana, whose infatuation with the title character has tragic repercussions. Mariusz Kwiecien brings his acclaimed interpretation of Onegin to the Met for the first time, opposite Piotr Beczala, who reprises his celebrated portrayal of Lenski. Oksana Volkova sings the role of Tatiana's sister, Olga, and Alexei Tanovitski sings Prince Gremin, the older man who offers Tatiana security. This cast sings eight performances of the opera through October 19, with the October 5 matinee performance transmitted live to more than 1,900 movie theaters in 64 countries around the world as part of The Met: Live in HD series. Due to an unexpected surgical procedure, Warner was unable to travel to the Met to stage Eugene Onegin, which is being directed here by her longtime collaborator Fiona Shaw.

James Levine and The MET Orchestra return for their annual series at Carnegie Hall with three concerts this season in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. The series launches onSunday, October 13 at 3:00 p.m. with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato singing Rossini'sGiovanna d'Arco as well as arias from Mozart'sLa clemenza di Tito. Also on the program are Verdi's Overture to I vespri Siciliani, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major, and Elliott Carter's Variations for Orchestra. This marks Maestro Levine's first performance at Carnegie Hall since his triumphant return to the podium on May 19.

Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann sings the title role in a new production of Wagner's final masterpiece Parsifal, staged by acclaimed French Canadian director François Girard in his Met debut, on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, July 28 at 12 noon on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera in two parts: Friday, August 16 at 9 p.m. and Friday, August 23 at 9 p.m.)

CARNEGIE HALL DECEMBER 2013 CALENDAR