Sondra Radvanovsky News

Twelve days, seven operatic happenings, six venues across the city, three world premieres, and one superstar Festival Artist: set to launch in September 2017, O – Opera Philadelphia's new annual season-opening festival – represents a radical new way to experience opera. As Daniel K. Meyer, M.D., Chairman of the Board of Opera Philadelphia, David B. Devan, General Director & President, and Annie Burridge, Managing Director, announced today, the new festival will open the company's season each fall, drawing together some of opera's most sought-after creative and performing artists for an immersion in the new American opera and innovative stagings of the classics for which Opera Philadelphia – the only American finalist for the 2015 International Opera Award for Accessibility – is fast becoming known. Opera Philadelphia will also continue to present three additional productions each spring, making it the only U.S. opera company to open an annual season with a dynamic festival.

DALLAS, OCTOBER 16, 2015 – Expect edge-of-your-seat excitement and experience Grand Opera at its finest as The Dallas Opera presents Giacomo Puccini's immortal TOSCA, opening on Friday, November 6, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center.  

The Met came late to the trio of Donizetti operas about British queens, when it finally mounted ANNA BOLENA mounted for Anna Netrebko in 2011. This was long after Beverly Sills made her deal with the devil, trading her voice for the cover of Time Magazine, by singing Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I at New York City Opera. The Met is finally getting around to mounting its own take on the operas this season (the so-called Tudor Trilogy) not for Netrebko but for American Sondra Radvanovsky. As Anna, she delivers a thrilling, go-for-broke performance.

Taylor Stayton will sing the role of Percy in this evening's performance of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, replacing Stephen Costello, who is ill.

This Saturday, September 26, American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky will begin her season-long quest to sing all three of the principal heroines in Donizetti's 'Tudor trilogy,' being presented in its entirety for the first time at the Met this season. In the first opera, Anna Bolena, Radvanovsky stars as the young queen Anne Boleyn, grasping to hold onto the throne of England. Later this season, Radvanovsky will also star as the devout and doomed Mary, Queen of Scots in Maria Stuarda and as the conflicted Elizabeth I in the first-ever Met performances of Roberto Devereux. Radvanovsky will be the first soprano since Beverly Sills in the 1970s to sing the lead roles in all three operas in the course of a single New York season.

Canadian soprano Erin Wall, who in August was featured in the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra's performance of Mahler's “Symphony of a Thousand” led by Andris Nelsons, and American baritone Steven LaBrie, a 2013 George London Encouragement Award winner who has sung Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin with Jessica Lang Dance at BAM and Jacob's Pillow, are the two artists who will open the 2015-16 season of the George London Foundation for Singers. 

The Capitol Center for the Arts is pleased to announce that it will present 11 productions in next season's Met: Live in HD series, beginning with Verdi's Il Trovatore on Saturday, October 3, at 12:55pm. Single tickets for this series are on sale now for $26 Adults; $22 Seniors/Met/CCA Members; and $15 Students. Season subscriptions are also available at $234 Adults; $198 Seniors/Met/CCA Members; and $135 students.

?The 2015-16 season marks two milestones for the George London Foundation for Singers, which has been honoring, supporting, and presenting the finest young opera singers in the U.S. and Canada since 1971:  the 45th annual George London Foundation Awards Competition, which gives George London Awards to young singers each year; and the 20th year of its acclaimed recital series, which presents pairs of singers, both established stars and recent George London Award winners, at The Morgan Library & Museum.

Jamie Barton will add a new role to her Met repertory this season when she sings Giovanna Seymour in Donizetti's Anna Bolena, replacing Elena Garana, who has withdrawn due to a death in her family.

The new opera season doesn't start till September at the earliest. What's an opera fan to do until the Met's curtain goes up on September 21? Well, with a little bit of effort, opera in New York and the surrounding states during the summer months can offer quite a bit.

The Met was running on all cylinders for the last performance of the season, with Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA in an energized version of the production that premiered in 2012. The trio of principals--soprano Sondra Radvanovsky as Amelia, tenor Piotr Beczala as Gustavo and baritone Alexey Markov as Anckarstrom--gave ringing, heart-felt performances in a concept from David Alden that previously seemed half-baked. Now, the singing and acting were so good that one could forget the conceit's shortcomings.

Met Music Director James Levine will lead a starry revival of Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera, opening April 23 and continuing for four additional performances through May 9.

The Met's first new production in 45 years of the enduringly popular verismo double bill, Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, will open April 14.

After a months-long series of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, five young singers have been named the winners of the nation's most prestigious vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

The winners of the 44th annual George London Foundation Awards Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers were announced at the conclusion of the competition's final round this evening, which took place in a front of a capacity audience at Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

Over three days of preliminary auditions on February 23-25, 2015, 90 of the best young American and Canadian opera singers will compete to reach the final round of the 44th annual George London Foundation Awards Competition.

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.

Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the Tudor tragedy ?Anna Bolena by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) in a new production conducted by Patrick Summers and directed by Kevin Newbury. It opens on Saturday, December 6 with 8 performances through Friday, January 16. Performance dates are Dec. 6, 9, 15, Jan. 7, 10, and 16 at 7:30pm; and Dec. 12 and 21 at 2pm.

Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the Tudor tragedy Anna Bolena by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) in a new production by Kevin Newbury conducted by Patrick Summers. It opens tonight, December 6 with 8 performances through Friday, January 16.

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.