Maria Nockin worked at the Metropolitan Opera in New York while attending Fordham University across the street from Lincoln Center. At the same time, she studied voice, piano, and violin privately. For many years she taught English as a Second Language as well as courses in Art and Theater at New York City and Hauppauge Long Island schools. She has also served as soprano soloist at Long Island's Cathedral of St. Agnes. She spent summers working at the Salzburg Festival where some iof her reviews were translated and read on Austrian Radio. Upon retirement from teaching, she moved to the warmer climate of the Southwest United States where, in winter, she writes about opera and classical music in the major cities of Arizona and California. In summer she covers operas and concerts in Santa Fe New Mexico. In summer 2014, Maria taught Music Theory at the Institute for Large Dramatic Voices. One of her students was Jonah Hoskins, a 2020 winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions.
June 1, 2021
Los Angeles Opera presents a digital recital exploring the invaluable contributions Latina composers have made to the world of classical music. LAO’s much-beloved After Hours Recital Series is back, and this time it celebrates eleven Latina composers. Russell Thomas, the company's Artist in Residence-turned-host, curated this fabulous stream to transport viewers virtually to Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, and Peru.
May 17, 2021
On Saturday, May 15, 2021, Los Angeles Opera and Opera San Jose presented a recital honoring Latina composers. It includes songs by Modesta Bor, María Luisa Escobar, Chabuca Granda, María Grever, Ernestina Lecuona , Ángela Peralta, Consuelo Velázquez, and contemporary writers, Gabriela Lena Frank, Tania León, Mariela Rodríguez, and Irma Urteaga.
May 15, 2021
For her Los Angeles Opera Signature Recital, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, accompanied by Jeremy Frank, sings a collection of her favorite songs. They perform works by 20th-century composer Kurt Weill, including 'Lonely House,' 'I'm a Stranger Here Myself,” and 'September Song.” LAO will stream the recital until July 1, 2021
May 9, 2021
Christine Goerke and Craig Terry's Recital can be seen on the Los Angeles Opera website as part of the five-part Signature Recital Series offered for $45 per household. Performances will be streamed until July 1, 2021. Goerke and Terry opened with a wildly dramatic rendition of Handel’s fire and brimstone“Furie Terribili,” (“Dreadful Furies”) from Rinaldo. Goerke then introduced a group of Italian songs in honor of her mother whose lineage is Sicilian and Neapolitan.
May 8, 2021
Enjoy Los Angeles Opera’s Signature Recital Series presentation of mezzo-soprano Susan Graham with pianist Jeremy Frank in a program of songs by Kurt Weill. Selections include the yearning 'Lonely House,' the tantalizing 'I'm a Stranger Here Myself' and the nostalgic 'September Song.” The video, streams until July 1, 2021.
April 29, 2021
On April 28, 2021, Arizona Opera, in partnership with Tucson Desert Song Festival, presented an online recital by dramatic tenor Bryan Hymel and pianist Michael Borowitz. They opened their streamed recital with the lyrical aria, 'Ombra mai fu” from Handel’s opera Xerxes. Sung by Xerxes I of Persia in praise of the shade offered by an old world sycamore tree, the aria contains one of Handel’s best-known melodies, his Largo.
April 24, 2021
On April. 23, 2021, San Francisco Opera presented its first drive-in opera, Rossini’s rollicking comedy, The Barber of Seville. As the boisterous Spanish hair stylist, baritone Lucas Meachem opened the show with a vigorous, rousing version of his famous “Largo al Factotum”. California COVID restrictions limited the show to ninety minutes. Using the Zedda edition of the Ricordi piano/vocal score, Conductor Roderick Cox and Director Matthew Ozawa treated the audience to all the opera’s major arias, duets, and ensembles,
April 23, 2021
On Wednesday, April 21, We begin this week’s tour with one of the Los Angeles Opera website’s most popular “Living Room Recitals.” Soprano, Latonia Moore sings with pianist Roberto Berrocal. After the recital, we leave for NYC. On arrival, we go to Shut Up and Eat, a most generous Toms River restaurant that offers a discount to patrons in pajamas.
April 17, 2021
On April 15, 2021, Opera San Jose premiered its digital stream of Love and Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy: Il Segreto di Susanna (The Secret of Susanna), Four Dialogues, and The Husbands. Wolf-Ferrari’s buffa comedy presents a wife with an addiction that she tries to keep secret. Thus, her husband suspects she has a lover and is most pleasantly surprised when he finds out she merely smokes cigarettes. Baritone Efraín Solís sings increasingly dramatic lines as his suspicions grow. A fine singing actor, he creates a most believable character.
April 13, 2021
On the Los Angeles Opera website, tenor Russell Thomas and collaborative pianist Kyung-Mi Kim present a program of song that includes Schumann's song cycle, Dichterliebe (Poet's Love), Handel's aria “Total Eclipse” from Samson, and love songs by Adolphus Hailstork and Robert Owens that was filmed recently at Spivey Hall in Atlanta, Georgia.
April 11, 2021
On Saturday evening, April 10, 2021, Opera Santa Barbara presented Gaetano Donizetti’s comedy Don Pasquale, the season opener for the Concerts in Your Car series at California’s Ventura County Fairgrounds. Following the State’s guidelines, attendees were able to enjoy a live stage performance from the safety and comfort of their vehicles or from their own chairs next to their vehicles, while wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing.
April 3, 2021
Have you watched Los Angeles Opera’s digital short Brown Sounds yet? Brown Sounds celebrates Black history by beginning with the Garden of Eden. Conceived by Raehann Bryce-Davis, a rising star in the LA firmament, it's a stunning vocal piece. Composer Ayanna Witter-Johnson set poet Henry Dumas's evocative verses to music with Bryce-Davis’s ravishing mezzo-soprano in mind.
March 28, 2021
On March 27, 2021, San Francisco Opera presented an online stream of its 2017-2018 production of Götterdämerung, the fourth opera of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Stage Director Francesca Zambello has shown us a rapidly deteriorating world in Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried, so the opening projections of clouds and smoke stacks are no surprise.
March 26, 2021
Watch the digital debut of Missy Mazzoli’s impassioned opera Breaking the Waves. The opera is based on Lars von Trier’s film of the same name. The story begins when a near-fatal accident leaves the heroine’s new husband paralyzed. In his anguish, he implores her to take other lovers. She follows her faith to a tragic end.
March 24, 2021
On Sunday, March 21, 2021, tenor Issachah Savage and collaborative pianist Laurie Rogers gave a half-hour recital called Anything for Love and Honor for the Merola Opera Program. Savage, a former member of Merola, won three prizes at Seattle’s International Wagner Competition in 2014: First Prize, the Audience Prize, and the Orchestra Fave' Award.
March 22, 2021
On March 20, 2021, San Francisco Opera presented a free stream of Richard Wagner’s opera Siegfried as part of Francesca Zambello’s 2017-2018 American Ring. Forest projections set the mood for Runnicles and Zambello’s nature-friendly, quasi-impressionistic rendering of the opera. Lighting Designer Mark McCullough illuminated the opening scene as though it was a dream.
March 20, 2021
Artists in the AZ Arias concert were internationally known Brazilian baritone Paulo Szot, members of the Arizona Opera Orchestra led by Maestro Cal Stewart Kellogg, Head of Music, Christopher Cano, as well as studio members: sopranos Cheyanne Coss and Caitlin Gotimer, mezzo-soprano Mack Wolz, tenor Terrence Chin-Loy, and baritone Rob McGinness.
March 19, 2021
Wagner’s Siegfried is online from San Francisco Opera on March 20 and 21, 2021. Siegfried, a warrior without fear comes of age and prepares for battle in the third opera of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Tenor Daniel Brenna stars as the Siegfried, the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde who was born to retrieve the almighty ring of power from the dragon.
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