OPERA INTERVIEWS

'Bread-and-butter operas usually bore me,' tenor Russell Thomas told me frankly, as he prepared for his first performance of Rodolfo, at the Met, in Puccini's LA BOHEME--one of opera's most popular tenor roles--in nearly 15 years. But it wasn't any disdain for the role that kept him away from it: It...

Bass-baritone Patrick Carfizzi will be appearing in the San Diego Opera's production of Pirates of Penzance later this month. He and I met over an informal lunch to discuss that and much more....

Opera soprano Simone Osborne sits down with BroadwayWorld's Taylor Long to chat about her career, her roots and her excitement in bringing ELIXIR OF LOVE to the stage at the COC....

Soprano Erin Wall is one busy woman. Luckily, the talented (and funny!) singer had some time to sit down with BroadwayWorld's Taylor Long to talk about singing, joke about her composer boyfriends, and share some of the preparation involved in mounting a large-scale opera like ARABELLA....

The last of the new operas at the center of Opera Philadelphia's O17 opera fest is THE WAKE WORLD, a chamber piece written by composer/librettist David Hertzberg and directed by RB Schlather. It opens on Monday September 18 at the Barnes collection--the great museum in central Philadelphia--and prom...

Tokyo and New York City are the two home cities of composer Moto Osada, whose new chamber opera, FOUR NIGHTS OF DREAM will have its North American premiere at the Japan Society in Manhattan on September 13, directed by Alec Duffy....

With Grammy-nominated American composer Mason Bates dipping his toe into full-length operatic waters for the first time--and star librettist Mark Campbell doing it for the umpteenth--the Guggenheim Museum's “Works & Process” series gave an extended peak into the development of their new opera, T...

Being an opera singer is a little like walking a tightrope without a net--no matter who you're singing with, you're out there on stage, alone, for the crowd to cheer but, also for everyone to hear each glitch or misstep in your singing. Soprano Angela Meade--who's starring as Imogene in Caramoor's c...

Kevin Newbury is a theatre, opera and film director who has staged over sixty original productions for numerous opera companies, festivals, and symphonies. Especially committed to developing new material, he has directed more than two-dozen world premieres of operas and plays. His staging of Mason B...

You don't have to be transgender, or even an opera-lover, to be moved and haunted by AS ONE, the chamber opera by Laura Kaminsky, Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed having its local debut June 2 at the New Orleans Opera. It's a work that will reach anyone who has come to terms with growing up, learning...

Brenda Rae, a fast rising opera star in Europe, is now spreading her wings across the United States. She has a sound reminiscent of molten silver, a wide range, and a great deal of flexibility. At Santa Fe this summer she will sing Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, a romantic, bel canto opera...

Last year's premiere of JFK by David T. Little and Royce Vavrek at the Fort Worth Opera caused some big-time foot-stomping in the Lone Star State. New Yorkers will have a taste of the work--which will have its next full-scale production at the Opera de Montreal next January--on April 23 at the Morga...

Jacqueline Dark is appearing with the State Opera of South Australia in Cavalleria Rusticana....

In our time, IDOMENEO is the earliest of Mozart's operas regularly done, its full title being IDOMENEO, RE DI CRETA OSSIA ILIA E IDAMANTE--or IDOMENEO, KING OF CRETE, OR ILIA AND IDAMANTE. “Ilia” of the extended title is the daughter of Priam, the king of Troy. (“Idamante” is Idomeneo's son....

When Massimo Cavelletti stepped on stage at the Met on November 16, it was a milestone: His 100th performance as Marcello, the baritone lead in LA BOHEME and part of the quartet at the opera's heart: There's Mimi, the seamstress, the sad soul who dies at the opera's end; Rodolfo, the heartthrob teno...

Grammy Award-winning soprano (and Houston favorite) Ana Maria Martinez joins us to discuss about her role, Marguerite in HGO's FAUST; muse on the potential of opera to heal societal wounds; and give us some really practical advice....

For years I have been saying that the best kept secret in Ventura County theater is the Ventura County Gilbert & Sullivan Repertoire Company. Celebrating its 10th season this year, the VCGSRC is currently going through its second cycle of the eleven operettas in the canon produced by the venerable...

Tenor Peter Marsh, who makes his Seattle Opera debut as the villainous Hexe in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel next month, shares his insights on the subject...

Opera is something that you control much less as a conductor...

On August 22, award-winning opera educator, administrator, researcher and stage director Carleen Graham assumes the position of Director of HGOco, the Houston Grand Opera's community outreach program....

Do you remember that cataclysmal moment in the Stanley Kubrick film of Stephen King's “The Shining,” when Jack Nicholson axes his way through the bathroom door and says, wild-eyed, “Here's Johnny!” Well, you won't find it in King's book--or in Mark Campbell's libretto for THE SHINING, the ne...

Andrew has had a prolific career as a writer, from the above mentioned Off-Broadway favorites, to supplying additional material for the You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown revival, as well as music & lyrics for Broadway's Big Fish and The Addams Family. Now he's taken on two of our country's greatest c...

When Andrew Lippa, the Broadway composer, was commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus to write I AM HARVEY MILK for its 35th anniversary in 2013, the hour-long work about the assassinated gay rights activist was called an oratorio. While it was a success from the start, people involved al...

The premiere of JFK in Fort Worth on April 23 is a big step forward for composer David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek--who made a splash in contemporary opera circles with their post-apocalyptic DOG DAYS--as their first 'grand' opera. It's also a major leap for American Lyric Theater (ALT), a...

Tenor Lawrence Brownlee, who's justly acclaimed for his high notes--forget about a high C; how about an F above that!?--just finished the New York premiere of the Daniel Schnyder opera CHARLIE PARKER'S YARDBIRD (Bridgette A. Wmberly, librettist), at the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem. Famed jazz sax...