DAS RHEINGOLD

Staatsoper Stuttgart has announced the highly anticipated return of the dynamic American baritone, Michael Mayes, in François d'Assise, opening on June 11, 2023. Mayes, known for his powerful and emotionally captivating performances, will take on the role of François in this remarkable production, set to mesmerize audiences with its profound exploration of spirituality and human nature....

​​​​​​​Ivo van Hove, the Tony Award–winning director of Broadway's A View from the Bridge, makes a major Met debut with Mozart's Don Giovanni (May 5–June 2), re-setting the familiar tale of deceit and damnation in an abstract architectural landscape and shining a light into the work's dark corners....

There are no supernatural women arriving on horseback to escort slain warriors to the afterlife--just a trio of mermaids, a couple of giants and a loveless dwarf, along with a bunch of gods, demi-gods and grotesque humans in Richard Wagner’s DAS RHEINGOLD, the first part of the composer’s Ring cycle (officially DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN). Saturday night’s audience stayed to cheer the opening of General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun’s production after nearly three intermission-less hours....

​​​​​​​Wagner's soaring masterpiece Lohengrin returns to the Met stage after 17 years, in a new production by internationally renowned director François Girard. The production runs from February 26th-April 1st....

Canadian bass-baritone John Relyea, who just ended a highly acclaimed run as Boris Ismailov in the Met's production of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, will also be singing the role of the Grand Inquisitor in all of the Met's upcoming performances of Verdi's Don Carlo, which opens on November 3....

Regents Opera will present Wagner's Das Rheingold on 13th, 17th and 19th November at The Grand Temple, Freemason's Hall, Covent Garden. ...

After a season-long series of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, a panel of expert judges named six singers as the winners of the 2022 Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition. ...

Wagnerians in Concert features sopranos Christine Goerke and Elza van den Heever, tenor Andreas Schager, and baritone Michael Volle, live from the Hessisches Staatstheater, in Wiesbaden, Germany, on May 8. Three Divas showcases sopranos Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, live from the Opéra Royal-Château de Versailles, in France, on May 22. Both concerts will be streamed live on the Met's website at 1pm EST/7pm CET, and will then be available on demand for 14 days. ...

Wagnerians in Concert, with piano accompaniment by Craig Terry, will include arias and duets from Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Parsifal, Das Rheingold, Tannhäuser, and Die Walküre, as well as songs by Richard Strauss. Get an extended look at the show!...

Wagnerians in Concert, with piano accompaniment by Craig Terry, will include arias and duets from Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, Lohengrin, Parsifal, Das Rheingold, Tannhäuser, and Die Walküre, as well as songs by Richard Strauss. Get an extended look at the show!...

With nary a “Ho-yo-to-ho” to be heard, the Met’s “Met Stars Live in Concert” series brought four eminent Wagnerians--sopranos Christine Goerke and Elza van den Heever, tenor Andreas Schager and baritone Michael Volle--together from the dazzlingly Baroque Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden, Germany, live on May 8. This “Wagnerians in Concert” will be available from the Met’s website until just before the witching hour on May 21....

Wagnerians in Concert features sopranos Christine Goerke and Elza van den Heever, tenor Andreas Schager, and baritone Michael Volle, live from the Hessisches Staatstheater, in Wiesbaden, Germany, on May 8. Three Divas showcases sopranos Ailyn Pérez and Nadine Sierra and mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, live from the Opéra Royal-Château de Versailles, in France, on May 22. Both concerts will be streamed live on the Met's website at 1pm EST/7pm CET, and will then be available on demand for 14 days. ...

Sofia Opera and Ballet of Bulgaria has announced its revised summer season....

#OperaHarmony has brought together 19 groups, set to release exciting micro-operitas from May via YouTube, reflecting how creativity can still flourish in these uncertain times....

The Metropolitan Opera's annual Summer HD Festival, presenting free outdoor screenings of operas in Lincoln Center Plaza, returns for the 11th time this summer, with one screening each night now through Monday, September 2, 2019 (Labor Day). The series features ten performances from the company's acclaimed Live in HD series of movie theater transmissions, including performances from the 2018 19 season as well as some of the most popular transmissions from past years. Preceding the festival, on F...

The Metropolitan Opera's annual Summer HD Festival, presenting free outdoor screenings of operas in Lincoln Center Plaza, returns for the 11th time this summer, with one screening each night from Saturday, August 24, to Monday, September 2, 2019 (Labor Day). The series features ten performances from the company's acclaimed Live in HD series of movie theater transmissions, including performances from the 2018 19 season as well as some of the most popular transmissions from past years. Preceding t...

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World Premiere: Court Theater, Munich, 1870. The second opera in Wagner's monumental Ring cycle, Die Walküre has long stood on its own as an evening of extraordinarily powerful theater. Part of this appeal lies in its focus on some of the Ring's most interesting characters at decisive moments of their lives: Wotan, the leader of the gods; his wife, Fricka; his twin offspring, Siegmund and Sieglinde; and, above all, Wotan's warrior daughter Brünnhilde. These characters and others follow their des...

Following yesterday's highly competitive semifinal competition, nine singers will advance to the final phase of the 65th annual Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, America's largest vocal competition. The winners will receive individual cash prizes of $15,000, while the remaining finalists will receive prizes of $7,500....

If Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's Ring Cycle (formally, DER RING DAS NIBELUNGEN) had worked as smoothly when it opened in 2010 as it did at this season's marvelous premiere of its prologue, DAS RHEINGOLD, on Saturday afternoon, there probably still would have been complaints--not about its focus on technology but on its traditional approach. Personally, i liked it....

Wagner's visionary initial installment of the Ring Cycle depicts the original sin of the theft of the sacred golden treasure, the vanity of the gods, the greed of the Nibelungen, the fratricide of the giants, and the building of Valhalla. Bass-baritone Greer Grimsley sings the role of Wotan, the conflicted lord of the gods. Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton sings her first Wagner role at the Met as Wotan's embattled wife, Fricka....

Wagner's visionary initial installment of the Ring Cycle depicts the original sin of the theft of the sacred golden treasure, the vanity of the gods, the greed of the Nibelungen, the fratricide of the giants, and the building of Valhalla. Bass-baritone Greer Grimsley sings the role of Wotan, the conflicted lord of the gods. Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton sings her first Wagner role at the Met as Wotan's embattled wife, Fricka....

Michael Mayer's 2013 production of Verdi's Rigoletto, set in a 1960s Las Vegas casino, returns to the Met on February 12, with conductor Nicola Luisotti leading an all-star cast. Initial performances star Nadine Sierra as Gilda, Vittorio Grigolo as the Duke, Roberto Frontali as Rigoletto, Štefan Kocán as Sparafucile, and Ramona Zaharia in her Met debut as Maddalena. In later performances, Rosa Feola makes her Met debut as Gilda, Bryan Hymel sings the Duke for the first time at the Met, George Ga...

I caught up with rising star bass-baritone Christian Van Horn the other day, to find out what the devil was going on with his starring role in the Met's first performance of Arrigo Boito's MEFISTOFELE in almost 20 years. Were you nervous as hell (pun intended) on the first night, I asked Van Horn, winner of this year's prestigious Richard Tucker Award, in your role as the Devil?...

The Metropolitan Opera presents Verdi's towering Shakespearean masterpiece Otello, with performances December 14, 2018, to January 10, 2019. Otello marks the Met debut of conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who over the last decade has transformed the Los Angeles Philharmonic into one of the most closely watched classical ensembles in the world. Starring in the title role of Shakespeare's doomed Moor is Stuart Skelton, with Sonya Yoncheva as the devoted Desdemona and Željko Lu?i? as the treacherous Iago....