Albina Shagimuratova News

 A season of superb music and spectacle is now on sale to Lyric subscribers - including three new mainstage opera productions, three new-to-Chicago opera productions, one new musical production, and one new-to-Chicago chamber opera production.

Houston Grand Opera expands its commitment to broadening the audience for opera with a 2017-18 season that includes the first presentations of Leonard Bernstein's classic musical West Side Story by a major American opera house and the world premiere of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Royce Vavrek's holiday opera The House without a Christmas Tree. HGO will present its first performances in a quarter century of two iconic works: Richard Strauss's revenge-filled Elektra with virtuoso sopranoChristine Goerke in the tempestuous title role and 2016 Richard Tucker Award-winner and HGO Studio alumna Tamara Wilson in her role debut as Chrysothemis, under the baton of HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers; and Bellini's grand-scale tragedy Norma showcasing the debut of stellar dramatic soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska in the notoriously difficult title role, with 2015 Tucker winner and HGO Studio alumna Jamie Barton as Adalgisa.

Houston Grand Opera expands its commitment to broadening the audience for opera with a 2017-18 season that includes the first presentations of Leonard Bernstein's classic musical West Side Story by a major American opera house and the world premiere of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Royce Vavrek 's holiday opera The House without a Christmas Tree.

In the fall of 1987, Houston Grand Opera's world premiere of Nixon in China made political headlines and galvanized the opera world. Thirty years later, John Adams's trailblazing opera returns in a new-to-Houston production that sheds light on the electronic media's role in political history, just as a new media-savvy American president takes office.

On Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at The Guggenheim presents a discussion with the creators and excerpts of Houston Grand Opera's upcoming world premiere of It's a Wonderful Life by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer.

Lyric Opera of Chicago presents the haunting story of a woman in love, her betrayal, and her descent into madness in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in a new-to-Chicago production with an all-star cast. Often described as a Scottish Romeo-and-Juliet-style tragedy, Lucia di Lammermoor opens on Saturday, October 15, with seven performances through November 6 at Lyric's Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Donizetti's ebullient comedy The Elixir of Love sets a celebratory tone as Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) 62nd season opener on October 21. The colorful production features tenor Dimitri Pittas and soprano Nicole Heaston, as well as the HGO debut of eminent English conductor Jane Glover. Performances run through November 4.  

Donizetti's ebullient comedy The Elixir of Love sets a celebratory tone as Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) 62nd season opener on October 21.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will offer New Yorkers a preview performance of excerpts from a new opera based on the classic story and Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life on Sunday, November 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Guggenheim Museum, as part of the museum's Works & Process program. The evening will include a discussion with the composer/librettist team of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, moderated by HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers.

Houston Grand Opera will present four pinnacles of the operatic repertoire during the company's 2016-17 season, which also features the highly anticipated world premiere of It's a Wonderful Life by composer Jake Heggie with libretto by Gene Scheer, and much-loved comedies by Donizetti and Mozart. Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers will lead Gotterdammerung, the final installment of Wagner's epic Ring cycle, featuring a new generation of leading Wagnerians includingSimon O'Neill as Siegfried and Christine Goerke as Brunnhilde. HGO will bring back its popular production of Gounod's Faust, with the HGO debut of international star tenor Michael Fabiano in the title role partnered by Houston favorite Ana Maria Martinez as Marguerite, along with the role debut of prominent bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni as Mephistopheles. The company will celebrate the 30thanniversary of HGO's world premiere of John Adams's pivotal Nixon in China by presenting James Robinson's production, of which HGO is a co-producer, with HGO Studio alumnus Scott Hendricks as Richard Nixon and soprano Andriana Chuchman as his wife, Pat. Patrick Summers will conduct Verdi'sthrilling Requiem, which critics at the time termed "an opera in ecclesiastical robes," with soloists Angela Meade, soprano, in her HGO debut; Sasha Cooke, alto; Alexey Dolgov, tenor; and Peixin Chen, bass; and the HGO Orchestra and Chorus. HGO's 62nd season will open with a whimsical production of Donizetti's buoyant The Elixir of Love, featuring tenor Dimitri Pittas as Nemorino and HGO Studio alumna Nicole Heaston as Adina and led by the eminent English conductor Jane Glover, HGO's 2016-17 Lynn Wyatt Great Artist, in her first HGO appearance. Mozart's zany yet deeply emotive comedy TheAbduction from the Seraglio-featuring Russian coloratura soprano and HGO Studio alumna Albina Shagimuratova as Konstanze and leading American tenor Lawrence Brownlee as Belmonte in HGO's inventive 2002 co-production-will close the main-stage season.  

I wonder whether James Levine imagined that Mozart's DIE ENFUHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL (THE ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO) would be his swan song as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. I think he might have chosen better.

American tenor Brenton Ryan makes his Met debut as Pedrillo in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, beginning today, April 22. The opera continues on April 27, 30, May 3, and May 7 matinee.

Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which has not been seen on the Met stage in almost a decade, opens April 22 led by James Levine, who recently announced that he would assume the new title of Music Director Emeritus at the conclusion of the Met's current season.

CHICAGO - Subscriptions go on sale February 1 at 10:00am for Lyric Opera of Chicago's 62nd season. Next season offers world-renowned artists, nine tremendous new-to-Chicago productions, and the start of Wagner's famed Ring cycle, Das Rheingold.

Lyric Opera of Chicago's general director Anthony Freud and music director Sir Andrew Davis confirmed today the repertoire and casting for the company's 2016/17 season - the second season that they have fully planned together.  

American tenor Brenton Ryan will make his Met debut as Pedrillo in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail this spring. Ryan will sing all five performances of the opera, which opens on April 22 and continues on April 27, 30, May 3, and May 7 matinee.

At its 2015 Harman Center for the Arts Gala, the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) will present renowned theatre, film and opera director Julie Taymor with the 2015 William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre (Will Award), which recognizes artists who have made significant contributions to classical theatre in America. JM Zell Partners, Ltd. will receive the Sidney Harman Award for Philanthropy in the Arts. Dame Helen Mirren (Academy Award winner and star of Taymor's film The Tempest) will be a special guest at the black-tie event, themed "Imagine: Shakespeare."

San Francisco Opera brings back to the War Memorial Opera House Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute in Jun Kaneko's colorful multimedia production directed by Harry Silverstein. Featuring an accomplished cast of young operatic talent, these performances are presented using General Director David Gockley's English singing translation, with additional material by Ruth and Thomas Martin, and are led by prominent American conductor Lawrence Foster in his San Francisco Opera debut. 

SAN FRANCISCO (October 1, 2015) –– San Francisco Opera brings back to the War Memorial Opera House Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute in Jun Kaneko's colorful multimedia production directed by Harry Silverstein. Featuring an accomplished cast of young operatic talent, these performances are presented using General Director David Gockley's English singing translation, with additional material by Ruth and Thomas Martin, and are led by prominent American conductor Lawrence Foster in his San Francisco Opera debut.