Alfred Walker News

While I’ve always been bothered by the cruelties and misogyny of the main character, Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI has (musically) been my favorite of the composer’s operas, though either casting or design has been a regular issue in bringing off the work at its best. Happily, the Met’s new production by Belgian provocateur Ivo van Hove is a success for me, with a cast filled with wonderful singers--and the Met orchestra and chorus sounding great under debutante Nathalie Stutzmann.

Ivo van Hove, the Tony Award–winning director of Broadway’s A View from the Bridge, is making 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. Read what the critics have to say!

Get a sneak peek at Ivo van Hove's debut at the Met Opera with his production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, featuring Peter Mattei and an exceptional cast.

​​​​​​​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.

The Metropolitan Opera will close out its 2022–23 season with Don Giovanni, starting May 5, and Die Zauberflöte, starting May 19. Nathalie Stutzmann will make her Met debut as conductor of both works, with Ivo van Hove directing Don Giovanni and Simon McBurney staging Die Zauberflöte—also both making their Met debuts.

 As a highlight of its landmark 20th anniversary season, “Breaking Ground,” Bard SummerScape presents the first major new American production of Camille Saint-Saëns’s unjustly neglected grand opera Henri VIII.

Get a first look at Baritone Peter Mattei singing the title character’s Act II aria, “Deh vieni alla finestra,” in an early rehearsal, accompanied by assistant conductor Jonathan C. Kelly. 

The Fisher Center at Bard and its renowned annual Bard SummerScape festival both celebrate their 20th anniversaries this year. “A hotbed of intellectual and aesthetic adventure” (New York Times), SummerScape returns to New York's Hudson Valley this summer with seven weeks of live music, opera, music-theater, and more, in the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center and other venues on the idyllic Bard College campus (June 23–Aug 13).

 The Dallas Opera’s 2023/2024 Season has been announced! See how to purchase tickets!

The Metropolitan Opera has announced a 2023–24 season with the most new works in the company’s modern history. See show details, performances dates, and how to purchase tickets!

The Metropolitan Opera will present the company premiere of Terence Blanchard’s Champion, Ivo van Hove's Met debut with Don Giovanni, and more this spring season. See how to purchase tickets!

A classic fairytale returns to life as Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel comes to Lyric Opera of Chicago in a universally acclaimed production, back by popular demand for six performances, January 25–February 3, 2023.

Boston Philharmonic Orchestra will perform Beethoven's Ninth at Carnegie Hall on Sunday, February 26. Tickets Go On Sale December 16, 2022.

The Metropolitan Opera has announced the launch of The Met: Live at Home, a streaming platform that allows audiences to watch the Met’s acclaimed series of live simulcasts from any device in the comfort of their homes—the latest effort by the company to reach as broad a public as possible.

San Francisco Opera presents the world premiere of John Adams' Antony and Cleopatra on Saturday, September 10, with performances through October 5.

San Francisco Opera today announced a cast change for the world premiere of John Adams’ Antony and Cleopatra, opening on September 10, 2022 as the first operatic presentation of the Company’s 2022–23 Centennial Season.

Washington Concert Opera and Maestro Antony Walker will continue their 35th season with Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orphée on Sunday, April 24 at 6 p.m. at Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC.

The Washington National Opera has gathered a company of first rate singers for a portmanteau of four, one-act operas called Written in Stone. Unfortunately, their fine skills and exceptional voices cannot make silk purses out of scores, libretti, and orchestrations that evade aesthetics, emphasize negatives, and ignore the connection implicit in musical theatre between the notes and the text. This world première requires an orchestra to seem to be playing a piece of music that is not the same piece of music as the singers are singing. The last time this many groups of unfriendly instruments had a gig in a first run house was probably PDQ Bach's last show in Carnegie Hall. Gesamtkunstwerk this isn't, and it lasts for two and a half hours.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel and David C. Bohnett Chief Executive Officer Chair Chad Smith today announced the adventurous slate of programs for the 2022/23 season at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

As only the third American opera company in history to reach this centennial milestone, the Company’s 2022–23 Season will honor San Francisco Opera’s glorious past while inviting the public into an exciting new era of musical excellence under Kim’s music directorship and a renewed commitment to innovation.