Alice Coote News

Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys will have its North American premiere at the Met October 21, in a production conducted by David Robertson and directed by Bartlett Sher.

A preview of Bartlett Sher's Met premiere production of Nico Muhly's Two Boys, starring Alice Coote and Paul Appleby, conducted by David Robertson Opens October 21, 2013. Check out a preview and sneak peek below!

Carnegie Hall has announced its January 2014 calendar. Details below!

On Tuesday, September 24, the Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met will open Laurie Simmons'sTwo Boys, a new exhibition presented in conjunction with the North American premiere of Nico Muhly's opera of the same name. Simmons has created 4 original photographs for the show, which will be on display in Gallery Met through January 15, 2014. The opera Two Boys, which explores identity and desire in the shadowy world of the Internet, opens at the Met on October 21 in a production directed by Bartlett Sher and conducted by David Robertson.

Is Lincoln Center planning to change its summertime schedule from “Mostly Mozart” to “Basically Beethoven”? If so, they couldn't have picked a better concert to put the point across than the opening program of this year's Festival. Heard on Wednesday evening, July 31, the performance was led by Music Director Louis Langrée.

The Met's annual concert series in New York City parks is one of the most popular summer traditions in the city. The Summer Recital Series returns in 2013 with six performances in the parks of all five boroughs. The series kicks off with a concert at Central Park SummerStage on July 16, featuring rising opera stars soprano Erin Morley, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and tenor Stephen Costello. The Brooklyn concert takes place at Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1, the largest pier of the park on the East River.

The Canadian Opera Company has closed another successful opera season by recording an average attendance of 90% for 2012/2013. A total of 114,133 patrons attended the 61 performances of the company's seven mainstage productions this season in the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts: Verdi's Il Trovatore, Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Richard Strauss's Salome and Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites.

The Metropolitan Opera and SummerStage continue their long-time collaboration to present some of The Met's finest young singers in showcase recitals taking place across New York City.

The Met: Live in HD will broadcast David Daniels and Natalie Dessay as Caesar and Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, transmitted live to your local movie theater today, April 27 at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT (find local theaters: U.S. International). THE MET: LIVE IN HD

The Met: Live in HD will broadcast David Daniels and Natalie Dessay as Caesar and Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare, transmitted live to your local movie theater on Saturday, April 27 at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT.

The groans were audible--no, powerful--when the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager Peter Gelb stepped out in front of the curtain on the second night of the company's new David McVicar production of Handel's GIULIO CESARE. They grew louder as he announced that soprano Natalie Dessay was ill and would not be singing the pivotal role of Cleopatra. But I'd bet that these same operagoers were cheering along with the majority of the audience at the sensational portrayal of the replacement, soprano Danielle de Niese, whose brilliant coloratura took the runs, roulades and trills of this demanding score with ease.

Danielle de Niese will sing the role of Cleopatra in this evening's performance of Handel's Giulio Cesare, replacing Natalie Dessay, who is ill.

The Hallé Orchestra and conductor Sir Mark Elder's “magnificent” (Financial Times) new recording of Elgar's oratorio The Apostles, a retelling of Christ's Passion from the viewpoint of His followers, arrives at last in North America, following a cluster of superlative reviews in the UK. The Sunday Telegraph declares it a performance of “such insight, splendour and breadth of interpretive vision that one can't imagine it being surpassed” while Gramophone insists, “a set absolutely not to be missed.” The live performance, recorded in Manchester's Bridgewater Hall in 2012, appears on the orchestra's own Hallé label on 2 CDs, available now from Allegro Classical.

Sir David McVicar's witty and efferverscent production of Handel's most popular opera, GIULIO CESARE, arrives at the Met with Natalie Dessay and David Daniels in the leading roles and Harry Bicket on the podium. BroadwayWorld has a first look below.

David Daniels and Natalie Dessay will sing the leading roles of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra inDavid McVicar's production of Handel's Giulio Cesare, which premieres at the Met April 4. Baroque specialist Harry Bicket will lead ten performances of the popular staging, originally produced at the Glyndebourne Festival, which incorporates many innovative elements into the story of Caesar and Cleopatra's unlikely romance-including extensive choreography by Andrew George. The other principal stars of this production include Alice Coote in the trouser role of the Roman youth Sesto, Italian baritone Guido Loconsolo in his Met debut as the scheming Egyptian general Achilla, John Moore as the Roman general Curio, and three stars of McVicar's original Glyndebourne Festival production: Patricia Bardon as the Roman widow Cornelia, Sesto's stepmother; Christophe Dumaux as Tolomeo, Cleopatra's brother and co-ruler; and Moroccan countertenor Rachid Ben Abdeslam in his Met debut as the Egyptian servant Nireno. The production features set design by Robert Jones, costume design by Brigitte Reiffenstuel, and lighting design by Paule Constable. The Saturday, April 27 matinee performance of Giulio Cesare will be transmitted worldwide as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which is now seen in more than 1,900 movie theaters in 64 countries around the world.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 season will feature many of the world's greatest singers, conductors, and theater artists in 26 operas, including six new productions, of a varied repertory that ranges from the Baroque era to the 21st century. Met Music Director James Levine will return to the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has long been associated: a new production of Verdi's final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Berg's Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 season will feature many of the world's greatest singers, conductors, and theater artists in 26 operas, including six new productions, of a varied repertory that ranges from the Baroque era to the 21st century. Met Music Director James Levine will return to the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has long been associated: a new production of Verdi's final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Berg's Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 season will feature many of the world's greatest singers, conductors, and theater artists in 26 operas, including six new productions, of a varied repertory that ranges from the Baroque era to the 21st century. Met Music Director James Levine will return to the Met podium for the first time in two years, conducting three operas with which he has long been associated: a new production of Verdi's final masterpiece Falstaff, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Berg's Wozzeck. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will be conducting two operas in the 2013-14 season, Rossini's La Cenerentola and Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

The Canadian Opera Company unveiled its 2013/2014 season today at a press conference at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. The company's 64th season stars the world's best singers, conductors, directors and designers in a performance year with seven operas, including three COC premieres and three new COC productions. The COC presents Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème with a new production featuring some of Canada's brightest stars; COC Music Director Johannes Debus makes his Benjamin Britten debut when he conducts Peter Grimes with a production starring acclaimed Canadian tenor Ben Heppner in the iconic title role; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Così fan tutte with a new COC production by renowned film and theatre director Atom Egoyan with Debus conducting; Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera starring great Canadian diva Adrianne Pieczonka in a role debut; George Frideric Handel's Hercules with a COC premiere and new COC production by world-renowned director Peter Sellars with a star-studded cast; Gaetano Donizetti's Roberto Devereux with a COC premiere starring soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in a role debut; and Jules Massenet's Don Quichotte with a COC premiere featuring Debus in another conducting debut and the world's pre-eminent bass Ferruccio Furlanetto in the title role.