Alice Ford News

The Canadian Opera Company's 2014/2015 season gets off to a rollicking start with a hilarious new production of Verdi's Falstaff, from acclaimed Canadian director Robert Carsen. Inspired by the beloved Shakespearean character and the resulting folly of his ill-advised seduction attempts, Carsen's production of Falstaff sets the action in a lovingly rendered 1950s England. The all-Canadian cast stars world renowned bass-baritone Gerald Finley, returning to the COC mainstage after more than 20 years, in a highly anticipated role debut as the title character. Joining Finley is baritone Russell Braun as Ford, Falstaff's nemesis; soprano Lyne Fortinas Alice Ford, mezzo-soprano Lauren Segal as Meg Page and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly, the women determined to teach Falstaff a lesson; soprano Simone Osborne as the lovesick Nannetta; and tenor Frédéric Antoun as Nannetta's amorous suitor Fenton. COC Music Director Johannes Debus guides the COC Orchestra and Chorus through the lyricism and artistry of Verdi's score that captures all the joy, wisdom and profound humanity of Shakespeare's comic invention.

The Canadian Opera Company's 2014/2015 season opens with an opera hailed as the crowning achievement of Verdi's career, Falstaff. This new company production is led by master director Canadian Robert Carsen and COC Music Director Johannes Debus with internationally acclaimed Canadian bass-baritoneGerald Finley making a long-awaited return to the COC in his role debut as the impoverished, loveable knight, Sir John Falstaff. Falstaff is sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM and comes to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts for seven performances today, October 3 and October 9, 12, 14, 25, 29 and November 1, 2014.

Great Lakes Theater (GLT) will commence its 2014-15 season with Shakespeare's battle of the sexes, The Merry Wives of Windsor, presented in rotating repertory with Boublil and Schonberg's Tony Award-winning musical epic, LES MISERABLES (September 26 - November 9, 2014). BroadwayWorld has a first look at the 'Merry Wives' cast in action below!

Cape Town Opera will present a new production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's comic masterpiece of impetuous love, THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (LE NOZZE DI FIGARO) in the Opera House at Artscape from 18 to 26 October 2014. The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of acclaimed conductor, Maestro Jeremy Silver will accompany this production's talented cast.

The Canadian Opera Company's 2014/2015 season opens with an opera hailed as the crowning achievement of Verdi's career,Falstaff. This new company production is led by master director Canadian Robert Carsen and COC Music Director Johannes Debus with internationally acclaimed Canadian bass-baritoneGerald Finley making a long-awaited return to the COC in his role debut as the impoverished, loveable knight, Sir John Falstaff. Falstaff is sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM and comes to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts for seven performances onOctober 3, 9, 12, 14, 25, 29 and November 1, 2014.

Angela Meade – fresh from Metropolitan Opera triumphs as Bellini's Norma and as Alice Ford in Falstaff (the latter seen worldwide in the Met's Live in HD series) – has a busy summer ahead. The soprano, whose honors include the Richard Tucker and Beverly Sills Artist Awards, will perform at festivals across the U.S. from June through August. She launches her summer season as soprano soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop (June 5-8) before taking on the title role of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in her return to the Caramoor International Music Festival (July 12, 18). The Washington State native also headlines two festivals in Oregon: she sings Violetta in Verdi's La traviata for the gala opening concert of the Astoria Music Festival (June 14), and the title role of Bellini's Norma for Portland's SummerFest (Aug 8).

Angela Meade – fresh from Metropolitan Opera triumphs as Bellini's Norma and as Alice Ford in Falstaff (the latter seen worldwide in the Met's Live in HD series) – has a busy summer ahead. The soprano, whose honors include the Richard Tucker and Beverly Sills Artist Awards, will perform at festivals across the U.S. from June through August. She launches her summer season as soprano soloist in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Baltimore Symphony under Marin Alsop (June 5-8) before taking on the title role of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in her return to the Caramoor International Music Festival (July 12, 18). The Washington State native also headlines two festivals in Oregon: she sings Violetta in Verdi's La traviata for the gala opening concert of the Astoria Music Festival (June 14), and the title role of Bellini's Norma for Portland's SummerFest (Aug 8).

The winners of the 43rd annual George London Foundation Awards Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers were announced at the conclusion of the competition's final round this evening, which took place in a front of a capacity audience at Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

The Canadian Opera Company unveiled a season dominated by the most important, respected and talked-about artists working on the operatic world stage today at a public launch of its 2014/2015 season at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

“Dying is easy; comedy is hard” says the old show business quip. If anything, opera comedy is even harder. Why is it so difficult? Because it offers so many opportunities to do a disservice to the composer, the artists and the art form in one fell swoop. However, Robert Carsen's antic new production of Verdi's FALSTAFF at the Met, vividly conducted by Music Director James Levine, makes it look easy.

The Met: Live in HD series continues on the big screen with Verdi's Falstaff. An undisputed master of this work, Music Director James Levine conducts Verdi's opera for the first time at the Met since 2005. Robert Carsen's production-the first new Met Falstaff since 1964-is set in the English countryside in the mid-20th century. Ambrogio Maestri sings the title role of the blustery Sir John Falstaff, opposite a marvelous ensemble that includes Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, LisetteOropesa and Franco Vassallo. The live transmission begins today, December 14 at 12:55 PM ET with an encore on December 18 at 6:30 PM local time.

Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS continues its 2013-14 Michael Palm Series of benefit house concerts in New York City with an intimate performance by rising-star soprano Angela Meade tonight, December 12. The event - held at the magnificent TriBeCa loft of Simon Yates and Kevin Roon - begins with wine and hors d'oeuvres at 6:30 p.m., with the concert starting at 7:30 p.m.

The Met: Live in HD series continues on the big screen with Verdi's Falstaff. An undisputed master of this work, Music Director James Levine conducts Verdi's opera for the first time at the Met since 2005. Robert Carsen's production-the first new Met Falstaff since 1964-is set in the English countryside in the mid-20th century. Ambrogio Maestri sings the title role of the blustery Sir John Falstaff, opposite a marvelous ensemble that includes Angela Meade, Stephanie Blythe, LisetteOropesa and Franco Vassallo. The live transmission begins on December 14 at 12:55 PM ET with an encore on December 18 at 6:30 PM local time.

During curtain calls for the Met's recent Cosi Fan Tutte, when conductor James Levine rotated his wheelchair so he could face the audience, a prolonged ovation shook the building. He looked overcome and, perhaps, surprised. Many thought this day would never come.

Serban Vasile will make his Met debut in this evening's performance of Verdi's Falstaff, replacing Franco Vassallo, who is ill.

During curtain calls for the Met's recent Cosi Fan Tutte, when conductor James Levine rotated his wheelchair so he could face the audience, a prolonged ovation shook the building. He looked overcome and, perhaps, surprised. Many thought this day would never come.

Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS continues its 2013-14 Michael Palm Series of benefit house concerts in New York City with an intimate performance by rising-star soprano Angela Meade on Thursday December 12.

Patricia Racette and Sondra Radvanovsky will reprise their acclaimed performances of one of the most famous roles in opera, the heroine of Puccini's Tosca, at the Met this season. Racette sings the role beginning tonight, October 29, opposite Roberto Alagna as Cavaradossi and George Gagnidze as Scarpia.

Patricia Racette and Sondra Radvanovsky will reprise their acclaimed performances of one of the most famous roles in opera, the heroine of Puccini's Tosca, at the Met this season. Racette sings the role beginning October 29, opposite Roberto Alagna as Cavaradossi and George Gagnidze as Scarpia. Radvanovsky takes the role on December 11, singing with Marcello Giordani as Cavaradossi and Gagnidze as Scarpia. Two Italian conductors, Riccardo Frizza and Marco Armiliato, lead this season's performances of Puccini's celebrated tragedy. On December 20, Portuguese soprano Elisabete Matos sings her first Met Tosca, and on December 17, Brazilian tenor Ricardo Tamura makes his Met debut as Cavaradossi. The November 9 matinee of Tosca, starring Racette, Alagna, and Gagnidze, will be transmitted live as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 1,950 theaters in 64 countries around the world.

The November 9 matinee of Tosca, starring Patricia Racette, Roberto Alagna, and George Gagnidze, will be transmitted live as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 1,950 theaters in 64 countries around the world. Thirteen million tickets have been sold to opera lovers worldwide.