Alice Ford News

On Sunday, May 17, at 4 pm at Richardson Auditorium, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO) presents Viva Verdi!, an opera extravaganza featuring excerpts from Giuseppe Verdi's most popular works and spotlighting gifted young opera stars Michelle Johnson, soprano; Margaret Lattimore, mezzo; Zach Borichevsky, tenor; and Hugh Russell, baritone. Conducted by PSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, the afternoon's selections from Il Trovatore's complicated story of war, revenge and love, La Traviata's portrayal of a soul-searching courtesan, and Aida's tale of impossible love in an exotic setting will serve as a fitting encore to last season's bicentennial celebration of Verdi's birth.

Soprano Angela Meade - fresh from her New York Philharmonic debut in Verdi's Requiem earlier this year - returns to the Metropolitan Opera to reprise her signature role of Elvira in Verdi's Ernani from March 20 to April 11.

William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor runs tonight, February 4, through March 7, 2015 at Orlando Shakespeare Theater. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Soprano Angela Meade, the youngest singer ever featured on the cover of the “Diva Issue” of Opera News (November 2014), launches 2015 with a trio of high-profile events in January. She makes her eagerly awaited debut with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert in three performances of Verdi's Requiem at Avery Fisher Hall (Jan 15-17). Later in the month audiences have the opportunity to hear her star turn in the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala concert on aLive From Lincoln Center broadcast. “Richard Tucker Opera Gala: A New Century”, which was taped last October, airs on PBS on Friday, January 23, 2015. This weekend Meade is performing in a more intimate New York setting at the Morgan Library (Jan 11) where she shares the bill of a George London Recital with baritone Nicholas Pallesen, a fellow winner of the George London prize.

As 'king of the overture,' Rossini certainly knew how to put an audience in a good mood and his GUGLIELMO TELL--better known as WILLIAM TELL--is no exception. With an elaborate introduction that most Americans over a certain age know from “The Lone Ranger” serials and other themes used in decades of cartoon features, it's still dazzling and great fun to hear. It's particularly so, when it's in the hands of an exciting ensemble like the orchestra of Turin's Teatro Reggio Torino, under music director, Gianandrea Noseda.

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 today 18 to 26 October 2014.

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.