Anna Netrebko News

Luckily for viewers on the Metropolitan Opera's “Met on Demand”—with selections available free in this time of COVID-19, on your laptop or as apps for your phone or tablet—there were a couple of knee-slappers thrown in among the drama of AIDA, PARSIFAL and ROMEO ET JULIETTE this week. Two of my favorites were there: Donizetti's DON PASQUALE and Verdi's FALSTAFF.

The Met has announced the Week 5 schedule for its Nightly Met Opera Streams, a free series of encore Live in HD presentations streamed on the company website during the coronavirus closure. Beginning April 17, each opera streamed on Fridays will be chosen by viewers; the first Viewers' Choice title to be screened is Puccini's Madama Butterfly.

In advance of the opening of public booking on Saturday, 4 April, the twelve singers chosen to take part in the inaugural Wexford Factory were announced. 

The Met on Demand had another week of exciting performances, from the divine [Rossini's IL  BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA] to the, well, the divine [Adams's NIXON IN CHINA].

The Met has announced the Week 4 schedule for its Nightly Met Opera Streams, a free series of encore Live in HD presentations streamed on the company website during the coronavirus closure. The week begins with Verdi's Aida, starring Anna Netrebko in the title role.

After debuting its first-ever commissioned work in the program's history last season, San Francisco's acclaimed Merola Opera Program, one of the most prestigious and selective opera training programs in the world, returns with a new group of rising opera stars for its 63rd season.

A day after canceling upcoming performances due to concerns around the coronavirus, the Metropolitan Opera announced that it would stream encore presentations from the award-winning Live in HD series of cinema transmissions on the company website for the duration of the closure.

The International Opera Awards announced today the postponement of their 2020 awards ceremony in light of the current Covid-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak.

Sir David McVicar's bold staging of Puccini's operatic thriller Tosca returns to the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series after its acclaimed broadcast in 2017.

A day after canceling upcoming performances due to concerns around the coronavirus, the Metropolitan Opera announced that it would stream encore presentations from the award-winning Live in HD series of cinema transmissions on the company website for the duration of the closure. 

San Francisco Conservatory of Music continues to invest in its Vocal and Opera & Musical Theatre programs, with five new high-profile faculty and guest appointments announced today. In the 2020-21 season, SFCM students will benefit from top-tier mentorship from opera superstar Marilyn Horne and world-renowned collaborative pianist Martin Katz, who will join SFCM as Artists-in-Residence; Grammy Award-winning conductor Joel Revzen, a Metropolitan Opera assistant conductor who will lead the spring opera production; and San Francisco Opera coaches Peter Grunberg and César Cañón, who will join SFCM's collaborative piano faculty. 

For opera lovers and opera newbies, don't miss the chance to experience incomparable performances live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, as well as behind-the-scenes features exclusive to these Live in HD films, all from the comfort of the world-class Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center!

The Metropolitan Opera today announced that the Met Orchestra will tour Europe in the summer of 2021, immediately following its annual residency at Carnegie Hall. With all performances conducted by the Met's Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the tour includes stops at the Barbican Centre in London on June 29, 2021; the Philharmonie in Paris on June 30 and July 1, 2021; and the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany, on July 3 and 4, 2021. Four of the world's leading opera stars join the Met Orchestra: mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who will sing selections from Berlioz's Les Troyens, and soprano Christine Goerke, tenor Brandon Jovanovich, and bass Günther Groissböck, who will perform the first act of Wagner's Die Walküre.

Today, the Metropolitan Opera announced its 2020-21 season, the first in which Yannick Nézet-Séguin assumes his full breadth of musical duties as the company's Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducting six productions. His schedule includes the Met premiere of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, the first contemporary opera conducted by the maestro on the Met stage, as part of his ongoing commitment to opera of our time at the Met, which will expand in the seasons to come.

The International Opera Awards today announced the finalists for its 2020 Awards [Wednesday 5 February 2020]. The annual red-carpet event - which celebrates achievement in opera around the globe over the 2019 calendar year - recognises excellence in a wide range of categories that cover performance, design and direction as well as education and outreach.

I admit this is an absolutely personal, totally one-sided view of what gave one man opera thrills last year and what I will look back on with delight. Some are old works, some are new, some are individual performers, some are ensembles, some are complete productions, some are merely the highlight of an evening, most are domestic, a few are foreign. In any case, as the new decade begins, I recall that these are the vocal highlights that made my heart beat a little faster and made me look forward to the year ahead.

Yusif Eyvazov will sing Hermann in the performances of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades on November 29 and December 2 and 5, replacing Aleksandrs Antonenko, who has withdrawn due to illness. As previously announced, Eyvazov is also singing the role on December 8, 14, and 21. Kristian Benedikt will perform the role on December 18.

The Metropolitan Opera production of Philip Glass's Akhnaten comes to the big screen in HD at The Ridgefield Playhouse on Sunday, December 1 at 12:55pm in an extra special encore presentation featuring a live Q&A on The Playhouse stage during intermission with The Met Opera's Susan Gomez Pizzo, Solo Ladies Wardrobe Supervisor, and Louis Valantasis, Principal Men's Wardrobe Supervisor.

The Metropolitan Opera and WQXR, New York City's classical music station, today announced a second season of “Aria Code” — the critically-acclaimed podcast about opera's most legendary arias — debuting Wednesday, November 13. 

Lyric Opera of Chicago announced today that American baritone Lucas Meachem will portray the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni November 14 - 30. Due to a family situation in Europe, Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov has had to withdraw from Lyric's production in order to be closer to home in the coming months.