Saturday night, I heard soprano Lisette Oropesa deliver an alternatingly delicious and desperately dramatic Violetta in Verdi's LA TRAVIATA at the Met. Less than a day later, she was the emcee at the GRAND FINALS CONCERT of the Met's National Council Auditions--where she was a winner herself in 2005 and “it changed my life,” she recalled--delivering the latest batch of opera babies into the big time.
Opera Philadelphia launches the 2020-2021 season with the fourth iteration of the trailblazing Festival O, the only American festival nominated for a 2020 International Opera Award. O20 comprises a wide variety of operatic happenings at multiple venues across the city this September. The company announced its full 2020-21 season, which includes the world premiere of a new commission, a major new production of one of opera's great classics, and a host of A-list artists making their company and role debuts.
On Saturday evening February 22, 2020, Los Angeles Opera presented a vocally glorious rendition of Gaetano Donizetti's Bel Canto opera Roberto Devereux. Roberto was one of the loves of England's Elizabeth I, so the opera is centered around their relationship and Roberto's forbidden love for Sara, the wife of the Duke of Nottingham.
Soprano Angela Meade will perform the role of Queen Elizabeth I in LA Opera's production of Roberto Devereux. Ms. Meade replaces Davinia Rodríguez, previously announced for the role, who has withdrawn from the production due to illness.
Stephen Deschenes , a research and development director at Capital Group, attorney Elizabeth (Beth) Calciano Fagan and independent film and television producer and author Dete Meserve have been appointed to the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Children's Chorus (LACC), considered one of the world's preeminent children's choirs, announced Board Chair Kai Ryssdal. LACC, led by Artistic Director Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, serves 400 children ages 6 to 18 from across the Southland, providing rigorous musical training in a fun and supportive environment. The Chorus is noted for its artistic excellence, wide-ranging repertoire, exceptional professional and community collaborations and inspiring performances locally and abroad.
There must have been a two-for-one offer on the day director Barbora Horakova visited the Regietheater prop-store to kit out her Luisa Miller for English National Opera. White walls and plenty of black marker pens to daub on them; geometric structures; sinister clowns; a chorus all costumed somewhere between circus-freak and sexy-Bedlam; a quartet of contemporary dancers scraping and draping themselves across the set: we got them all in this hectic, wilful, defiantly joyless staging of Verdi's tragedy of love across the class divide.
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.
Opera Omaha announces its third annual ONE FESTIVAL. The ONE Festival is a place for wild dreams, wilder execution, and exploration of those ideas on a grand scale. Programming is driven by the artists, not the executives. With an emphasis on experimentation and new worka?'yet not tethered to premieresa?'ONE fosters an environment that encourages and celebrates bold risks and transformative storytelling. At a glance, one might assume this is happening in NYC or LA; but this opera hothouse sizzles in the dead center of our country, far from the coasts.
Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen announces programming for the 2020a?"2021 season. The season opens with a world premiere as part of a three-ballet program of William Forsythe's works. Nissinen's The Nutcracker returns to capture the imagination of audiences of all ages. The spring season includes a second world premiere by William Forsythe, Alexei Ratmansky's Symphony No. 9, and George Balanchine's Ballo della Regina, plus the Company premiere of Christopher Wheeldon's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the return of Marius Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty. The season concludes with a female-led program, part of Boston Ballet's ChoreograpHER Initiative. The Company's 57th season runs November 5, 2020 through May 30, 2021 at the Citizens Bank Opera House.
Explicó que se presentará la versión semiescenificada de la ópera con un formato que se utiliza en Europa y que agiliza el proceso de montaje. “Será un espectáculo digno del Palacio de Bellas Artes. Contaremos con grandes cantantes, y en el papel actuado de la Duquesa de Crakentorp, con Florinda Meza, a quien admiro desde mi infancia y tuve la fortuna de conocer por la ópera. Agradezco la Medalla Bellas Artes, un gran honor que porto con la responsabilidad máxima de dar lo mejor de mí”.
Opera On The James presents a new production of Gioachino Rossini's comic masterpiece, Barber of Seville. Marco Nistico, the company's General Director, announced that tickets are now available for performances at 7pm on March 27th and 2pm on March 29th. The production will take place at the Historic Academy Theatre in downtown Lynchburg.
The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance has announced its Harris Theater Presents season for 2020-21, its most ambitious and diverse lineup to date. With 36 performances - including one international premiere and North American exclusive, Chicago debuts, and artists representing 11 countries and countless cultural influences -the 2020-21 season reaffirms the Harris Theater's commitment to presenting a multitude of voices and genres on its stage in Millennium Park.
San Diego Opera has announced that San Diego Opera board member for the past 28 years, and Opera Ball Chair for the past two, Sarah Brenda Marsh-Rebelo, affectionately known to her friends as Sarah B., has been named Honorary Life Director of the San Diego Opera. This marks only the seventh Life Director honor that the Company has bestowed in its 55-year history which was voted on unanimously at a board meeting on Monday, January 27, 2020.
The 37th Schwabacher Recital Series continues on Wednesday, March 4, with its second performance of 2020. San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows Simone McIntosh and Zhengyi Bai take the stage at San Francisco's Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater for a musical exploration of love and heartbreak, accompanied by Robert Mollicone on the piano. Their program will spotlight Olivier Messiaen's rarely performed Harawi, Richard Strauss' beloved Opus 27 songs and selections from Vincenzo Bellini's Sei Ariette da Camera.
Winter Opera St. Louis continues its 13th season with a most charming production of Gaetano Donizetti's comic La fille du regiment (The Daughter of the Regiment).
San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced the Company's 98th season, which opens on September 11, 2020 with an Opening Night Celebration featuring soprano Albina Shagimuratova and tenor Pene Pati in concert with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by Music Director Designate Eun Sun Kim. Opening Night festivities include San Francisco Opera Guild's Opera Ball, BRAVO! CLUB's annual Opening Night Gala and two new events: the Opera Supper in the Veterans Building's elegant Green Room and, for the entire audience, a celebratory, post-concert toast to the season.
In 2013, President Obama awarded Renée with America's highest honor for an artist, the National Medal of Arts. She brought her voice to a vast new audience in 2014, as the only classical artist ever to sing a?oeThe Star-Spangled Bannera?? at the Super Bowl. Winner of the 2013 Grammy Award (her fourth) for Best Classical Vocal Solo, Renée has sung for momentous occasions, from the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to the Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. In 2008, Renée became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala.The McCallum Theatre presents Renée Fleming, one of the most acclaimed singers of our time, in recital with pianist Gerald Martin Moore, on Wednesday, Feb. 12, at 8:00 pm.
For its first production of Vincenzo Bellini's 1831 masterwork, NORMA, in nearly 40 years, Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) brings back the international star it introduced to the U.S. just over two years ago. Elena Stikhina makes her debut in one of opera's most technically demanding roles a?' a powerful Druid priestess whose affair with the general of a warring Roman faction brings personal grief and despair. The Russian-born soprano made her American debut in BLO's 2017 production of Tosca. Her subsequent national and international acclaim includes a lauded 2018 Metropolitan Opera debut in Puccini's Il Trittico. Best known for its star-making aria a?oeCasta Diva,a?? BLO presents Bellini's dramatic bel canto opera for five performances from March 13-22 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre. Tickets are on sale now at BLO.org.
San Diego Opera has announced addition to its 2019-2020 season with the Bel Canto Trio for one-night-only on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 7:30 PM at The Conrad Preby Performing Arts Center in the Baker-Baum Concert Hall (7600 Fay Ave, La Jolla, CA 92037). In 1947 Columbia Artist Management created The Bel Canto Trio, featuring tenor Mario Lanza, soprano Frances Yeend, and bass-baritone George London.
Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has selected the semifinalists for the 32nd annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers Concert of Arias, to be presented in the Wortham Theater Center on Feb. 7, 2020 at 7 p.m. A limited number of tickets for the performance are available for purchase here. The program will also be streamed live on Facebook and YouTube for all to enjoy, inviting viewers to cast their votes for the Online Viewers' Choice Award.
