Christopher James News

Opera San José invites music lovers from the Bay Area and beyond to its virtual variety show and fundraiser, Sing for Your Supper!  

Los Angeles Opera’s new Signature Recital Series gives vocal music fans  exclusive access to astounding performances in intimate settings—filmed in stunning venues across this country and in Europe—streamed directly to home screens. Tenor Russell Thomas partners with pianist Mi-Kyung Kim for Schumann's Dichterliebe (Poet's Love).

Opera San José is offering Spanish and Vietnamese subtitles (in addition to English) for its latest virtual production, Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy, welcoming two of San Jose's largest communities to experience this local art.

On April 15, 2021, Opera San Jose premiered its digital stream of Love and Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy: Il Segreto di Susanna (The Secret of Susanna), Four Dialogues, and The Husbands. Wolf-Ferrari’s buffa comedy presents a wife with an addiction that she tries to keep secret. Thus, her husband suspects she has a lover and is most pleasantly surprised when he finds out she merely smokes cigarettes. Baritone Efraín Solís sings increasingly dramatic lines as his suspicions grow. A fine singing actor, he creates a most believable character.

On the Los Angeles Opera website, tenor Russell Thomas and collaborative pianist Kyung-Mi Kim present a program of song that includes Schumann's song cycle, Dichterliebe (Poet's Love),  Handel's aria “Total Eclipse” from Samson, and love songs by Adolphus Hailstork and Robert Owens that was filmed recently at Spivey Hall in Atlanta, Georgia. 

The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) continues its vibrant and varied online season from its new state-of-the-art virtual home, TheConcertHall.ca, presented by TELUS.

The Charlotte Symphony will welcome audiences back to the Belk Theater for performances taking place on April 24 and May 14–15, 2021. This marks the first time audiences have been able to attend an indoor concert with the Charlotte Symphony since March 7, 2020. The CSO will also host a three-concert mini-series featuring classical works.

Romance so often conjures images of affectionate gestures grand and small: flowers, chocolates, initials carved in bark. Opera San José’s latest digital offering, Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy, explores what happens below the surface, with three tales of passion and yearning, as couples contend with the tumult, joys, and heartache of love. 

Romance so often conjures images of affectionate gestures grand and small: flowers, chocolates, initials carved in bark. Opera San José's latest digital offering, Love & Secrets: A Domestic Trilogy, explores what happens below the surface, with three tales of passion and yearning, as couples contend with the tumult, joys, and heartache of love.

The three upcoming readings are: Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind, directed by Awoye Timpo; George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, directed by 2020 SAG Award nominee, Obie Award winner, and Tony Award nominee Colman Domingo; and Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, directed by Dawn Monique Williams.

Opera San José has announced the extension of its stream of Three Decembers, by popular demand. World-renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham leads the cast of Opera San José’s first fully-staged digital production, Jake Heggie’s THREE DECEMBERS, based on Tony Award winning playwright Terrence McNally’s unpublished play “Some Christmas Letters”.

In keeping with Opera San José's mission to expand accessibility to its work, the company has announced that through the support of generous donors it is able to extend access to its hit virtual production of Jake Heggie's chamber opera, Three Decembers, now making it available on a pay-what-you-can basis for streaming on demand.

Due to the overwhelming demand this holiday season, Opera San José is extending the run of the hit virtual production of Jake Heggie's chamber opera, Three Decembers through January 31, 2021.

The Charlotte Symphony has announced details for a revised winter season featuring four new virtual concerts, streamed directly from the Knight and Belk Theaters. Highlights include an all-English program and Beethoven’s first and seventh symphonies, conducted by Music Director Christopher Warren-Green, plus much more.

Christopher Jackson, James Monroe Iglehart, Nik Walker, and more have come together virtually to headline a new addition to the holiday classics: a podcast radio play production of ’Twas The Night, a present-day reimagining of the beloved poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore.

Faced with the inability to perform live opera because of COVID, Opera San Jose opted to film an opera that could be made to fit California health regulations in its new Fred Heiman Digital Media Studio. General director Khori Dastoor chose Jake Heggie’s three-person chamber opera, Three Decembers. Since it’s an opera that needs a big star to play famous actress Madeline Mitchell, Dastoor engaged Susan Graham.

Eager to bid adieu, farewell, and even good riddance to 2020, Opera San José has announced it will present The Parting Glass, an online celebration for music-lovers on New Year's Eve.

Today, American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) is giving the gift of complimentary tickets to their current production of A Christmas Carol: On Air—Charles Dickens's classic brought to life as a fantastical virtual immersive audio event—for frontline and essential workers, as well as artists and workers in the arts industry. In addition, A.C.T. will provide complimentary access to educators for in-class or at-home learning.    

The Blank Theatre's Living Room Series is set to present recent Austin Film Festival Playwriting Award-winner Wake the Body by Matt Ackels on Monday, December 7, at 8pm. Directed by Christopher James Raymond, the cast will feature (in alphabetical order) Wes McGee, David Meyers, and Adam J. Smith.

Opera San José is offering its virtual production of Jake Heggie's chamber opera, Three Decembers,