Birth Place: San Francisco, CA, USA
When you think 'haunted houses' you probably don't picture the inside of a theatre. But with an over 100 year history, many of Broadway's most famous houses are positively teeming with reports of the supernatural.
Obie Award winner Metropolitan Playhouse will present its next free 'screened' readings, live-streamed at no charge, with talkback to follow: DECEIVERS, William C. DeMille.
This week's Theater Stories features The Belasco Theater! Learn about the legendary theater-maker David Belasco, the history of the theater's Broadway plays, the apartment built above the theater and more!
The renaming of the theatre was dedicated to Stephen Sondheim, the greatest and best known artist in American musical theatre on his 80th birthday.
St. Louis's wonderful Winter Opera closes it's thirteenth season with a fine production of a rarely-seen work by Puccini--La fanciulla del West, or The Girl of the Golden West. Now Puccini was fond of choosing exotic settings for his operas--look at Madama Butterfly and Turandot. Well, to a European, Fanciulla is equally exotic. It's set in a mining camp in the Sierra Nevadas during the California Gold Rush of 1848.
Cio-Cio-San, a captivating geisha in Nagasaki, marries B. F. Pinkerton, an American naval lieutenant. For him, it's a lark, a diversion before he marries a 'real' American wife. For her, it's a life-altering commitment that's briefly blissful, then disastrous: her family renounces her and Pinkerton leaves Japan. When he returns a few years later, her joy evaporates and catastrophe ensues when his true intentions are revealed.
What makes 'Madama Butterfly' one of the 3 most popular operas in the world? First, the story is so familiar. Giacomo Puccini, the composer, used a famous play by David Belasco with a strong dramatic plot. Second, Puccini's music adds new dimensions to the play. Third, the heartbreaking end of the opera sums up the very human reaction to love, betrayal, hope, and despair.
The renaming of the theatre was dedicated to Stephen Sondheim, the greatest and best known artist in American musical theatre on his 80th birthday.
Soprano Amanda Palmeiro, now performing the title role at English language performances of Butterfly for the InSeries, deserves an opera career as sensational as her voice. Already a prize-winner at Met auditions, she'll perform Papagena with the Washington National Opera's Domingo Cafritz Young Artists program at the Kennedy Center in November.
The Washington-based IN Series, an intrepid company positioning itself at the center of changing the nature of opera, is returning to the Baltimore Theatre Project as part of a collaborative effort between the two organizations to regenerate indy-opera in Baltimore. Having brought the final production of their 2018-2019 season, THE TALE OF SERSE, to BTP this past June, the company now mounts a truly major statement: BUTTERFLY, a new version of Puccini's classic and beloved Madama Butterfly that strips the work of its layers of exoticism and artifice, wrestling with its troubling issues of racism and misogyny, to arrive at an intimate theater experience that reveals the raw emotional power held within this unforgettable score. The company will bring two performances of this production to Baltimore Theatre Project September 28th and 29th.
On Sunday April 14 Pacific Opera Project (POP) presented Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera, Madama Butterfly, in Japanese and English in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo. The company also live-streamed it online. Did anyone ever think an American Navy officer would speak to a young Japanese lady in Italian? l'd expect him to speak English and the lady from Nagasaki to speak Japanese. That is what happened at the performance on Sunday. Despite translations from Goro, the marriage broker, and Sharpless, the American consul, Pinkerton and Butterfly had trouble understanding each other as they came from completely different cultures.
In the video below watch as Jonas Kaufmann discusses his role with host Susanna Phillips during the October 27 Live in HD transmission.
The KL City Opera presents MADAMA BUTTERFLY as part of its 2018 season, running from Nov. 22 to Nov. 25.
The Metropolitan Opera's production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West comes to the big screen in HD at The Ridgefield Playhouse on Sunday, October 28 at 12pm (an encore presentation). Soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek sings Puccini's gun-slinging heroine in this romantic epic of the Wild West and tenor Jonas Kaufmann plays the outlaw she loves. Baritone Željko Lucic is the vigilante sheriff, Jack Rance, and Marco Armiliato conducts. This screening is part of the Atria Senior Living Classical Series with support from The Ridgefield Press and Whistle Stop Bakery, underwritten by Lori & John Berisford, Jeanne Cook, Liz & Steven Goldstone and Sabina & Walter Slavin.
Dance We Must: Treasures from Jacob's Pillow, 1906-1940 explores the contributions of Jacob's Pillow founder Ted Shawn and the iconic Ruth St. Denis to American modern dance. Gathering over 350 materials, including more than 30 costumes and accessories, over 200 photographs, five original antique costume trunks, and a dozen original artworks from both the Jacob's Pillow Archives and Williams College Special Collections, the exhibition contextualizes the pioneering work of Shawn and St. Denis within the scope of American art history through artifacts that have never been seen before. Dance We Must will be on view at Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) from June 29 through November 11, 2018. The opening celebration will take place on July 2, featuring performances by Adam H. Weinert and Williams College Artist-in-Residence in Dance Erica Dankmeyer.
The Lambs, America's first professional theater club and one of the oldest professional theatrical organizations in the U.S., marked its 90-year association with Sardi's proclaiming it the Club's favorite watering hole...outside The Lambs. A framed copy was presented to Sean Sardi Ricketts, a grandson of Vince Sardi. Scroll down for photos!
For the third performance in the ongoing Bryant Park Presents New York City Opera series, New York City Opera will present a free preview of its upcoming production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West today, August 22 at 6 p.m.
A number of key company debuts marked Seattle Opera's 2017-18 season opening
For the third performance in the ongoing Bryant Park Presents New York City Opera series, New York City Opera will present a free preview of its upcoming production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West on Tuesday, August 22 at 6 p.m.
Noted American conductor Jason Tramm makes his Italian 2017 Narnia Festival conducting debut with several scheduled performances - including two new, fully staged productions of "Gianni Schicchi" and "Suor Angelica" from Puccini's celebrated and enigmatic ensemble of one act operas, "IL TRITICO." Directing the productions Tramm will be working with Maria Rosaria Omaggi, the accomplished Italian actress and writer.
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