Deborah Voigt News

Twenty young opera singers who have won regional competitions around the United States will arrive in New York next week to prepare for the next phase of the country's leading vocal competition: the semi-final round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. The closed semi-final competition, held on the Met stage before a panel of judges, will determine the select group of finalists who will advance to the final round of the competition. Those finalists will return to the Met to perform in the Grand Finals Concert on Sunday, March 30 at 3 p.m., where each will perform two arias with conductor Marco Armiliato and the Met Orchestra. At the end of the concert, winners will be announced, each of whom will receive an individual cash prize of $15,000 and, more importantly, career-making exposure. The Met Auditions, currently in their 61st year, are a major stepping stone to a career as an opera singer and were crucial in introducing many of today's best-known stars, such as Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Deborah Voigt, and Dolora Zajick. In 2007, the National Council Audition process was captured in an acclaimed documentary, The Audition, which was released on DVD and aired on PBS, including a rebroadcast on WNET in December 2013.

Daniel Sutin will sing the title role in tonight's performance of Berg's Wozzeck, replacing Thomas Hampson, who is recovering from bronchitis. Hampson's illness also forced him to withdraw from the March 6 performance of Wozzeck, which was sung by Matthias Goerne. Hampson expects to be ready in time for the next scheduled performance of Wozzeck on March 13.

Thomas Hampson will be at Manhattan School of Music on Wednesday, March 19th to give a vocal master class. This master class, a free event and open to the public, takes place at 4:00 p.m. in the School's Greenfield Recital Hall, and will be streamed live by going to http://dl.msmnyc.edu/live. The master class will be given in collaboration with MSM's world renowned Distance Learning and Recording Arts Department, headed by Christianne Orto, Dean of Distance Learning and Recording Arts at Manhattan School of Music.

Matthias Goerne is stepping into the title role in tonight's opening night performance of Berg's Wozzeck, replacing Thomas Hampson, who has withdrawn due to illness.

Following an extensive European tour with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Thomas Hampson returns to the U.S. to make his role debut as the eponymous antihero of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, opening tonight, March 6 at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York hub for lovers of opera and musical theater, has appointed bass-baritoneEric Owens as chairman of The Glimmerglass Festival Artistic Advisory Board, making him an ex-officio member of the company's Board of Trustees.

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York hub for lovers of opera and musical theater, has appointed bass-baritone Eric Owens as chairman of The Glimmerglass Festival Artistic Advisory Board, making him an ex-officio member of the company's Board of Trustees.

Ravinia's 2014 season, dubbed 'Summer of Love/Season of Stars,' was announced today by Ravinia President and CEO Welz Kauffman. Brimming with talent and romance, the festival's 2014 schedule brings some the biggest names in the world of music as well as repertoire that explores the theme of great love in its various manifestations. No fewer than three musical incarnations of the most famous love story of all time, Romeo and Juliet, will be featured, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky's Overture-Fantasy (July 27), a suite from Prokofiev's ballet setting of the story (July 16) and the score of West Side Story as the classic film is shown (July 17-18). In other examples of love, soprano Deborah Voigt describes it as 'Something Wonderful' on a Broadway evening (July 13), the legendary Broadway team of Lerner and Loewe will be celebrated (July 20), and Chanticleer even jabs at the battle of the sexes in an evening titled 'She Said/He Said' (July 6). In fact, love lurks, longs and lingers across genres in most of the more than 130 events that Ravinia will present in 2014, its 110th year and its 78th as the summer residence of the CSO.

We start your St. Patrick's Day early with a Merola Opera Program meet up at the city's best Irish bar. Heck...even the first drink is on us!

Met Music Director James Levine will conduct a revival of Berg's Wozzeck, opening March 6 and starring Thomas Hampson and Deborah Voigt in their first-ever performances of the leading roles, Wozzeck and Marie. Levine has led 43 performances of Berg's dark study of a man crushed by society—more than any other conductor in Met history. This season's revival will also star Simon O'Neill as the Drum-Major, Peter Hoare as the Captain, and English bass Clive Bayley as the Doctor.

This month, the first of two major house and role debuts takes Angela Meade – whose numerous honors include Richard Tucker and Beverly Sills Artist Awards – to Europe. For her first appearances at the Frankfurt Opera, the soprano sings her first Fidelia in concert performances of Puccini's Edgar (Feb 16 & 18), before making her Italian debut with her first Mathilde in a new Graham Vick production of Rossini's William Tell at the Teatro Regio di Torino (May 7-18) that will tour to Carnegie Hall next season. These European debuts follow on the heels of Meade's success in New York, where she recently headlined Bellini's Norma and showed off her comic chops in Verdi's Falstaff, both at the Metropolitan Opera, and the latter seen worldwide in the Met's Live in HD series. She also performed at a special Richard Tucker Centennial Gala, broadcast Live from Lincoln Center on PBS-TV.

With James Levine on the podium, and Thomas Hampson in the title role, Deborah Voigt will make her role debut as Marie in Alban Berg's harrowing opera Wozzeck at New York's Metropolitan Opera (March 6 - 22). The revival of this 'arrestingly abstract ' (New York Times) staging of Berg's landmark opera is highly anticipated, pairing two beloved American singers with a conductor - the Met's music director - who is widely regarded as one of the work's most passionate advocates. The fifth and final performance of Wozzeck this season will be broadcast live on Saturday, March 22 in the Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast series on WQXR 105.9 FM and online at www.wqxr.org. In April, Voigt heads out for a four-city recital tour, taking her to three venues in California and a return engagement in the 75th anniversary season of Boston's popular Celebrity Series. On May 14, she returns to the Met to host the 'Live in HD' broadcast of Rossini's La Cenerentola.

Perhaps the greatest disservice ever done to English music was its dismissal by the modernist composer Elizabeth Lutyens as 'cowpat music'. That statement was a hangover of a common perception from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that, despite the country's power and reputation, it wasn't actually very good at producing interesting music. But World War One marked the beginning of a new explosion of creative energy, one that saw exciting modern composers pour into England's concert halls, reaching across the sea to America, even to Hollywood. 'This England' from Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra brings this England to Carnegie Hall.

Following an extensive European tour with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Thomas Hampson returns to the U.S. to make his role debut as the eponymous antihero of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, opening March 6 at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Hampson is joined in the new adventure by soprano Deborah Voigt, also making her role debut as Marie in Mark Lamos's staging, and Met music director James Levine - one of the work's most passionate advocates - on the podium. The production marks Hampson's third Met role debut in as many seasons, following performances last year of Iago in Verdi's Otello and in the title role of Verdi's Macbeth the previous season. The fifth and final performance of Wozzeck this season will be broadcast live on Saturday, March 22 in the Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast series on WQXR 105.9 FM and online at www.wqxr.org.

The Collegiate Chorale announces the New York premiere of battle hymns on May 15, 2014 at 7:30pm at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Pier 86, 12th Ave. & 46th Street in New York, NY.

Pacific Symphony announces what is perhaps its most significant season to date for the 36-year-old orchestra-the 2014-15 Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation Classical Series and special events, celebrating Music Director Carl St. Clair's 25 years at the helm. Filled with giant stars and giants of the repertoire that have moved listeners for centuries, the season is pure St. Clair-embracing and celebrating all that great music can mean to the human heart.

Aspiring opera singers from the Gulf Coast will once again vie for the national spotlight during the annual Metropolitan Opera National Council District and Regional Auditions today, Jan. 11 and Sunday, Jan. 12 at Loyola University New Orleans. The winner of the regional auditions will advance to the national semi-final round, held Sunday, March 23 on the Metropolitan Opera Stage in New York City. The singers who advance to the finals Sunday, March 30 will be accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

Live From Lincoln Center will broadcast the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's 2013 gala concert, one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, from Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. The concert event will celebrate the legendary tenor's centenary with an illustrious all-American group of singers, and honoring this year'sRichard Tucker Award winner Isabel Leonard. The 'Richard Tucker at 100: An Opera Celebration' broadcast-hosted byAudra McDonald and featuring interstitial interviews with the artists, segments from backstage, and a short documentary on Richard Tucker's life-is taped from a concert on November 17, and will air on PBS stations tonight, January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).

Perhaps the greatest disservice ever done to English music was its dismissal by the modernist composer Elizabeth Lutyens as "cowpat music". That statement was a hangover of a common perception from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that, despite the country's power and reputation, it wasn't actually very good at producing interesting music. But World War One marked the beginning of a new explosion of creative energy, one that saw exciting modern composers pour into England's concert halls, reaching across the sea to America, even to Hollywood. "This England" from Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra brings this England to Carnegie Hall.

On Sunday, January 12, 2014, Opera Index will presents its 35th Distinguished Achievement Award to mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias, described as one of the finest singing actresses of our time, at its Winter Gala in the Grand Salon of the JW Marriott Essex House, 160 Central Park South, beginning at 6 p.m. with a reception in the Petit Salon. The three-time Grammy and two-time Emmy Award-winning artist made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1954 and over her half-century-long career, has sung more than 50 roles. Ken Benson, renowned artists manager and longtime Opera Index supporter, will present the award to Ms. Elias.