Deborah Voigt News

Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce will take a star turn together when they co-host the Ninth Annual Opera News Awards, set to take place on Sunday, April 13, 2014, in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza Hotel in New York City. They will be joined by a distinguished line-up of presenters – Luca Pisaroni, Susan Graham, Renata Scotto, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Francesca Zambello – who will pay tribute to five superb artists who have made an invaluable contribution to the art form: the late director Patrice Chéreau, tenor Juan Diego Flórez, mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig,bass-baritone James Morris, and soprano Nina Stemme. First introduced in 2005, the Opera News Awards gala dinner, which features the hosts and presenters speaking about the awardees and introducing video performance clips, has become one of the most anticipated opera events of the season: an evening of celebration, appreciation, reuniting and celebrity-spotting that is without parallel in the industry.

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 Saturday, 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.

Whatever else you think of Richard Strauss, you can't accuse him of picking easy subjects. While Die Frau Ohne Schattenremains one of the most elusive of opera plots, Elektra among the most bloodthirsty and Salome among the most disturbing, it is the rarely-heard one-act Feuersnot that proved a step too far to Strauss's own audiences. But then what did he expect? The plot revolves around lust and sex – and the fact that it has always been regarded as possibly semi-autobiographical no doubt didn't help his cause. Yet the opera is fascinating enough that the world premiere was conducted by Gustav Mahler.

Whatever else you think of Richard Strauss, you can't accuse him of picking easy subjects. While Die Frau Ohne Schattenremains one of the most elusive of opera plots, Elektra among the most bloodthirsty and Salome among the most disturbing, it is the rarely-heard one-act Feuersnot that proved a step too far to Strauss's own audiences. But then what did he expect? The plot revolves around lust and sex – and the fact that it has always been regarded as possibly semi-autobiographical no doubt didn't help his cause. Yet the opera is fascinating enough that the world premiere was conducted by Gustav Mahler.

Carnegie Hall returns to 'Botsteinburg' with ASO's anniversary tribute to Elliott Carter -- 'Elliott Carter: An American Original' -- tonight, November 17, 2013 at 8pm at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium, Perelman Stage), 57th Street and 7th Avenue.

Tonight, November 17, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation celebrates the 100th anniversary of the legendary tenor's birth with a star-studded gala at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Isabel Leonard, the 2013 Richard Tucker Award-winner and a rising star in the U.S. and abroad, joins an outstanding group of singers including Stephanie Blythe, Stephen Costello, Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Angela Meade, Eric Owens, Ailyn Perez, Matthew Polenzani, and Patricia Racette. With the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society led by Riccardo Frizza they will present a program of arias and ensembles by Verdi, Bellini, Rossini, Dvorak, Puccini and Offenbach. Following the concert, which is being taped for broadcast on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center on January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. EST (check local listings), the foundation will host a gala dinner on the Grand Promenade of Avery Fisher Hall.

On November 17, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation celebrates the 100th anniversary of the legendary tenor's birth with a star-studded gala at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Isabel Leonard, the 2013 Richard Tucker Award-winner and a rising star in the U.S. and abroad, joins an outstanding group of singers including Stephanie Blythe, Stephen Costello, Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Angela Meade, Eric Owens, Ailyn Perez, Matthew Polenzani, and Patricia Racette. With the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society led by Riccardo Frizza they will present a program of arias and ensembles by Verdi, Bellini, Rossini, Dvorak, Puccini and Offenbach. Following the concert, which is being taped for broadcast on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center on January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. EST (check local listings), the foundation will host a gala dinner on the Grand Promenade of Avery Fisher Hall.

The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County announces the extraordinary lineup for the 2013-2014 JOHN S. AND JAMES L. KNIGHT MASTERWORKS SEASON - SANFORD AND BEATRICE ZIFF CLASSICAL MUSIC SERIES.

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 on Friday, January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).

As the Associated Press observes, Deborah Voigt boasts 'a stage presence that radiates an endearing charm.' This fall, the superstar soprano returns to Boston's Celebrity Series with two performances of Voigt Lessons at the Calderwood Pavilion on Thursday, November 21 and Friday, November 22, with Kevin Stites on piano. An intimate one-woman show, Voigt Lessons was developed in working sessions with award-winning playwright Terrence McNally and director Francesca Zambello at the famed MacDowell Colony, and takes the leading dramatic soprano's life and career as the basis for a revealing script that incorporates 18 songs and arias of special importance to her. At its premiere at the 2011 Glimmerglass Festival, Voigt Lessons impressed the New York Times as 'chatty, witty, and sometimes painfully poignant,' while Toronto's Globe and Mail pronounced it 'an absolute gem.'

The Merola Opera Program presents Opera & Ornaments: A Merola Opera Program Holiday Concert, on Sunday, December 7th, at 2 pm in the Community Hall of the Lafayette Library (3491 Mt Diablo Blvd). This special holiday concert features renowned opera performers Kristin Clayton, soprano, and Bojan Knezevic, bass-baritone.

The Collegiate Chorale presents its first concert of the season, Mefistofele, by Arrigo Boito tonight, November 6, 2013 at 8pm at Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Avenue, NYC. The Collegiate Chorale will hold its Annual Fall Gala immediately following the concert.

The Merola Opera Program and the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch are teaming up for Merola Goes to the Movies, a new, free series that presents great opera-themed movies.

A year after his death at age 103, the American Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to Elliott Carter, a life-long New Yorker, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and one of the greatest composers of the second half of the 20th century. This mini-retrospective including six of the finest orchestral works by the prolific American composer, who published more than 50 of his works after the age of 90, reveals the range and extent of Carter's inventive genius and provides a rare chance to hear an all-Elliott Carter program, in the presence of members of the Carter family.

The Collegiate Chorale announces its first concert of the season, Mefistofele, by Arrigo Boito on November 6, 2013 at 8pm at Carnegie Hall, 881 7th Avenue, NYC. Tickets are available at www.carnegiehall.org or by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800. Single tickets for this concert start at $15. The Collegiate Chorale will hold its Annual Fall Gala immediately following the concert.

The American Symphony Orchestra begins its Classics Declassified Series with Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5, 'Reformation', at Symphony Space today, October 27, 2013.

Carnegie Hall returns to 'Botsteinburg' with ASO's anniversary tribute to Elliott Carter -- 'Elliott Carter: An American Original' -- on November 17, 2013 at 8pm at Carnegie Hall (Stern Auditorium, Perelman Stage), 57th Street and 7th Avenue.

The American Symphony Orchestra begins its Classics Declassified Series with Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5, “Reformation”, at Symphony Space on Sunday, October 27, 2013. Discover how symphonic form and the romantic expression of religious feeling are reconciled in Mendelssohn's popular Reformation Symphony as Leon Botstein and the orchestra shed new light on this masterpiece during a lively talk, a performance of the work in full, and a Q&A with the audience.

On Monday, November 11, the Metropolitan Opera Guild's 79th Annual Luncheon presents "Welcome Home, Jimmy!" to salute music directorJames Levine on his triumphant return to the Met podium. A perennial highlight of the opera season, the luncheon will bring together a host of artists who have collaborated with the preeminent conductor over the course of his long and celebrated Met tenure, as well as opera fans and an array of New York's society, business, and civic leaders. "Welcome Home, Jimmy!" will feature musical tributes by Dolora Zajick, "a mezzo in a class by herself" (New York Times); Thomas Hampson, "America's foremost baritone" (International Herald Tribune); and Grammy Award-winning bass-baritone Eric Owens, all accompanied by the Met's Director of Music Administration, Craig Rutenberg. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Guild's education programs in New York City and throughout the country.

The Collegiate Chorale announces the addition of two new members of the company's executive team. Ted Sperling and Edward Barnes join Music Director James Bagwell and Executive Director Jennifer Collins as Artistic Director and Producing Director, respectively, effective immediately.