Eric Owens News

Washington National Opera presents the Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, March 20 through April 3 at the Kennedy Center Opera House. Tickets are $25 to $300 and available by calling 202.295.2400 or 800.US.OPERA, or online at www.dc-opera.org.

Seven new productions, including two company premieres and the first two parts of a new Ring cycle, featuring many of the world's greatest singers and conductors, will highlight the Metropolitan Opera's 2010-11 season.

Washington National Opera presents the Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, March 20 through April 3 at the Kennedy Center Opera House. Tickets are $25 to $300 and available by calling 202.295.2400 or 800.US.OPERA, or online at www.dc-opera.org.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts calendar of events for the fall months has just been released. All events are subject to change without notice. Free performances are held each evening at 6 p.m. on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts calendar of events for the fall months has just been released. All events are subject to change without notice. Free performances are held each evening at 6 p.m. on the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage.

Washington National Opera (WNO), under the leadership of General Director Plácido Domingo, opens its 54th season with Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville (Il Barbiere de Siviglia) in eight performances, September 12 to 20 at the Kennedy Center Opera House. This light-hearted opera buffa, or comic opera, features an all-star cast, including American tenor Lawrence Brownlee in his WNO debut as Count Almaviva and Bolognese bass-baritone Simone Alberghini returning as Figaro.

Washington National Opera (WNO), under the leadership of General Director Plácido Domingo, opens its 54th season with Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville (Il Barbiere de Siviglia) in eight performances, September 12 to 20 at the Kennedy Center Opera House. This light-hearted opera buffa, or comic opera, features an all-star cast, including American tenor Lawrence Brownlee in his WNO debut as Count Almaviva and Bolognese bass-baritone Simone Alberghini returning as Figaro.

Washington National Opera (WNO), under the leadership of General Director Plácido Domingo, opens its 54th season with Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville (Il Barbiere de Siviglia) in eight performances, September 12 to 20 at the Kennedy Center Opera House. This light-hearted opera buffa, or comic opera, features an all-star cast, including American tenor Lawrence Brownlee in his WNO debut as Count Almaviva and Bolognese bass-baritone Simone Alberghini returning as Figaro.

The world premiere by New York Philharmonic Composer-in-Residence Magnus Lindberg that will open the 2009-10 season - Alan Gilbert's debut season as Music Director - has been titled EXPO. The work, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, will be the first piece on the Philharmonic's opening night program, conducted by Mr. Gilbert on September 16, 2009. 'I wanted to give it a strong, celebratory title,' explains Mr. Lindberg. The work will be the first of two World Premiere-New York Philharmonic Commissions by Mr. Lindberg to be performed in the 2009-10 season.

Philadelphia Orchestra Chief Conductor and Artistic Adviser Charles Dutoit leads the Orchestra in three concerts in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center celebrating the influence of African-American culture on classical music (March 12-14). The program features Milhaud's jazz-inspired The Creation of the World; George Walker's 1996 Pulitzer Prize-winning work Lilacs for voice and orchestra, with tenor Russell Thomas as soloist in its first Philadelphia Orchestra performances; Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, a work for which the late, great contralto Marian Anderson was known, with Philadelphia-native bass-baritone Eric Owens as soloist; and Dvoř?k's Symphony No. 9 in E minor ('From the New World').

Philadelphia Orchestra Chief Conductor and Artistic Adviser Charles Dutoit leads the Orchestra in three concerts in Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center celebrating the influence of African-American culture on classical music (March 12-14). The program features Milhaud's jazz-inspired The Creation of the World; George Walker's 1996 Pulitzer Prize-winning work Lilacs for voice and orchestra, with tenor Russell Thomas as soloist in its first Philadelphia Orchestra performances; Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer, a work for which the late, great contralto Marian Anderson was known, with Philadelphia-native bass-baritone Eric Owens as soloist; and Dvoř?k's Symphony No. 9 in E minor ('From the New World').

Julie Taymor's hit production of Mozart's The Magic Flute returns to the Met as this season's special holiday presentation beginning December 22. The abridged, English-language version is specially priced to appeal to families and will have four matinees and one holiday evening performance, running through January 1.

For the first time, the Metropolitan Opera will present a work by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams: Doctor Atomic, his opera about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb. The piece is set in New Mexico in the summer of 1945, as scientists, led by Oppenheimer, and the military prepare to test the first nuclear bomb, events that will radically change the course and fabric of history. The new production, starring Gerald Finley in the title role, will open at the Met on Monday, October 13, at 8:00 p.m. When the opera premiered in San Francisco in October of 2005, The Guardian said, 'Adams's ecstatically lyrical writing and the music's visionary eloquence make this a modern masterpiece.' The New York Times later wrote that Doctor Atomic was 'the most complex and inventive of Mr. Adams's works, an engrossing operatic drama.'

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will present a four week 'American Originals' festival, celebrating music written by American and European composers while living in America. The festival opens with a program of works by Bernstein, Barber and Rachmaninov on Thursday, October 30, 2008, and concludes with the Atlanta debut of a concert-staged production of John Adams' Dr. Atomic on Sunday, November 23, 2008.

Tickets for the third season of The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's live transmissions in movie theaters around the world, go on sale to the general public on Friday August 22.

National CineMedia (NCM) LLC, operator of the largest digital in-theatre network in North America for cinema advertising and alternative entertainment and events, and the Metropolitan Opera are proudly partnering to bring a third season of the critically-acclaimed The Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD series transmitted live, in high-definition, to more than 440 movie theatres and performing arts centers in the United States.

Tickets for the third season of The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's live transmissions in movie theaters around the world, go on sale to the general public on Friday August 22.