Francesca Zambello News

Emily D'Angelo will sing Annio in all performances of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, replacing Paula Murrihy, who has withdrawn for personal reasons.

Named for the groundbreaking African American contralto, the Marian Anderson Vocal Award recognizes a young American singer in opera, oratorio, or recital repertoire with outstanding promise for a significant career. Washington National Opera (WNO) named bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green as the 2018 recipient earlier this year and is pleased to present him in concert on Thursday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Tickets are $39.

"The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death." So said Oscar Wilde's Salome, anticipating the theme running through all six of the works that make up The Atlanta Opera's 2018-19 season. The six are linked also by their novelty, for under the leadership of Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun, Atlanta's new season consists entirely of stagings conceived over the past few years. Created in collaboration with leading opera companies from around the world, four are ambitious mainstage productions: the blockbuster musical West Side Story, 19th-century classics Eugene Onegin and La traviata, and the Southeast premiere of Dead Man Walking, a major 21st-century addition to the canon. Rounding out the season, Charlie Parker's Yardbird and Maria de Buenos Aires will be presented in the Discoveries series, which breaks down barriers between artists and their audience by providing authentic, intimate and immersive experiences in nontraditional spaces. The winner of a "Best of Atlanta" award from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and an International Opera Award nomination, the series represents one of the many innovations behind the company's current wave of extraordinary creative and economic resurgence.

Washington National Opera opens its 2018-2019 season with a stunning new production by WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello of Verdi's La traviata, October 6-21, 2018, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Tickets start at $45. From the famous brindisi drinking song to the heartbreaking 'Addio del passato' aria, the original 'Pretty Woman' proves it's better to have loved once than not at all. Verdi's romantic masterpiece and familiar tunes are as timeless as the storyline is contemporary, pitting tensions of social class against Violetta's personal sacrifice.

Washington National Opera (WNO) presents the seventh season of its acclaimed American Opera Initiative (AOI) with four world premieres from January 11-13, 2019, in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. A comprehensive commissioning program that originates and develops new works, the American Opera Initiative provides rare opportunities for emerging composers and librettists to partner and write for the opera stage. The Initiative encourages and ensures the future of contemporary American opera through development, mentorship, and performance, with works based on American themes and stories. Since its inception, the annual program has commissioned 28 chamber operas, with some going on to future productions around the country; notables include this summer's successful production by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis of An American Soldier, an AOI commission in 2014, and Opera Omaha's and Miller Theater's new productions of AOI's 2018 commission, Proving Up.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City opens its 2018-2019 season with the award-winning work that transports Romeo & Juliet to the streets of New York City, a NEW PRODUCTION of West Side Story

The New York City Opera, under the leadership of General Director Michael Capasso, announces three new productions in addition to its previously announced June 2019 premiere of Iain Bell and Mark Campbell's opera, STONEWALL. City Opera's 2018-19 season will open Monday, October 22 at (le) Poisson Rouge with a production of Astor Piazzolla's “tango operita” MARIA de BUENOS AIRES. The fourth installment in the company's popular Ópera en Español series, this co-production with Atlanta Opera features soprano Catalina Cuervo, the world's foremost interpreter of the title role. The intimate production, conducted by Jorge Parodi and directed by Atlanta Opera General director Tomer Zvulun, has been praised by Opera News for its “undeniable authenticity.”

Today, twenty-one arts leaders and activists announce the launch of Turn The Spotlight, a foundation created to pair top-tier mentors with exceptional women, people of color, and other equity-seeking groups in the arts. Beth Stewart, a New York City-based arts entrepreneur and classical music publicist, will lead the foundation, which is supported by an Advisory Board of arts world luminaries, including soprano Julia Bullock, journalists Anne Midgette and Celeste Headlee, conductors Lidiya Yankovskaya and Nicole Paiement, stage director Francesca Zambello, classical music publicist Mary Lou Falcone, arts advocates Monica Yunus and Camille Zamora, and women's rights advocate Amanda Mejia.

San Francisco Opera announces updated casting for its 96th Season, which opens Friday, September 7, with the double bill of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, and two galas, Opera Ball 2018: ¡Viva La Noche! and the BRAVO! CLUB Opening Night Gala. The 2018-19 Season features eight productions that are new to the War Memorial Opera House stage, including a new staging of Giacomo Puccini's Tosca and the West Coast premiere of Jake Heggie's It's a Wonderful Life. Highlights also include Placido Domingo in Concert on October 21 and a roster of returning artists, debuting soloists and conductors.

Yes, it's still the Leonard Bernstein centennial and what better way to celebrate than at the Glimmerglass Festival with WEST SIDE STORY. It remains a unique creation, the collaboration of four geniuses: Bernstein himself, of course, Jerome Robbins (choreographer-director), Arthur Laurents (book) and then-newcomer Stephen Sondheim (lyricist/co-lyricist). Directed here with a deft hand by Francesca Zambello, the Festival's Artistic & General Director, and choreographed by Julio Monge

Cincinnati Opera, today announced the repertoire and casting for Cincinnati Opera's 2019 Summer Festival, which will run from June 13 to July 28. The company's 99th season begins with a charming production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro in Music Hall's Springer Auditorium.

Fort Worth Opera (FWOpera) announced today the casts and creative teams for the 2019 Festival season, including the world premiere of composer-librettist Rachel J. Peters's delightfully wicked opera, Companionship. Adapted from the short story by internationally bestselling author Arthur Phillips, this delicious dark comedy about an obsession with dough, mirrors our modern world, where what we consume becomes all-consuming. Selected as a winner of the 2018 FWOpera Frontiers showcase, the work will receive a fully staged production next spring at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden, as part of FWOpera's alternative venue series, Opera Unbound.

Drury Lane Theatre announces casting for its sultry summer drama, Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Tony nominee Marcia Milgrom Dodge (2009 Broadway revival of Ragtime, Drury Lane's Smokey Joe's Cafe). Cat on a Hot Tin Roof runs July 5 - August 26, 2018, at Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane in Oakbrook Terrace. The press opening is scheduled for Thursday, July 12 at 8:00 p.m.

Roslindale resident Meredith Hansen, a native of Cohasset, has been selected as featured soprano soloist for Boston Landmark Orchestra's performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Messa da Requiem at the Charles River Esplanade Hatch Shell on August 1, 7 pm in Boston.

Drury Lane Theatre announces casting for its sultry summer drama, Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Tony nominee Marcia Milgrom Dodge (2009 Broadway revival of Ragtime, Drury Lane's Smokey Joe's Cafe). Cat on a Hot Tin Roof runs July 5 - August 26, 2018, at Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane in Oakbrook Terrace. The press opening is scheduled for Today, July 12 at 8:00 p.m.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City today announced a partnership with Teens in Transition to create a new community project culminating in the creation of a street mural reflecting the themes of the 61st season-opening production of West Side Story. The artwork created here will be included in a growing, "in-progress" traveling exhibition of West Side Story-themed murals from Houston Grand Opera and The Glimmerglass Festival; the exhibition will continue to grow as it travels with this production of West Side Story to future engagements at Atlanta Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago.

As The Glimmerglass Festival prepares to open its 2018 season, the Cooperstown-based opera and musical theater company has announced programming for 2019.

The George London Foundation for Singers has been honoring, supporting, and presenting the finest young opera singers in the U.S. and Canada since 1971. The foundation and the George London Awards (the prize of the foundation's annual competition) are named for the legendary Canadian-American bass-baritone, one of the greatest opera singers of 20th century, who devoted much of his time and energy in his later years to the support and nurturing of young opera singers.

In an onstage presentation following the July 1 performance of Richard Wagner's Gotterdammerung, San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock presented former general director David Gockley with the San Francisco Opera Medal, the Company's highest honor. An industry pioneer who helped shape the operatic repertory and build new audiences for the artform, Gockley served ten years at the helm of San Francisco Opera and is currently the Company's General Director Emeritus.

When you think of the song, 'Summertime,' perhaps you hear the elegant Ella Fitzgerald-or the earthy Janis Joplin-singing in your mind. But, while many great covers exist, there's nothing like experiencing the song where 'fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high,' as Gershwin first wrote it: for the powerful voice of an opera singer.