Francis Poulenc News

The Driehaus Museum's spring 2013 programs include popular annual favorites and exciting new events.

Seattle Opera's 2012/13 season concludes in May with a double bill of compelling twentieth-century operas, both new to the company: La Voix Humaine, by Francis Poulenc, and Giacomo Puccini's Suor Angelica. Both these one-act operas follow fascinating women who must grapple with despair as they meet their fate; but the two works, like the composers who created them, are extremely different. In Poulenc's sensual monodrama, a woman stumbles through a minefield of emotions as she attempts to stay connected to her ex-lover over the telephone. Puccini's mystical tragedy tells the story of a young nun who learns of the death of the son she was forced to abandon. She kills herself yet miraculously passes into a state of grace. Performances begin on May 4 and run through May 18.

Seattle Opera has been one of the leading American opera companies since being founded in 1963. Presenting a mixture of European classics as well as new works of American opera, the company's five opera seasons continually advance the cultural life of the Pacific Northwest through education and performance. Seattle Opera strives to produce musically extraordinary, theatrically compelling operas by employing the highest quality casts, conductors, directors and designers. They have been so successful in this that they actually have the highest per capita attendance of any major opera company in the U.S. In addition to their mainstage productions however, the Company serves thousands more through its groundbreaking education programs, scenic rental program and other special projects.

Paul Taylor is the last living member of the pantheon that created America's indigenous art of modern dance. At an age when most artists' best work is behind them, Taylor continues to win acclaim for the vibrancy, relevance and power of his recent dances as well as his classics.

The Driehaus Museum's spring 2013 programs include popular annual favorites and exciting new events.

The Canadian Opera Company closes its 2012/2013 season with a production of Francis Poulenc's operatic masterpiece, Dialogues des Carmelites, described by Variety as "subtle, yet gut-wrenching." Internationally renowned Canadian director Robert Carsen returns to the COC for a third consecutive season to direct a cast of 161 performers, led by three Canadian opera stars: Isabel Bayrakdarian, Adrianne Pieczonka andJudith Forst. COC Music Director Johannes Debus makes his fourth conducting appearance of the 12/13 season leading his first Dialogues des Carmelites. He conducts the COC Orchestra and Chorus through what is considered to be Poulenc's most haunting score and a work that contains one of opera's most devastating and unforgettable final scenes. Dialogues des Carmelites is sung in French with English SURTITLES. Last performed by the COC in 1997, the opera returns to the company for eight performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on May 8, 11, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23 and 25, 2013.

Oakland Ballet Company presents its spring season program Diaghilev Imagery, a fresh take on tradition that ties the exceptional artistry of the Bay Area dance community to some of the most inspiring masterworks of classical ballet.

Expect the unexpected from cabaret stylist Patricia Racette. Yes, I said 'cabaret.' If you've only heard her at the Met or San Francisco Opera as Tosca or Madama Butterfly, you'll probably find her performance in 'Diva on Detour' a revelation. It's 'a high-note-free zone'--which doesn't give a hint that its owner spends most of her time on some of the world's great opera stages.

Geoff Nuttall, now approaching his fourth season as Spoleto Festival USA's Charles E. and Andrea L. Volpe Director for Chamber Music, has announced the complete 2013 chamber music program for the Charleston, South Carolina based performing arts festival. The 33-concert Bank of America Chamber Music Series comprises 11 programs, each repeated three times throughout the Festival at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm daily. Highlights of the 2013 season include a world premiere by composer-in-residence Samuel Carl Adams and the Festival debuts of the Brentano String Quartet, young Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, and percussionist Steven Schick. Returning to the series in 2013 are bassist Anthony Manzo, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, pianist Pedja Muzijevic, violinist Livia Sohn, flutist Tara Helen O'Connor, clarinetist Todd Palmer, oboist James Austin Smith, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet.

International opera tenor and Atlanta resident Lawrence Brownlee performs at Emory's Schwartz Center for Performing Arts on Friday, March 22, at 8 p.m., part of his 2013 US solo recital tour. Noted pianist Martin Katz accompanies him. They will perform works ranging from Giuseppe Verdi to traditional African American spirituals.

Russia's profound and far-reaching impact on 20th-century culture will be explored at the 2013 annual Bard SummerScape festival, which once again offers an extraordinary summer of music, opera, theater, dance, film, and cabaret, keyed to the theme of the 24th annual Bard Music Festival, Stravinsky and His World. Presented in the striking Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and other venues on Bard College's bucolic Hudson River campus, the seven-week festival opens on July 6 with the first of two performances of A Rite (2013) by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company, and closes on August 18 with a party in Bard's beloved Spiegeltent, which returns for the full seven weeks. Complementing the Bard Music Festival's exploration of “Stravinsky and His World,” some of the great Russian-born composer's most captivating compatriots provide key SummerScape highlights. These include the first fully-staged American production of Sergey Taneyev's opera Oresteia; the world premiere of an original stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's seminal novel The Master and Margarita; and a film festival titled “Between Traditions: Stravinsky's Legacy and Russian Emigré Cinema.” Together, SummerScape's offerings will continue Bard's yearlong tenth-anniversary celebrations for the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center, which commence with a month of special performances in April.

Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) will make its highly anticipated return to the New York stage at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall, Time Warner Center, New York City on Wednesday, April 10, for six performances through April 14.

The 65th annual Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, under the leadership of General Manager Bernard Foccroulle, will feature five opera productions, a selection of orchestral concerts, recitals, chamber music performances, world music programs, and more than 50 events from the 16th annual European Academy of Music. The Festival marks important milestones this year: Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner's 200th birthday anniversaries; Benjamin Britten's centennial; the 50th anniversary of Francis Poulenc's death; and celebrates Marseille-Provence 2013, European Cultural Capital for the year. All events unfold in extraordinary venues, many of them open-air, in and around the picturesque ancient Provencal city: a Medieval archbishop's palace, an 18th century Italian-style theatre, a private courtyard hidden behind doors dating back to the time of Louis XV, and an 11th century Romanesque chapel inside the grounds of a Renaissance castle - as well as a state of the art, 1,350-seat theatre. The official portion of the Festival runs from July 4 to 27, 2013.

The 65th annual Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, under the leadership of General Manager Bernard Foccroulle, will feature five opera productions, a selection of orchestral concerts, recitals, chamber music performances, world music programs, and more than 50 events from the 16th annual European Academy of Music. The Festival marks important milestones this year: Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner's 200th birthday anniversaries; Benjamin Britten's centennial; the 50th anniversary of Francis Poulenc's death; and celebrates Marseille-Provence 2013, European Cultural Capital for the year. All events unfold in extraordinary venues, many of them open-air, in and around the picturesque ancient Provencal city: a Medieval archbishop's palace, an 18th century Italian-style theatre, a private courtyard hidden behind doors dating back to the time of Louis XV, and an 11th century Romanesque chapel inside the grounds of a Renaissance castle - as well as a state of the art, 1,350-seat theatre. The official portion of the Festival runs from July 4 to 27, 2013.

Canadian Opera Company Music Director Johannes Debus conducts his first Tristan und Isolde when he leads the COC Orchestra and Chorus this winter in the company's production of Wagner's epic masterpiece. He replaces Jir?i? Be?lohla?vek, who has regrettably withdrawn due to health reasons.

The Crawley family's fate hangs in the balance when MASTERPIECE CLASSIC "Downton Abbey, Season 3" returns in January.

Feinstein's (540 Park Avenue, 61 Street) has announced the swift return to New York of London's fast- rising West End and cabaret singer Joanna Strand, in "Fly Transatlantic". This is her beautifully crafted musical journey through songs with roots both sides of the Atlantic. The performance is tonight, 5 December at 10.30p.m.

Classical music and avant-garde cabaret merge when pianist Simone Dinnerstein, thereminist Pamelia Kurstin, and actor Alvin Epstein join forces for the first time tonight, November 19 at 7:30pm at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, NYC).

GPR Records (Glen Roven, Peter Fitzgerald, Richard Cohen, artistic directors)releases a children's CD of Catherine Zeta-Jones narrating The Runaway Bunny, based on the best selling children's classic by Margaret Wise Brown. Michael Douglas narrates everyone's favorite elephant - The Story of Babar - The Little Elephant, a 1931 classic written by Jean de Brunhoff. Also on the CD will be English Baritone Mark Stone singing Goodnight Moon also by Margaret Wise Brown. The CD, distributed by Naxos, will be released today, November 15th and will be available at www.GPRRecords.com, Amazon, and iTunes.

On Friday, November 30, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will offer a live webcast of the first of five performances of an updated version of the 16th-century Chinese Kunqu opera masterpiece Peony Pavilion that will take place in the Met's Astor Court, the courtyard modeled on a 17th-century Chinese garden. This 70-minute version of the opera has been developed and directed by celebrated composer Tan Dun, with a new score by Mr. Tan and choreography by Huang Doudou, one of China's most prominent dancers. It will be performed by Zhang Jun, one of China's most respected Kunqu performers, and the Shanghai Zhang Jun Art Center Company.