Gerald Finley News

The Canadian Opera Company closes its 2018/2019 season with Otello, Verdi's blistering adaptation of Shakespeare's famous tragedy. Otello seemingly has it all: an impressive military track record, an adoring wife, and a courageous reputation. But when he looks over his trusted advisor Iago for promotion, he becomes the target of swift retaliation. Posing as a concerned friend, Iago preys on the general's insecurities, deftly planting seeds of doubt and steadily stoking the flames of blind rage, until Otello arrives at a devastating point of no return. Otello runs for eight performances on April 27, 30, May 3, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 2019.

The Metropolitan Opera today announced its 2019 20 season, which opens on September 23 with a new production of the Gershwins' classic American opera Porgy and Bess, last performed at the Met in 1990, starring Eric Owens and Angel Blue, directed by James Robinson and conducted by David Robertson.

Music's Biggest Night - the GRAMMYs - is here! Live from STAPLES Center, and hosted by Alicia Keys, the 61st Annual GRAMMY Awards will be broadcast on CBS at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT. 

​​​​ Opera stories thrive on the tension of good versus evil, of light versus darkness, and although the outcomes are not always happy, there's always an interesting tale to be told.

As its programming for 2019/20 again affirms, the spirit of Wigmore Hall is exemplified by both continuity and renewal: artists who have enjoyed decades of association with the Hall and artists it has nurtured into the primes of their careers; the indispensable composers of the past and the innovators and improvisers of today; participatory projects for older people and for children; the irreplaceable immediacy of live concerts and their mediation through technology, bringing them to ever wider audiences via Wigmore Hall's own streaming service or via partners like the BBC.

The Metropolitan Opera presents a double bill of two rarely performed one-act operas, Tchaikovsky's romantic fairy tale Iolanta and Bartók's harrowing Bluebeard's Castle, with six performances January 24 to February 14, 2019. Iolanta stars Sonya Yoncheva in the title role of a blind princess and Matthew Polenzani as Vaudémont, the knight who loves her. Bluebeard's Castle stars Angela Denoke as Judith, an innocent young bride who discovers the terrifying truth about her new husband, the menacing Bluebeard, sung by Gerald Finley. Henrik Nánási makes his Met debut conducting both operas, which are presented in a production by acclaimed director Mariusz Trelinski.

The Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera presents the North American premiere of its heralded Voices of the Mountains program at Carnegie Hall in New York in a one-night-only performance on November 14, 2018. Voices of the Mountains is a multimedia concert inspired by the music of the Polish Highlands and featuring projections based on photos taken by Polish composer Mieczys?aw Kar?owicz. Conceived by Waldemar D?browski, General Director of Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera, Voices of the Mountains takes the audience on a musical journey of the Polish Highlands through chamber and vocal music by some of Poland's most revered composers, including Wojciech Kilar, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Miko?aj Gorecki, and Frederic Chopin, in arrangements by the young Polish composer Jan Smoczy?ski, as well as traditional Highland melodies performed by Polish folk musicians.

The Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera presents the North American premiere of its heralded Voices of the Mountains program at Carnegie Hall in New York in a one-night-only performance on November 14, 2018. Voices of the Mountains is an interactive, multimedia concert featuring projections and inspired by the music of the Polish Highlands. The evening includes works by esteemed Polish composers Wojciech Kilar, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Miko?aj Górecki, and Mieczys?aw Kar?owicz, in modern arrangements by the young Polish composer Jan Smoczy?ski.

The Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera presents the North American premiere of its heralded Voices of the Mountains program at Carnegie Hall in New York in a one-night-only performance on November 14, 2018. Voices of the Mountains is a multimedia concert inspired by the music of the Polish Highlands and featuring projections based on photos taken by Polish composer Mieczys?aw Kar?owicz. Conceived by Waldemar D?browski, General Director of Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera, Voices of the Mountains takes the audience on a musical journey of the Polish Highlands through chamber and vocal music by some of Poland's most revered composers, including Wojciech Kilar, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Miko?aj Gorecki, and Frederic Chopin, in arrangements by the young Polish composer Jan Smoczy?ski, as well as traditional Highland melodies performed by Polish folk musicians.

The Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera presents the North American premiere of its heralded Voices of the Mountains program at Carnegie Hall in New York in a one-night-only performance on November 14, 2018. Voices of the Mountains is an interactive, multimedia concert featuring projections and inspired by the music of the Polish Highlands. The evening includes works by esteemed Polish composers Wojciech Kilar, Karol Szymanowski, Henryk Miko?aj Górecki, and Mieczys?aw Kar?owicz, in modern arrangements by the young Polish composer Jan Smoczy?ski.

The 2018 Schwabacher Recital Series concludes on April 4 with pianist Kevin Murphy and a quartet of current San Francisco Opera Adler Fellows-soprano Natalie Image, mezzo-soprano Ashley Dixon, tenor Amitai Pati and bass-baritone Christian Pursell-in a program celebrating the great American composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein and music of Aaron Copland, Charles Ives and Gustav Mahler.

London's Royal Opera House production of Puccini's operatic thriller, TOSCA will be shown in HD at the River Street Theatre (RST) in Jaffrey on Sunday, March 11 and Wednesday, March 14, both at 2pm  This presentation is part of the RST's Stage2Screen Series.

Two Toronto multi-cultural music groups share a very special evening on April 7. The Royal Conservatory's KUNE - Canada's Global Orchestra features top notch musicians from all over the world who now live in Canada.

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), the Posthumously Celebrated Artist, Writer and Feminist, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Surrealist, Chilean Filmmaker, Inspire This Production Developed on Double Edge's Farm in Rural Western Massachusetts

Accelerating his arrival as Music Director by two seasons, Yannick Nezet-Seguin will take up the post in time for the start of the Metropolitan Opera's 2018-19 season, it was announced today.

San Francisco Opera Center and Merola Opera Program present the 35th anniversary season of the Schwabacher Recital Series, opening on February 21 and continuing through April 4. The four-recital series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco. New this season, the recital series moves to Wednesday evenings at 7:30 p.m.

The Canadian Opera Company's 2018/2019 season presents the world premiere of Hadrian, a new opera from composer Rufus Wainwright and librettist Daniel MacIvor, which features the highly anticipated COC debuts of international opera stars Thomas Hampson and Karita Mattila.

The popular concert series continues with a journey into the blues with Gerald Clayton, Ren Marie, and Friends on February 3. Clayton, whose music is steeped in the blues from the Carolinas, made his Koerner Hall debut on December 11, 2015, in the special Oscar @ 90 concert, which celebrated the 90th birthday of the legendary Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson (the entire concert is available on the Live at Koerner Hall page: https://www.rcmusic.ca/livestream).

Is it time for a re-evaluation of Massenet's place in the current repertoire and put it up a notch? I wondered after seeing the season's opening performance of the Met's John Cox production of Massenet's THAIS on Saturday afternoon. With the right performers, there's a good case for his juicy, melodic writing--among the plethora of BOHEMES, TURANDOTS and BUTTERYFLYs on the season's schedule--although the stipulation of right performers is, as always, the catch.

American soprano Ailyn P rez makes her role debut as the glamorous courtesan in the title role of Tha s, opening November 11 for seven performances.