Gerhard Siegel News

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a brilliant new staging of Berg's masterpiece by William Kentridge, starring Peter Mattei and Elza van den Heever. On stage through January 22.

Beginning December 27, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a brilliant new staging of Berg's masterpiece by William Kentridge, starring Peter Mattei and Elza van den Heever. On stage through January 22. 

Beginning December 27, Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a brilliant new staging of Berg's masterpiece by William Kentridge, starring Peter Mattei and Elza van den Heever. On stage through January 22. 

The 2019-2020 season of The Met: Live in HD will continue at the Warner Theatre on Saturday, January 11 with the new production of Berg's WOZZECK at 12:55 pm in the Nancy Marine Studio Theatre. 

Peter Mattei makes his role debut as Wozzeck opposite Elza van den Heever as Marie, the mother of his child in William Kentridge's new production of Alban Berg's expressionistic masterpiece Wozzeck for The Metropolitan Opera. Regarded for its intense emotional power and brilliant score Wozzeck is one of the most significant operas of the 20th century. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts. Wozzeck comes to The Ridgefield Playhouse on the big screen in HD on Sunday, January 12th at 12:55pm, part of the Classical Series underwritten by Jeanne Cook, Liz & Steven Goldstone, and Sabina & Walter Slavin, with support from Whistle Stop Bakery.

If Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's Ring Cycle (formally, DER RING DAS NIBELUNGEN) had worked as smoothly when it opened in 2010 as it did at this season's marvelous premiere of its prologue, DAS RHEINGOLD, on Saturday afternoon, there probably still would have been complaints--not about its focus on technology but on its traditional approach. Personally, i liked it.

The Metropolitan Opera will present Richard Wagner's four-part masterwork Der Ring des Nibelungen in performances March 9-May 11, 2019.  This season's performances are the first time the Met has presented the inventive Robert Lepage staging in six seasons and are the only complete Ring cycles to be presented in North America in 2019. Marshaling the vast forces on stage and in the pit is the incoming music director of the Vienna State Opera, Philippe Jordan, who has conducted acclaimed Ring cycles in Paris and Zurich.

The spectacle is a hunger-inducing delight for the eyes.

The Royal Opera presents a stunning new production of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel - the perfect operatic treat for the festive period. This exquisite adaptation of the well-known Brothers Grimm fairytale is staged by director and designer Antony McDonald, who crafts a picture-book production to bring this darkly enchanting story to vivid life.

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Most announce further details of the upcoming festival The Ecstasy of Tristan and Isolde. In a special two-week series of concerts revolving around performances of Wagner's Romantic opera Tristan and Isolde, Franz Welser-Most explores the depths and wonder of ecstasy - in a journey toward transcendence and understanding, through music, art, and belief. This festival is part of the Orchestra's historic 100th season and the 16th year of the Orchestra's acclaimed partnership with Franz Welser-Most.

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.

The Met presents the second of its popular family presentations this holiday season, Richard Jones's acclaimed production of Humperdinck's fairy-tale opera based on the Brothers Grimm story Hansel and Gretel. The English-language production opens December 18 for seven performances through to January 6, with special family pricing.

The Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Most have announced details of the Orchestra's 2017-18 calendar.  The season will be the ensemble's 100th year of concerts and marks the launch of its Second Century.  2017-18 is also the 16th year of the Orchestra's acclaimed partnership with Franz Welser-Most. 

The Metropolitan Opera's 2017-18 season will feature 220 performances of 26 works, including two Met premieres, one co-commissioned by the company and one an older masterpiece having its first Met performances; a variety of repertory favorites, three in new productions; and performances of Verdi's towering concert work for soloists, orchestra, and chorus, the Requiem. Of note, Broadway star Kelli O'Hara is set to return to the Met in Così fan tutte this season.

Despite some fine singing from soprano Patricia Racette (who also went the Full Monty in the title role), the Met's revival of Richard Strauss's SALOME was a little tame--something that it should never be.

Patricia Racette will add a new role to her Met repertory as the title character in all performances of Strauss's Salome this season, replacing the originally announced Catherine Naglestad. Ms. Naglestad was forced to withdraw from the performances, which were to be her Met debut, for medical reasons that will prevent her traveling to America as scheduled.

41 days ago Haydn's Die Schöpfung was performed at the Großes Festspielhaus, opening the Ouverture spirituelle and thus the 2016 Salzburg Festival.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2016-17 season, the 50th anniversary of its home at Lincoln Center, will feature 225 opera performances of 26 operas in a varied repertory that ranges from 18th century masterpieces to one of the most acclaimed operas in recent years. Repertoire for the company's 132nd season will include the Met premiere of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's 2000 opera L'Amour de Loin, as well as new stagings of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, Dvo?ak's Rusalka, and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. A gala concert on May 7, 2017 will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the company's Lincoln Center location with performances by opera's leading stars honoring the Met's past and future. Ticket prices will not increase, remaining the same as in the current season, and audience development programs instituted by the company in recent years will continue.  

Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck is not the first to swirl with immortal themes like power play, lust, betrayal, and death (far, far from it), but thanks to the circumstances of its composition - further emphasized by Sir David McVicar's new production at the Lyric Opera - it is prominent in its search to question the meaning of it all. So, whether or not philosophizing about the inherent nature of man gets you up and out in the morning, a visit to the Civic Opera House would very much be in order for a beguiling production that, while leaving one starved for melody, makes for cracking drama and discussion.

CHICAGO – Lyric Opera of Chicago presents Alban Berg's Wozzeck in a searing new production that opens this Sunday, November 1, at 2 p.m.