Celebrated violinists Jaime Laredo and Jennifer Koh join the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) and guest conductor James Feddeck for the West Coast premiere of Anna Clyne's impressionistic Prince of Clouds on Saturday, March 22, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, and Sunday, March 23, 2014, 7 pm, at UCLA's Royce Hall. Clyne's work, heralded by the Washington Post as 'captivating' and 'exhilarating from beginning to end,' is a LACO co-commission with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, IRIS Orchestra and the Curtis Institute of Music. Feddeck, winner of the prestigious Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award in 2013 who is making his Los Angeles debut, also conducts Bach's Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, BWV 1043, Mendelssohn's 'The Fair Melusina' Overture, with its distinctive aquatic theme, and Schubert's graceful Symphony No. 3 in D major.
Guest conductor Mark Wigglesworth returns to lead Utah Symphony on Feb. 28 and March 1 at 8pm at Abravanel Hall for a special performance of Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto.
The Smith Center announced today that single tickets for The National Tour of THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS, winner of the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival, will go on sale today, Feb. 21 at 10 a.m.
From today, February 21 to March 16, 2014, Carnegie Hall presents Vienna: City of Dreams, a three-week citywide festival featuring more than 90 events, all inviting audiences to discover the extraordinary artistic legacy of Vienna. The festival features symphonic and operatic masterpieces, chamber music, and lieder, as well as new sounds emerging from this historic cultural capital. In addition to music, Vienna: City of Dreams shines a spotlight on Vienna's visual art, film, architecture, politics, science, and history, creating an extensive look at a city that for centuries has drawn artists, dreamers, and innovators from all corners of the world to its dazzling intellectual and artistic life.
Diana Damrau will add a new role to her extensive repertory when she sings her first-ever performances of Amina, the title character in Bellini's bel canto showpiece La Sonnambula. Last season, Damrau made an acclaimed role debut as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata in a sold-out series of performances at the Met. La Sonnambula, which opens March 14 in a revival of Mary Zimmerman's 2009 production, will be conducted by Marco Armiliato and also star rising Mexican tenor Javier Camarena as Elvino and Italian bass Michele Pertusi as Rodolfo.
Perhaps the most controversial opera of the 20th century makes its Southern California debut when Long Beach Opera (LBO) stages John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer on March 16 and March 22 at the Terrace Theater in downtown Long Beach. This powerful and unsettling work chronicles the 1985 hijacking of the Mediterranean cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian terrorists and the murder of disabled Jewish-American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer. LBO's production is a partner presentation of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's 'Minimalist Jukebox' Festival.
Lyric Opera of Chicago is pleased to announce that soprano Ana María Martínezand bass-baritone Eric Owens will serve as the inaugural Community Ambassadors as part of the Lyric Unlimited initiative. These two artists will strengthen and actively participate in new, ongoing, and future Lyric Unlimited programs that serve and engage schools and the larger community, including the Vocal Partnership Program, Youth Opera Council, Teen Opera Circle, Lyric's ongoing relationship with Latino communities, and other collaborative community events. Martínez and Owens are starring in Lyric's new production of Rusalka, which opens on Saturday, February 22 and runs through March 16.
Met Music Director James Levine will conduct a revival of Berg's Wozzeck, opening March 6 and starring Thomas Hampson and Deborah Voigt in their first-ever performances of the leading roles, Wozzeck and Marie. Levine has led 43 performances of Berg's dark study of a man crushed by society—more than any other conductor in Met history. This season's revival will also star Simon O'Neill as the Drum-Major, Peter Hoare as the Captain, and English bass Clive Bayley as the Doctor.
Internationally acclaimed Welsh opera and concert bass-baritone Bryn Terfel will perform two concerts only at the Artscape Opera House in Cape Town on Friday, 2nd May and Saturday, 3rd May 2014. With a host of awards and accolades including a GRAMMY Award, a CBE and the Queen's Medal for Music to his name, Terfel is one of the most sought-after opera singers in the world.
From: Royal Opera House, Conductor Nicola Luisotti, Director Kasper Holten, Set Designer Es Devlin and members of the cast, including Malin Byström (Donna Anna), Véronique Gens (Donna Elvira), Elizabeth Watts (Zerlina), Alex Esposito (Leporello) and Mariusz Kwiecien (Don Giovanni) introduce Mozart's Don Giovanni.
Anthony Warlow, Australia's leading star of musical theatre, returns home this June with Tony-Award winner Faith Prince in an exclusive concert event titled Direct From Broadway. The Australian tour premieres at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival on June 10, then travels to Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
The Smith Center announced today that single tickets for The National Tour of THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS, winner of the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival, will go on sale Feb. 21 at 10 a.m.
Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov – whom the Metropolitan Opera just announced will star in the title role of a new production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro for its 2014-15 season-opening gala – has earned a chorus of praise for his performance as the eponymous character in Dmitri Tcherniakov's new production of Prince Igor at the Met, which last staged Borodin's work nearly 100 years ago. In the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini enthused over Abdrazakov at length: “Solid and ruggedly handsome, Mr. Abdrazakov is a confident actor. Though his voice is firm and robust, he is not one of those formidable, gravelly Russian basses. He is a fine singer of Italian repertory, and his Igor has moments of Italianate lyrical refinement. He brings passion, even a touch of neediness, to his exchanges with his devoted wife, Yaroslavna. … Mr. Abdrazakov does his most burnished, powerful singing in the prince's despairing soliloquy [in Act II].” The New York Observer had a similar view: “Abdrazakov hurled his dark bass-baritone into Igor's soul-searching arias, the warm, lyrical tone suggesting the proud prince's underlying vulnerability.” WQXR likewise commended the bass's “sonorous” tone and Classical Review his “dramatic force.”
The Metropolitan Opera's 2014-15 season will feature 26 operas, three of them company premieres, in six new productions and 18 revivals showcasing the talents of the world's leading singers, conductors, and theater artists. The three operas that will have their first-ever Met performances, each staged by a director making his Met debut, are John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, conducted by David Robertson and directed by Tom Morris, opening October 20; Rossini's La Donna del Lago, conducted by Michele Mariotti and directed by Paul Curran, opening February 16, 2015; and Tchaikovsky's one-act opera Iolanta, conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Treli?ski. Iolanta will be presented in a double bill with a new staging of Bartok's one-act Duke Bluebeard's Castle, also conducted by Gergiev and directed by Treli?ski.
Sony Classical is pleased to announce the release of Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko's newest album, Arabesque, which was recorded with the NDR Sinfonieorchester
Renowned bass John Relyea, who is performing in the Metropolitan Opera's current production of Rusalka with Renée Fleming; rising young soprano Lori Guilbeau, a 2010 George London Award winner; and pianist Warren Jones will share the stage for the second event in the season's George London Foundation Recital Series on Sunday, March 9, 2014, at 4:30 PM at The Morgan Library & Museum. The series presents pairs of outstanding opera singers, many of whom were winners of a George London prize early in their careers or are recent George London Award recipients. (Watch Lori Guilbeau's George London Award-winning performance of 'Einsam in trüben Tagen' from Wagner's Lohengrin here, available in the George London Foundation website's Media Library.)
Based on the legends of Don Juan, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's DON GIOVANNI is a true staple in the operatic repertoire and is the tenth most-performed opera worldwide. The opera is often considered to be a dramma giocoso, which means that it mixes serious drama with comedy to create a melodramatic plot; however, Mozart catalogued the work as an opera buffa, or comic opera. Houston's Opera in the Heights production highlights the humor of the piece and thrills with skillful performances.
