Classical music’s Hamlen-Palm Series will be presented this year as four engaging online chats called Classical Conversations. The series is set to debut Thursday, April 29, 2021, with a discussion between American composers Jake Heggie and Nico Muhly hosted by two-time Grammy Award winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke.
On Saturday evening, April 10, 2021, Opera Santa Barbara presented Gaetano Donizetti’s comedy Don Pasquale, the season opener for the Concerts in Your Car series at California’s Ventura County Fairgrounds. Following the State’s guidelines, attendees were able to enjoy a live stage performance from the safety and comfort of their vehicles or from their own chairs next to their vehicles, while wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing.
The Dallas Opera's annual spring gala has been reimagined as a special virtual fundraising event this year, and will stream on TDO's website beginning Friday, May 7 at 7 p.m.
As I write this, mezzo soprano Emily Fons is driving from her home in Milwaukee to San Diego to rehearse the role of Rosina, the wife of roving-eyed count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville by Rossini. Three years ago Fons sang Cherubino here in the related comic opera The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. The switch to the count's wife from Mozart's Cherubino, a 15-year-old boy and randy rival of the philandering count, is an indication of the mezzo's acting and vocal versatility. I discovered when we met via Zoom (what else?) that her adventurous openness to new roles is typical of the mezzo's approach to life.
Picture yourself at the airport: the excited rush of people coming and going. The roar of planes taking off. Familiar sights of suitcases, pilots, people lining up, and—the enchanting sounds of opera?!
Wagner’s Siegfried is online from San Francisco Opera on March 20 and 21, 2021. Siegfried, a warrior without fear comes of age and prepares for battle in the third opera of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Tenor Daniel Brenna stars as the Siegfried, the son of Siegmund and Sieglinde who was born to retrieve the almighty ring of power from the dragon.
This June, Music of Remembrance will stream a special all-new production of two works by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer: For a Look or a Touch and Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope.
The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, America’s longest-running festival of new orchestral music, premieres its second-ever virtual season, July 31 – August 8, 2021. Led by Grammy Award-winning Music Director and Conductor Cristian Măcelaru, the Festival’s season offers themes of resiliency, hope and realism, in response to the profound crises of climate change, wildfires, and the persistence of human oppression.
On February 26th, Vocal Arts DC presents American baritone Rod Gilfry in a virtual concert with pianist Peter Walsh. The performance will include selections by Francis Poulenc, Jake Heggie, Morten Lauridsen, Charles Ives, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel as well as original jazz arrangements of classic French art songs.
Inspired by the success from their safe drive-in performances of La bohème in the Fall, which heralded the return of live, in-person, opera to San Diego County since the start of the pandemic, and provided over 300 jobs to many, San Diego Opera has announced a Spring season of safe, socially-distanced, drive-in performances.
In April, 2019, Pacific Opera Project performed Puccini’s Madama Butterfly 蝶々夫人 in Japanese and English at the Aratani Theatre, part of the Japanese-American Cultural Center of Los Angeles’s “Little Tokyo. With a new libretto by Josh Shaw and Eiki Isomura. See the film in which ll Japanese roles were sung in Japanese, English roles in English.
On the morning of September 22, 2015, in Renfrew County, Ontario, a single man went on a killing spree, brutally murdering three ex-partners in their separate homes. The murders devastated the rural Ottawa Valley community where baritone Joshua Hopkins grew up - his sister, Nathalie Warmerdam, was one of these women.
Opera San José has announced the extension of its stream of Three Decembers, by popular demand. World-renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham leads the cast of Opera San José’s first fully-staged digital production, Jake Heggie’s THREE DECEMBERS, based on Tony Award winning playwright Terrence McNally’s unpublished play “Some Christmas Letters”.
In keeping with Opera San José's mission to expand accessibility to its work, the company has announced that through the support of generous donors it is able to extend access to its hit virtual production of Jake Heggie's chamber opera, Three Decembers, now making it available on a pay-what-you-can basis for streaming on demand.
On Friday, February 19, Houston Grand Opera will present the digital world premiere of Songs for Murdered Sisters. Five years ago, Joshua Hopkins’s life changed forever when his sister Nathalie and two other women were murdered by her ex-boyfriend in a spree that is now considered one of the worst cases of domestic violence in Canadian history.
The Houston Symphony announces the addition of the Classical Series program Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, Feb. 19 & 20, at 8 p.m., featuring internationally-acclaimed, Houston-based mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke in Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer).
Fort Worth Opera has announced the company's expanded line-up of innovative programs and performances for the spring of 2021.
See what classical events are streaming the week Of January 25–31:
CLICKCOACH – a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created and operated for the relief of classical, jazz, and musical theater artists in financial need worldwide – launches Friday, January 15, 2021.
Opera San José hits it out of the park with its immensely moving new virtual production of Three Decembers, the chamber opera by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, based on an unpublished play by Terrance McNally. Due to popular demand, streaming access has now been extended through January 31, 2021. It’s about a family of three – diva Maddie, played by world-renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, and her two adult children Bea and Charlie, played by Opera San José Resident Artists Maya Kherani and Efraín Solís. In a swift 90 minutes, the three journey from a place of disconnect to a place of understanding and ultimately healing. BroadwayWorld spoke with Ms. Kherani shortly after she had completed filming 'Three Decembers.'
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