Jake Heggie News

Washington National Opera (WNO) continues its 2016–2017 season with a new production of Gaetano Donizetti's mashup of slapstick comedy and charming romance—The Daughter of the Regiment, November 12–20, 2016, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. The cast is led by superstar tenor Lawrence Brownlee as the hero Tonio and fast-rising soprano Lisette Oropesa, who starred as Susanna earlier this season in WNO's The Marriage of Figaro, as Marie. While the opera is best known for the vocal acrobatics required of its singers, the high-comedy antics of the non-singing role of The Duchess of Krakenthorp often steal the show. On opening night, November 12, 2016, the role of The Duchess will be performed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her official Washington National Opera stage debut. The brand-new WNO production is directed by acclaimed Broadway director and choreographer Robert Longbottom, and the WNO Orchestra is led by rising conductor Christopher Allen, both in their WNO debuts.

Earlier today, San Francisco Opera added a new attraction to its fall 2016 Season with Out of the Sh

Earlier today, San Francisco Opera added a new attraction to its fall 2016 Season with Out of the Shadows, a special, one-night-only choral concert featuring the acclaimed 48-member San Francisco Opera Chorus on Saturday, November 19. Company Chorus Director Ian Robertson conducts the uplifting program of a cappella and accompanied choral works by Brahms, Debussy, Part, Whitacre and a set of spirituals, in the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera's Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater.

The Barber of Seville is one of the most sparkling, effervescent comedies ever created and Opera San Jose is pleased to observe the 200th anniversary of this richly entertaining comedy by making it our second production of the 2016-17 season. This joke-a-minute masterpiece spread across the world like wildfire from its 1816 premiere, and it remains among one of the most popular works for the stage today. Charged with vocal fireworks, Rossini's Barber of Seville received 989 performances in 227 productions at 154 cities across the globe in the past two years alone. It made Rossini world famous and has become the most popular comic opera of all time.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City continues its 59th season with the Lyric Opera debut co-production of Mozart's masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro November 5, 9, 11 and 13 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

Donizetti's ebullient comedy The Elixir of Love sets a celebratory tone as Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) 62nd season opener on October 21. The colorful production features tenor Dimitri Pittas and soprano Nicole Heaston, as well as the HGO debut of eminent English conductor Jane Glover. Performances run through November 4.  

On October 10, Soprano Melissa Wimbish makes her DCINY Artist Series solo debut recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, in a performance featuring the American contemporary vocal music of Jake Heggie, Andre Previn, Jessica Meyer, Tom Cipullo, and Gregory Spears. The concert highlights new contemporary vocal works including the world premiere of Meyers' Space In Chains.

The Dallas Opera is very proud to present the eagerly anticipated revival of an historic Dallas Opera production: Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's critically acclaimed twenty-first century masterpiece: MOBY-DICK, starring world-renowned heldentenor Jay Hunter Morris as Captain Ahab.

Washington National Opera (WNO) today announced a change to its 2016-2017 season programming: Don Giovanni in Concert will replace the previously scheduled Stars of Tomorrow concert on Friday, March 17, 2017 in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Instead of a traditional showcase featuring arias and scenes from different operas, members of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program will now present a semi-staged concert performance of Mozart's timeless drama, with the WNO Orchestra conducted by Michael Christie and featuring direction by WNO Artistic Director Francesca Zambello.

Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) is proud to announce its seventh season, beginning in October of 2017.

Milwaukee, WI -- The Florentine continues to craft its seasons with a blend of imaginatively staged classic operas and important new American works. The nation's sixth oldest opera company will launch the 83rd Season with the world premiere of SISTER CARRIE, a new work by the two-time Grammy Award-winning creators of Elmer Gantry.

Donizetti's ebullient comedy The Elixir of Love sets a celebratory tone as Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) 62nd season opener on October 21.

Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) opens its seventh season on Friday October 7, 2016 with Fin de Siecle, the first of five concerts in the ambitious series Wien. This concert is the first in BASS's new primary venue, the Brooklyn Historical Society. Fin de Siecle features four composers who epitomize the opulence and decadence of late German Romanticism: Joseph Marx, Hans Pfitzner, Richard Strauss, and Alexander Zemlinsky. Highlights from the program include Pfitzner's extended masterpiece An den Mond and Richard Strauss's beloved Vier letze Lieder (Four Last Songs). The seven first-class performers include soprano Tami Petty (winner, Joy in Singing) and baritone Tobias Greenhalgh (Wiener Kammeropera). There will also be a pre-concert lecture by esteemed New York University professor Larry Wolff at 7:00 entitled "Art and Politics in Fin de Siecle Vienna."

Following her summer role debut in Santa Fe as Clairon in Richard Strauss's Capriccio, Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham - hailed by Gramophone as 'America's favorite mezzo' - launched the 2016-17 season with Renée Fleming and Michael Tilson Thomas performing Rossini songs in the San Francisco Symphony's opening night gala.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will offer New Yorkers a preview performance of excerpts from a new opera based on the classic story and Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life on Sunday, November 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Guggenheim Museum, as part of the museum's Works & Process program. The evening will include a discussion with the composer/librettist team of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer, moderated by HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers.

Encompass New Opera Theatre and Gala Honorary Chairs Zoe Caldwell, Sheldon Harnick, John Kander, and Maury Yeston will honor legendary songwriting team LYNN AHRENS and STEPHEN FLAHERTY and playwright TERRENCE MCNALLY (Ragtime, Chita Rivera: A Dancer's Life, A Man of No Importance, and their upcoming Broadway musical, Anastasia) with a star-studded musical salute on Sunday, October 23.

Following her summer role debut in Santa Fe as Clairon in Richard Strauss's Capriccio, Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham - hailed by Gramophone as 'America's favorite mezzo' - launched the 2016-17 season with Renée Fleming and Michael Tilson Thomas performing Rossini songs in the San Francisco Symphony's opening night gala.

The Dallas Opera is thrilled to announce the fourteenth in a series of free public simulcasts, this time involving a game-changing Dallas Opera production: Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer's critically acclaimed twenty-first century masterpiece: MOBY-DICK, starring world-renowned helden tenorJay Hunter Morris as Captain Ahab.

Washington National Opera (WNO) opens its 2016-2017 season with a new-to-Washington staging of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's masterpiece of romantic comedy-The Marriage of Figaro, September 22-October 2, 2016, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. One of opera's most enduring and beloved classics, The Marriage of Figaro tells an upstairs/downstairs story of love, lust, seduction, infidelity, and ultimately, forgiveness, all set to some of the most sublime and memorable music ever written.

Tenor Peter Marsh, who makes his Seattle Opera debut as the villainous Hexe in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel next month, shares his insights on the subject