James Conlon News

Under the direction of conductor and violin virtuoso Vladimir Spivakov, the National Philharmonic of Russia is joined by 2007 Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medalist, Mayuko Kamio, in a program featuring work by Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, April 3, 7:30 p.m.

Ravinia Festival Chairperson Pamela B. Strobel and President and CEO Welz Kauffman today announced details of the 2009 season of music theater and dance events.

The Tony Award®-winning Old Globe is pleased to announce the cast of its 2009 Summer Shakespeare Festival, featuring two works by Shakespeare, Twelfth Night and Coriolanus, along with Edmond Rostand's celebrated classic, Cyrano de Bergerac. The three productions will be performed in nightly rotation in the Globe's outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre June 13 - September 27, 2009.

Alan Gilbert, who will become Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, returns to New York to lead two weeks of programs with the Orchestra. The first series of concerts ? Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, May 1 and 2, and 8:00 p.m., and Tuesday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. will comprise Dvorák?s The Golden Spinning Wheel; Saint-Saëns?s Violin Concerto No. 3, with Joshua Bell as soloist; and Martin's Symphony No. 4.

Under the direction of conductor and violin virtuoso Vladimir Spivakov, the National Philharmonic of Russia is joined by 2007 Tchaikovsky Competition Gold Medalist, Mayuko Kamio, in a program featuring work by Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, April 3, 7:30 p.m.

On March 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m., The Collegiate Chorale appears with The New York City Opera Orchestra at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in a performance of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's 1945 Broadway operetta The Firebrand of Florence. The performance, led by guest conductor Ted Sperling, stars baritone Nathan Gunn, soprano Anna Christy, baritone Terrence Mann, and soprano Victoria Clark. Krysty Swann, David Pittu and Patrick Goss complete the cast, and narration will be provided by Stage Director Roger Rees. Boasting a score by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by playwright and screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer, The Firebrand of Florence had a short run on Broadway in 1945. The work was subsequently not heard for over a half-century until three presentations - Ohio Light Opera (1999), the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London (2000) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna (2000) - shed new light on the relatively obscure work. The performances were not only accepted, but widely acclaimed, thus giving hope for a new life in a new century. Variety's theater critic Steven Suskin says 'I have long believed that Firebrand in concert should be a dazzling delight.' Benvenuto Cellini, the great Florentine artist, is sentenced to hang, but he is pardoned when the duke realizes that he has not completed a previously commissioned sculpture. Freed, he is able to turn his attention to his favorite model (and object of his affections), Angela. The Duke also is interested in Angela. In a typical operetta plot, Cellini swashbuckles around the stage, keeping the Duke away from Angela, keeping himself away from the Duchess, and escaping yet another death sentence by fleeing to Paris, as the end of the show recapitulates the beginning.

the stageFARM (Carrie Shaltz, Founder/Executive Director and Alex Kilgore, Artistic Director) has announced the complete cast for the upcoming World Premiere The Gingerbread House by Mark Schultz, directed by Alex Kilgore. Performances begin Friday, April 11th as a visiting production at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (224 Waverly Place), with Opening Night set for Saturday evening, April 18th at 8 p.m.

Eight new productions, four of which are company premieres, will highlight the Metropolitan Opera's 2009-10 season. General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine jointly announced plans that include: the Met premieres of Rossini's Armida, Verdi's Attila, Jan?ček's From the House of the Dead, and Shostakovich's The Nose; new productions of Bizet's Carmen, Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Thomas's Hamlet, and Puccini's Tosca; and 18 revivals from the company's repertory. The season is the first to be entirely planned under Gelb's leadership, in collaboration with Levine (the past three seasons were planned before Gelb became General Manager in 2006-07 but included some productions, repertoire, and casting changes made by Gelb).

The LA Opera production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny has won th GRAMMY Award for Best Classical Album. The LA Opera production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny premiered on PBS 'Great Performances' on Monday, December 17th, 2008.

Now that her already legendary run in Gypsy is over, Patti LuPone is set for a number of concert dates throughout the year, in addition to the previously announced dates with Mandy Patinkin for 'An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin' she will make a concert stop in Las Vegas at the Orleans Casino & Hotel on June 20th and 21st. She can also be seen (and heard) at the Cincinnati May Festival in Kurt Weil's 'The Seven Deadly Sins', Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. James Conlon will be the Musical Director for the series of concerts. For her complete schedule visit her official website at, www.pattilupone.net. Patti LuPone swept the 2008 theatre awards winning the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress in a Musical and the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance for her performance as Rose in the critically-acclaimed new Broadway production of the classic Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical Gypsy, directed by the show's author, Mr. Laurents, currently at the St. James Theatre.

On March 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m., The Collegiate Chorale appears with The New York City Opera Orchestra at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in a performance of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's 1945 Broadway operetta The Firebrand of Florence. The performance, led by guest conductor Ted Sperling, stars baritone Nathan Gunn, soprano Anna Christy, baritone Terrence Mann, and soprano Victoria Clark. Krysty Swann, David Pittu and Patrick Goss complete the cast, and narration will be provided by Stage Director Roger Rees. Boasting a score by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by playwright and screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer, The Firebrand of Florence had a short run on Broadway in 1945. The work was subsequently not heard for over a half-century until three presentations - Ohio Light Opera (1999), the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London (2000) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna (2000) - shed new light on the relatively obscure work. The performances were not only accepted, but widely acclaimed, thus giving hope for a new life in a new century. Variety's theater critic Steven Suskin says 'I have long believed that Firebrand in concert should be a dazzling delight.' Benvenuto Cellini, the great Florentine artist, is sentenced to hang, but he is pardoned when the duke realizes that he has not completed a previously commissioned sculpture. Freed, he is able to turn his attention to his favorite model (and object of his affections), Angela. The Duke also is interested in Angela. In a typical operetta plot, Cellini swashbuckles around the stage, keeping the Duke away from Angela, keeping himself away from the Duchess, and escaping yet another death sentence by fleeing to Paris, as the end of the show recapitulates the beginning.

More than a century ago, composer Richard Wagner conceived his epic four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen as a festival event that completely engaged the city of Bayreuth, Germany. In 2010, LA Opera will join forces with more than 50 cultural and educational institutions in Los Angeles to stage Ring Festival LA

New York Festival of Song, whose recent 'A Bernstein/Bolcom Celebration' was performed with 'Comic and dramatic flair,'(The New York Times) presents Fugitives, songs by composers who fled Hitler's Europe, on November 18 and 20 at the newly restored Merkin Concert Hall in New York. The program will feature music from Broadway, the concert stage and Berlin cabaret by Kurt Weill, Erich Korngold, Alexander Zemlinsky and many others.

On Sunday, November 9, the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and 75 years since Adolf Hitler's rise to power, the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and The Royal Conservatory of Music, Canada, will launch 'Music in Exile-Emigré Composers of the 1930s,' a five-day series of concerts, talks, and a music-theater piece celebrating the music of Jewish composers forced to flee the Third Reich and German composers who resisted the Nazi regime.

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will present a four week 'American Originals' festival, celebrating music written by American and European composers while living in America. The festival opens with a program of works by Bernstein, Barber and Rachmaninov on Thursday, October 30, 2008, and concludes with the Atlanta debut of a concert-staged production of John Adams' Dr. Atomic on Sunday, November 23, 2008.

Lou Spisto, Executive Producer of the Tony Award-winning Old Globe, is pleased to announce the Theatre's complete 2009 Summer Season.

Ravinia Festival's Box Office officially opens for walk-up sales on Saturday, May 17 during a day filled with discounts, the chance to purchase pavilion seating to some sold-out concerts and promotions and samples from some of Ravinia's sponsors.

The LA Opera production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny will premiere on PBS 'Great Performances' on Monday, December 17. Check local listings for broadcast time.

Ravinia Festival Chairman Michael E. Lavin and President and CEO Welz Kauffman today announced details of the 2007 season of music theater and dance events.

Complete casting has been announced for the starry upcoming Los Angeles Opera production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, starring the previously announced Tony Award-winners Patti LuPone and Audra McDonald