Jamie Barton News

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock and Music Director Nicola Luisotti today announced plans for the 2017-18 repertory season. The Company's 95th season will open Friday, September 8 with a gala performance of Giacomo Puccini'sTurandot led by Maestro Luisotti and an international cast starring Martina Serafin, Maria Agresta and Brian Jagde.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington National Opera (WNO) today announced that countertenor John Holiday is the 2017 winner of the Marian Anderson Vocal Award.

Houston Grand Opera expands its commitment to broadening the audience for opera with a 2017-18 season that includes the first presentations of Leonard Bernstein's classic musical West Side Story by a major American opera house and the world premiere of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Royce Vavrek's holiday opera The House without a Christmas Tree. HGO will present its first performances in a quarter century of two iconic works: Richard Strauss's revenge-filled Elektra with virtuoso sopranoChristine Goerke in the tempestuous title role and 2016 Richard Tucker Award-winner and HGO Studio alumna Tamara Wilson in her role debut as Chrysothemis, under the baton of HGO Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers; and Bellini's grand-scale tragedy Norma showcasing the debut of stellar dramatic soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska in the notoriously difficult title role, with 2015 Tucker winner and HGO Studio alumna Jamie Barton as Adalgisa.

Houston Grand Opera expands its commitment to broadening the audience for opera with a 2017-18 season that includes the first presentations of Leonard Bernstein's classic musical West Side Story by a major American opera house and the world premiere of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Royce Vavrek 's holiday opera The House without a Christmas Tree.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) has chosen the semifinalists for the 29th annual Eleanor McCollum Competition for Young Singers Concert of Arias, to be presented in the Cullen Theater at the Wortham Theater Center on January 27, at 7 p.m.

On Monday, January 23, 2017 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at the Guggenheim will host an interview led by general manager Peter Gelb with Maestro Mark Elder and director Mary Zimmerman.

The Ridgefield Playhouse and Craig's Fine Jewelry Live in HD Series presents a live screening of The Met Opera Live in HD: Verdi's Nabucco today, January 7 at 12:55 p.m. 

"Power to the people" could very well be the mantra for the gorgeous opera Nabucco highlighted by the inspiring Va Pensiero chorus sung by the Hebrew slaves as they pray to G-d for their dream to return to their homeland of Jerusalem to take flight. As I sat in the Metropolitan opera house recently, witnessing the opera with several thousand others, I have to believe that there was no one in that audience who was not moved. Nabucco reminds us all that the Bible, like Shakespeare, is timeless. Its lessons span millennia and are repeated over and over again.

The Ridgefield Playhouse and Craig's Fine Jewelry Live in HD Series presents a live screening of The Met Opera Live in HD: Verdi's Nabucco on Saturday, January 7 at 12:55 p.m. 

The Warner Theatre's 2016-17 Met Opera: Live in HD Season continues with Verdi's NABUCCO in the Nancy Marine Studio Theatre on Saturday, January 7 at 12:55 pm. A complimentary pre-opera lecture will be offered to all ticketholders in the Nancy Marine Studio Lobby for 45 minutes of pre-opera information and entertainment, 2 hours before broadcast.  Season Subscriptions are still available.  

In the fall of 1987, Houston Grand Opera's world premiere of Nixon in China made political headlines and galvanized the opera world. Thirty years later, John Adams's trailblazing opera returns in a new-to-Houston production that sheds light on the electronic media's role in political history, just as a new media-savvy American president takes office.

Judith Clurman conducts her acclaimed chorus, Essential Voices USA, in Season of Light: Songs of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Chanukah, New Year, the ensemble's fourth recording for Sono Luminus. 

On December 16 and 17, 2016 at 8:00PM, The New York Pops, led by Music Director Steven Reineke, will present an evening full of holiday cheer at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage.

Returning to Carnegie Hall this year after more than 25 years, the Richard Tucker Gala—celebrating the current winner of the Richard Tucker Award, soprano Tamara Wilson, as well as the life and career of the famed tenor for whom it was named—was a grand night for singing.

On Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 7:30pm, Works & Process at The Guggenheim presents a discussion with the creators and excerpts of Houston Grand Opera's upcoming world premiere of It's a Wonderful Life by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala, one of the opera world's most star-studded evenings, returns home to New York's Carnegie Hall after an absence of more than a quarter of a century this Sunday, October 30, and for the first time, audiences both in the U.S. and abroad will have the opportunity to watch it live (6pm ET/3pm PT). Thanks to a new partnership with medici.tv, the gala concert will be webcast live free of charge both on medici.tv and on medici.tv's Facebook page, and made available for on-demand viewing for 90 days. In addition, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation continues its collaboration with WQXR 105.9 FM, New York's classical radio station, which will broadcast the performance to listeners in the New York metropolitan region and beyond on November 18 at 9pm ET/6pm PT. Both the medici.tv webcast and WQXR 105.9 FM radio broadcast are made possible in part by support from the Lloyd E. Rigler-Lawrence E. Deutsch Foundation.

Florida Grand Opera (FGO) is pleased to announce the promotion and addition of new members to its music staff. Katherine Kozak, continuing in the position of Chorus Master at Florida Grand Opera and celebrating 20 years in the opera industry, will be promoted to also serve as Head Coach of the company's Young Artist Program. Howard Lubin will serve as Senior Coach, and Paul Schwartz and Paul Kovacovic will fill the roles of staff accompanists.

Tonight, October 14, 2016 at 8:00PM, The New York Pops, led by Music Director Steven Reineke, will launch its 34th season at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, celebrating the legacy and timeless works of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

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.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced the casting and schedule for the Company's summer 2018 presentations of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). The four-opera cycle of Das Rheingold,Die Walkure, Siegfried and Gotterdammerung-widely considered the greatest and most ambitious work ever conceived for the lyric stage-will be presented in three complete cycles from June 12 through July 1, 2018.