Jay Hunter Morris News

The Dallas Opera is pleased to announce that single tickets for the 2013/2014 'By Love Transformed' Season in the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center will go on sale to the general public next Monday, July 8, 2013 at 10:00 am.

The regular season just ended for the Metropolitan Opera--all that's left is a series of HD rebroadcasts on Lincoln Center Plaza and a couple of low profile concerts in New York City parks--and it's time for a look back at what kind of season it was. With seven new productions and 21 other operas in rep during a season that ran from the end of September to mid-May, the Met was nothing if not far-reaching in its repertoire. And that's the way it should be. But how did its ambitions work out?

Katarina Dalayman is one of a handful of top Wagnerian sopranos in the world, but for the first act of the Met's GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG, the climax of the Met's second 'Ring' cycle of the season, she didn't seem very heroic. Neither, for that matter, did tenor Jay Hunter Morris, who caused quite a stir when he jumped into GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG's premiere season a year ago. Who knows what was wrong? In any case, they recovered vocally for Act 2 and excitingly sailed through the rest of the mammoth, exhausting work.

The first of three complete Ring Cycles concluded on Tuesday night at the Metropolitan Opera as our hero, Siegfried, his true love, Brunnhilde, as well as the entirety of Valhalla went up in a burst of video projected and staged lit flames behind the massive 45-ton set of 24 rotating planks come to be known by some as Robert Lepage's Ring machine. Luckily for everyone involved- audience, performers and technicians alike, this cycle ran quite smoothly in comparison to previous seasons. One mishap happened in Das Rheingold as we descended into Nibelheim and the last five or six planks got stuck in the air and one black clad arm was seen pulling each back into place. Barring this one blip in an otherwise 19 hour breathtaking production is rather impressive given the scale and scope of this production which includes hydraulics, harnesses, flying, dying, fighting, love making, and a host of technical demands all enhancing the complex masterpiece which is Richard Wagner's music and libretto.

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York summer opera company, will celebrate its Young Artists and Summer Internship programs at GL!MMERATA, its 2013 Spring Gala, tonight, April 10 at The Metropolitan Club in Manhattan. The 2013 season marks the 25th anniversary of the company's Young Artists Program, the acclaimed apprenticeship for emerging singers.

To mark the bicentennial of Wagner's birth, Fabio Luisi launches three complete cycles of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Metropolitan Opera with an account of Das Rheingold on Saturday, April 6. It was with his leadership of the two last operas of Wagner's epic saga that Luisi, the Met's Principal Conductor, took home his first Grammy Award last month, when Deutsche Grammophon's DVD release of the full cycle, recorded live at the house, was named Best Opera Recording of 2012. Running through May 11, the upcoming performances - as on the award-winning recording - will feature Deborah Voigt's star turn as Brunnhilde in Robert Lepage's visionary, cutting-edge production.

The Metropolitan Opera will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner's birth with three complete performances of his epic four-opera masterwork, Der Ring des Nibelungen. The Ring cycles will begin April 6 at 1 p.m. with Das Rheingold and continue through the last day of the Met season, May 11, with an 11 a.m. matinee of Gotterdammerung.

Beginning at 4 p.m., three hours before the main awards show, the pre-telecast ceremony announced awards in 70 additional categories, including Best Musical Theater Album. In other theatre-related news, Safe & Sound (From The Hunger Games) by T Bone Burnett, Taylor Swift, John Paul White & Joy Williams beat SMASH's Let Me Be Your Star by Marc Shaiman & Scott Wittman for Best Song Written For Visual Media .

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York summer opera company, will celebrate its Young Artists and Summer Internship programs at GL!MMERATA, its 2013 Spring Gala, April 10 at The Metropolitan Club in Manhattan. The 2013 season marks the 25th anniversary of the company's Young Artists Program, the acclaimed apprenticeship for emerging singers.

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York summer opera company, will celebrate its Young Artists and Summer Internship programs at GL!MMERATA, its 2013 Spring Gala, April 10 at The Metropolitan Club in Manhattan. The 2013 season marks the 25th anniversary of the company's Young Artists Program, the acclaimed apprenticeship for emerging singers.

I missed the debut and broadcast of Andre Previn's operatic setting of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" from the San Francisco Opera back in 1998. But I can't say that anything I've read would compel me choose it over a couple of hours with Brando and Leigh on TCM or even a less than stellar [Stella?] production of the play. The fact is, how can Previn's score compare with the music of Williams?

Storytelling at its best, San Francisco Opera's co-production of new opera "Moby Dick" overwhelms upon sight and hearing. The magnificent production has some of the most exquisite music ever written for the stage. Jack Heggie's grand cinematic score moves faultlessly from solemn, contemplative moments to lightning and thunder during a storm, making up for minor scenic limitations and becoming the narrator of the piece.

NYC-ARTS provides arts lovers in the tri-state area with an all-access pass to the New York City area's myriad cultural offerings: from music and dance concerts, to the theater, museums and galleries-from the classic to the contemporary.

Today in 2011, the first Broadway revival of Master Clas opened at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, where it ran for 67 performances. Master Class is a play by Terrence McNally, which opened on Broadway on November 15, 1995 at the John Golden Theatre, where it ran for 598 performances. The original cast included Zoe Caldwell, Audra McDonald, Karen Kay Cody, David Loud, and Jay Hunter Morris. Caldwell and McDonald won Tony Awards for their performances in 1996. Tyne Daly starred as Callas in a summer 2011 revival of the play at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York summer opera and musical theater company, has announced its 2013 season and its partnership in The Festival of American Romantics in Cooperstown, New York.

Robert Lepage's acclaimed new production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, will air on Great Performances at the Met, September 11-14 in primetime each night on PBS stations (check local listings), as a major television event.

The Met: Live in HD presents the cinematic premiere of Wagner's Ring Cycle and the behind-the-scenes documentary Wagner's Dream. The two-week event begins today May 7 across the U.S. and Canada. See photos from each of the operas below!

The Met: Live in HD presents the cinematic premiere of Wagner's Ring Cycle and the behind-the-scenes documentary Wagner's Dream. The two-week event begins May 7 across the U.S. and Canada. See photos from each of the operas below!

American soprano Deborah Voigt once again brings Wagner's warrior-goddess Brünnhilde alive at the Metropolitan Opera when she stars in Götterdämmerung, the climactic chapter of the composer's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen tetralogy.