Joseph Kaiser News

Matthew Cairns of St. Catharines, ON took home First Prize at the Canadian Opera Company's annual Ensemble Studio Competitionon November 1, 2018 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

The Canadian Opera Company opens its 20182019 season with a stunning new production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's timeless cautionary tale, Eugene Onegin. The opera is based on the classic Russian novel-in-verse by Alexander Pushkin and tells the story of one of literature's most iconic anti-heroes. Onegin is the cynical product of an aimless dilettante life who quickly dismisses a heartfelt love letter from romantic Tatyana. However his casual cruelty comes back to haunt him years later, when karma rears its head and a fateful reunion turns the tables on proud Onegin. Eugene Onegin runs for eight performances on September 30, October 4, 10, 18, 20, 26, 30, November 3, 2018.

The Canadian Opera Company opens its 2018/2019 season with a stunning new production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's timeless cautionary tale, Eugene Onegin. The opera is based on the classic Russian novel-in-verse by Alexander Pushkin and tells the story of one of literature's most iconic anti-heroes. Onegin is the cynical product of an aimless dilettante life who quickly dismisses a heartfelt love letter from romantic Tatyana. However his casual cruelty comes back to haunt him years later, when karma rears its head and a fateful reunion turns the tables on proud Onegin. Eugene Onegin runs for eight performances on September 30, October 4, 10, 18, 20, 26, 30, November 3, 2018.

Tickets go on sale today for the Met's Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning Live in HD series' 2017-18 season, which begins on October 7 with the company's new production of Bellini's Norma.

Some of Canada's most impressive young voices will take over the mainstage of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on May 25, 2018 for An Evening with the Ensemble Studio. That night, artists of the Canadian Opera Company's prestigious training program for young opera professionals will join together for a one-night-only performance, featuring scenes from Mozart's satirical look at love and fidelity, Cosi fan tutte, and a full concert staging of Purcell's supernatural epic, Dido and Aeneas.

The Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, Canada's premier training program for young opera professionals, welcomes four new artists for the 2018/2019 season: bass-baritone Joel Allison, mezzo-soprano Simona Genga, and sopranos Lauren Margison and Anna-Sophie Neher. The four singers join the Ensemble Studio in August 2018 and become part of a program that, since its inception in 1980, has launched the careers of over 230 Canadian singers, opera coaches, mainstage directors and conductors.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will present its 2018-19 season in its creative home at Houston's Wortham Theater Center after a year of displacement due to damage to the building from Hurricane Harvey. The 64th season will open October 19, 2018, with HGO's first performances in 20 years of Wagner's romantic ghost story The Flying Dutchman, in a new production featuring baritoneAndrzej Dobber as the Dutchman and the role debut of award-winning American soprano and HGO Studio alumna Rachel Willis-S rensen as Senta. To close the season, the new Kasper Holten production of Mozart's Don Giovanni featuring the HGO debut of baritone Philippe Sly in the title role and the role debut of soprano Ailyn P rez as Donna Anna will be presented in repertory with The Phoenix, a world premiere about the colorful life of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's librettist for the masterful Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and Cos fan tutte. The new work, written by composer Tarik O'Regan and librettist John Caird, will star renowned baritone Thomas Hampson as Lorenzo da Ponte in a belated HGO debut and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni as Da Ponte's son, Lorenzo. HGO will also present a revival of Daniel Cat n's ethereal Florencia en el Amazonas with internationally acclaimed soprano and HGO Studio alumna Ana Mar a Mart nez in the title role; the first HGO presentation of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers with the stellar tenor and baritone pairing of Lawrence Brownlee and Mariusz Kwiecien in the title roles along with soprano Andrea Carroll; and the return of HGO's 2012 production of Puccini's perennial classic La boh me, featuring the role debut of soprano and HGO Studio alumna Nicole Heaston as Mim .

Mikaela Bennett with NYFOS; photo by Karli Cadel On February 27 at 8:00 p.m., New York Festival of Song and Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Music Center present a new program devised by Steven Blier, entitled, simply, PROTEST. A cast of young, diverse and brilliant singers that includes Mikaela Bennett who just wowed the world in Michael Gordon's opera Acquanetta at the Protoype Festival performs songs by a panorama of composers, from Marc Blitzstein and Joni Mitchell to Randy Newman and Mohammed Fairouz. (View the complete program below.)

The Canadian Opera Company's 2018/2019 season presents the world premiere of Hadrian, a new opera from composer Rufus Wainwright and librettist Daniel MacIvor, which features the highly anticipated COC debuts of international opera stars Thomas Hampson and Karita Mattila.

New York Festival of Song continues its 30th anniversary season today, December 2, 2017 from 1:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., when NYFOS co-founder Michael Barrett hosts a monumental eight-hour concert to celebrate Leonard Bernstein as part of the worldwide 'Bernstein at 100' festivities.

This December, opera's youngest fans can experience a production created just for them with the Canadian Opera Company's new, family-friendly presentation of The Magic Victrola.

New York Festival of Song continues its 30th anniversary season on Saturday, December 2, 2017 from 1:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m., when NYFOS co-founder Michael Barrett hosts a monumental eight-hour concert to celebrate Leonard Bernstein as part of the worldwide 'Bernstein at 100' festivities.

This December, opera's youngest fans can experience a production created just for them with the Canadian Opera Company's new, family-friendly presentation of The Magic Victrola.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance, in association with Lyric Unlimited, has announced the return of Beyond the Aria - the highly acclaimed performance series produced by the Harris Theater which pairs internationally celebrated opera singers of Lyric's mainstage alongside rising stars from The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

On Today, November 7 at 8:00 p.m., as part of the worldwide 'Bernstein at 100' celebration, NEW YORK FESTIVAL OF SONG-'one of the longstanding delights of New York's music scene' (The New York Times)-opens its 2017-18 Mainstage series at Merkin Concert Hall with Take Care of This House: A Bernstein Celebration.

Simona Genga of Woodbridge, Ont. took home First Prize (the Chair's Prize) at the Canadian Opera Company's annual Ensemble Studio Competition on November 1, 2017 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance, in association with Lyric Unlimited, has announced the return of Beyond the Aria - the highly acclaimed performance series produced by the Harris Theater which pairs internationally celebrated opera singers of Lyric's mainstage alongside rising stars from The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago.

It's 'deja vu all over again' goes the quip attributed to the NY Yankees pitcher Yogi Berra. But that's the feeling I had with Thomas Ades's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, with libretto based on the Luis Bunuel film, 'El angel exterminador,' by Tom Cairns and the composer. (Cairns also directed.) Not that the opera looks or sounds like anything else recently produced on the Met's stage, except perhaps for Ades's own TEMPEST. Rather, it's because it seems like the operatic arm of France's Nouvelle Vague, the New Wave, of the late '50s and '60s.

The Canadian Opera Company has selected seven finalists from across the country to showcase in this year's exhilarating vocal competition at its fifth annual gala fundraiser, Centre Stage, on November 1, 2017.

The Met Opera presents the American premiere of Thomas Ad s's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, and the critics are weighing in!