Joyce DiDonato News

The Merola Opera Program and the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch will present the second season of Merola Goes to the Movies, the free, opera-on-film series.

Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele, in one of the most impressive productions ever seen at the War Memorial Opera House, comes to audiences on DVD and Blu-ray on September 30, 2014 in San Francisco Opera's latest video release in partnership with EuroArts Music International.

The Merola Opera Program and the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch are pleased to present the second season of Merola Goes to the Movies, the free, opera-on-film series. Donizetti's powerful opera Anna Bolena will be screened this Sunday, September 21, at 1 pm in the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch (100 Larkin Street). Doors for first come seating open at 12:30 pm.

After four years of construction, Carnegie Hall's Judith and Burton Resnick Education Wing opens to the public this weekend, providing a new home within the Hall's landmark building for a wide range of music education and community programs created by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute (WMI) and Ensemble ACJW.

The Capitol Center for the Arts is pleased to announce that it will present 10 productions in next season's Met: Live in HD series, beginning with Verdi's Macbeth on Saturday, October 11, at. Single tickets for this series are on sale now for $26 Adults; $22 Seniors/Met/CCA Members; and $15 Students. Season subscriptions are also available at $208 Adults; $176 Seniors/Met/CCA Members; and $120 students.

On Friday, October 3rd, Joyce DiDonato will perform the music from her new album Stella di Napoli at the Gowanus Ballroom, a warehouse performance art space in Brooklyn, located above Serett Metal Works. The intimate event, co-hosted by Warner Classics/Erato and LoftOpera, will take the universally-acclaimed diva and the album's 19th century Bel Canto music and place it in a distinctly modern and urban setting. LoftOpera will also preview their upcoming production of Rossini's Barber of Seville.

Founder and Artistic Director Nicole Paiement has announced details of Opera Parallèle's 2014--2015 season, which will feature the premiere of a new production of Jake Heggie's acclaimed Dead Man Walking--marking the 15th anniversary of one of the most widely performed operas of the 21st century--and the U.S. premiere of vibrant composer Tarik O'Regan's Heart of Darkness. Both operas, based on significant literary works, plumb the depths of human emotion, resilience, fortitude, hope and redemption, making them ideal subjects for the operatic stage and for Opera Parallèle's brand of story-telling and rich exploration of the human experience in provocative and intense stagings. Both original Opera Parallèle productions will be led by Paiement on the podium, with production design and direction by Opera Parallèle Creative Director Brian Staufenbiel and members of the creative team responsible for OP's acclaimed productions of Orphée, The Great Gatsby, Ainadamar, and Trouble in Tahiti.

This season, celebrated mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato curates a multi-part Carnegie Hall Perspectives series that showcases her vocal creativity and multifaceted talents, ranging from programs that include familiar and forgotten repertoire from the Baroque and bel canto eras to works by Jake Heggie written expressly for her. Her series kicks off on Sunday, October 26 at 2:00 p.m. as she sings the title role in a concert performance of Handel's Alcina alongside Harry Bicket and The English Concert.

This fall, WQXR, New York City's classical music station and CARNEGIE HALL will once again bring concerts from the renowned concert hall to national and international audiences through live and recorded broadcasts and webcasts of 12 concerts from the 2014-15 season.

Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter--widely recognized as a champion of new music as well as for her commitment to artistic excellence, dedication to the growth of classical music, and for her support of young artists--presents a six-concert Carnegie Hall Perspectives series throughout the 2014-2015 season, demonstrating all of her core artistic interests. Ms. Mutter champions 20th- and 21st-century violin repertoire throughout her series, including contemporary works written for her by Sebastian Currier, Norbert Moret, and Andre Previn.

Joyce DiDonato sings the title role in Rossini's Cinderella story, La Cenerentola, with bel canto master Juan Diego Florez as her dashing prince. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads a cast that also includes Pietro Spagnoli in his Met debut as the servant Dandini, Alessandro Corbelli as Cenerentola's stepfather Don Magnifico, and Luca Pisaroni as Don Ramiro's tutor, Alidoro, on GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET tonight, September 7 at 12 p.m. on PBS. (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.)

Joyce DiDonato sings the title role in Rossini's Cinderella story, La Cenerentola, with bel canto master Juan Diego Flórez as her dashing prince. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads a cast that also includes Pietro Spagnoli in his Met debut as the servant Dandini, Alessandro Corbelli as Cenerentola's stepfather Don Magnifico, and Luca Pisaroni as Don Ramiro's tutor, Alidoro, onGreat Performances at the Met Sunday, September 7 at 12 p.m. on PBS. (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.) Check out a first look at the performance below!

Joyce DiDonato sings the title role in Rossini's Cinderella story, La Cenerentola, with bel canto master Juan Diego Florez as her dashing prince. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads a cast that also includes Pietro Spagnoli in his Met debut as the servant Dandini, Alessandro Corbelli as Cenerentola's stepfather Don Magnifico, and Luca Pisaroni as Don Ramiro's tutor, Alidor

Grammy and ECHO Klassik Award-winning conductor Fabio Luisi continues to dominate the international stage in 2014-15. In his third season as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera, where the programming reflects ever more clearly his unique artistic vision, the preeminent Italian conductor leads new productions of Martinu's seldom-staged Juliette and Bellini's bel canto masterpiece I Capuleti e i Montecchi; revivals of Norma, Ariadne auf Naxos, and Die Frau ohne Schatten; and a trio of Viennese-themed programs with the Philharmonia Zurich. Embarking on his fourth season as Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, he looks forward to premiering important new stagings of Cavalleria rusticana, I Pagliacci, and The Merry Widow, as well as directing a star-studded revival of Macbeth.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City opens its 57th season with Giuseppe Verdi's lush and grand opera, La Traviata, September 27, October 1, 3 and 5, 2014 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The production will be sung in Italian with English and Italian titles.

Last night, after a week of competition that brought 40 young singers from 17 nations to Los Angeles, Placido Domingo announced that Rachel Willis-Sorensen, an American soprano, and Mario Chang, a Guatemalan tenor, took the top prizes tonight in the 22nd edition of Operalia, the World Opera Competition. Hosted by LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the weeklong contest culminated tonight in a Gala Finals Concert-featuring the LA Opera Orchestra conducted by Mr. Domingo at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion-which was streamed live on Medici TV.

Houston Grand Opera's 2014–15 season, the company's 60th anniversary season, includes the world premiere of A Christmas Carol by Iain Bell—the company's 55th new commission —from award-winning Dickens authority Simon Callow; the continuation of HGO's first Ring cycle, with the American premiere of La Fura dels Baus's groundbreaking take on Die Walküre; the American premieres of Sir Nicholas Hytner's The Magic Flute and Lee Blakeley's Sweeney Todd; a 60th Anniversary Gala Concert featuring mezzo-soprano (and HGO Studio alumna) Joyce DiDonato; and a host of career-shaping role debuts that speak to Patrick Summers's gift for casting. Together with the company's first presentation of John Cox'sOtello, and the returns of Göran Järvefelt's beloved Così fan tutte and Michael Grandage's hit staging of Madame Butterfly, these rich offerings serve once again to illustrate some of the ways that HGO—still the only opera company with two Grammys, two Emmys, and a Tony—epitomizes “one model of what a forward-looking opera company could be” (Greg Sandow, Arts Journal).

The Dallas Opera is proud to announce the appointment of Brian Zeger as Chair of the Judges Panel for the 2015 Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition. This season's competition will take place on Saturday, April 18, 2015 and Sunday, April 19, 2015 in the elegant setting of the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center. The event is free and open to the public.

Tickets are now on sale for the 2014-15 season of The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live transmissions into more than 2000 movie theaters and performing arts centers worldwide.

Joyce DiDonato sings the title role in Rossini's Cinderella story, La Cenerentola, with bel canto master Juan Diego Florez as her dashing prince.