Justin Hopkins News

Starting May 28th at 7PM EST, operamusicbroadcast.com will present a live webcast ofInsightALT, a new festival that offers an intimate, inside look into American Lyric Theater's process of creating new creating new operas at all stages of their development.

American Lyric Theater (ALT) today announced complete casting forInsightALT, the company's upcoming festival dedicated to providing an intimate, up-close look at its process of creating new operas.

I've always been a sucker for a good vampire story--and Heinrich Marscher's opera DER VAMPYR fits the bill, though I don't expect it to turn up at the Metropolitan Opera any time soon. The American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein, at Carnegie Hall this past Sunday, provided an exhilarating introduction to this 1827 singspiel, sung in German with dialogue in English.

American Lyric Theater (ALT) today announced details of InsightALT, the company's first festival dedicated to providing an intimate, up-close look at its process of creating new operas. Taking place between May 28 and June 3, 2013 at the Goldman-Sonnenfeldt Family Auditorium of the The JCC in Manhattan, a state-of-the-art theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the festival kicks-off with a special public master class by world-renown soprano Catherine Malfitano. At the center of the festival are concert readings of three new operas in different stages of their development at ALT: The Turing Project by composer Justine F. Chen and librettist David Simpatico; The Long Walk by composer Jeremy Howard Beck and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann (based on the book 'The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life that Follows' by Brian Castner); and La Reina by composer Jorge Sosa and librettist Laura Sosa Pedroza. All three operas will feature leading singers and rising-stars from the country's preeminent opera houses. Themes behind these works will be explored in two symposia led by ALT and Glyndebourne dramaturg Cori Ellison, one of the leading creative figures in the opera world today.

On Saturday, March 23, 7:30pm, composer Zach Redler and librettist Sara Cooper, the creative team behind next month's musical 'The Memory Show' at the Duke Theater, will premiere their latest work 'Windows' featuring singers Sumayya Ali (The Gershwins' Porgy & Bess) and Etai BenShlomo (Wicked). Part of AOP (American Opera Projects) and Opera on Tap's new music series, 'OPERAtion Brooklyn' the 40-minute staged song-cycle will be followed by excerpts from two new operas - Decoration and Smashed. The performances will take place on multiple floors of ART-NY's South Oxford Space (138 S. Oxford St., Brooklyn 11217) in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Tickets are $20, available at www.operationbrooklyn.com. The evening will run 1 hour, thirty minutes.

On Saturday, March 23, 7:30pm, AOP (American Opera Projects) and Opera on Tap will present a new installment of their acclaimed series, 'OPERAtion Brooklyn' a semi-annual festival that highlights Brooklyn as the cultural epicenter for progressive works of opera and classical music. Audiences will be guided around multiple floors of ART-NY's South Oxford Space (138 S. Oxford St., Brooklyn 11217) in Fort Greene, Brooklyn to hear music from new operas by local talents Mikael Karlsson, James Barry and Zach Redler. Tickets are $20, available at www.operationbrooklyn.com. The evening will run 1 hour, thirty minutes.

A dominatrix dungeon, a Nazi concentration camp, and the end of space and time are just three of the places audiences will find themselves at when AOP (American Opera Projects) presents Six Scenes 2012, concert readings from operas-in-development created during AOP's Composers & the Voice (C&V) program.

Today, May 20 and Monday, May 21, 2012 at 8pm American Opera Projects (AOP) will present COMPOSERS & THE VOICE: FIRST GLIMPSE 2012, the first public presentation of compositions developed during this season's Composers & the Voice program. Audiences will hear songs written by five emerging composers - Sidney Marquez Boquiren, Mikael Karlsson, Robert Paterson, Rachel Peters, and Ronnie Reshef - and one composer/librettist team, Zach Redler and Sara Cooper, who were chosen by AOP to spend a year creating new works focusing on the operatic voice. The performances will be held at South Oxford Space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the home of AOP. Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 for students/seniors and are available at www.operaprojects.org.

Matthew Grills, tenor, of Rochester, N.Y, won the $15,000 First Prize in the finals of the 2012 Lotte Lenya Competition, held on April 21, 2012, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. In a close contest, Justin Hopkins, bass-baritone of Philadelphia, and Jacob Keith Watson, tenor of Wynne, Ark., tied for Second Prizes of $10,000, and Megan Marino, mezzo-soprano of Malvern, Penn., was awarded the Third Prize of $7,500.

On Sunday, May 20 and Monday, May 21, 2012 at 8pm American Opera Projects (AOP) will present COMPOSERS & THE VOICE: FIRST GLIMPSE 2012, the first public presentation of compositions developed during this season's Composers & the Voice program. Audiences will hear songs written by five emerging composers - Sidney Marquez Boquiren, Mikael Karlsson, Robert Paterson, Rachel Peters, and Ronnie Reshef - and one composer/librettist team, Zach Redler and Sara Cooper, who were chosen by AOP to spend a year creating new works focusing on the operatic voice. The performances will be held at South Oxford Space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the home of AOP. Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 for students/seniors and are available at www.operaprojects.org.

Former Broadway star and TV's The Voice contestant Tony Vincent's wife Aspen Vincent, who acted alongside him in American Idiot, Dirty Dancing's national tour and met him on the set of Las Vegas' We Will Rock You, gave birth to a baby girl last night.

Broadway vet Tony Vincent last month made his first appearance on NBC's singing competition THE VOICE, where he performed his on rendition of Queen's 'We Are the Champions.' The rocker is now preparing to sing in the battle round of competition against fellow contestant Justin Hopkins, with Cee Lo as a mentor. NBC has just released photos of Monday night's battle between the two performers!

Act II Playhouse will hold its annual spring fundraiser ACT-2-4-U on Monday, March 19, starting at 7 p.m. The event will feature an array of wonderful entertainers and an inside look at producing Broadway smash hits from Act II's Producing Artistic Director Bud Martin.

Twelve exceptionally talented young singer-actors have made it through two rounds of auditions for the 2012 Lotte Lenya Competition and will compete for top prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $7,500 in the finals, to be held on April 21, 2012, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Three-time Tony Award nominee Rebecca Luker, Broadway and Encores! music director Rob Berman, and Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization President and American Theater Wing Chairman of the Board Theodore S. Chapin will serve as judges.

Act II Playhouse will hold its annual spring fundraiser ACT-2-4-U on Monday, March 19, starting at 7 p.m. The event will feature an array of wonderful entertainers and an inside look at producing Broadway smash hits from Act II's Producing Artistic Director Bud Martin.

American Opera Projects (AOP) is proud to announce its selection of composers and librettists for the 2011-2012 season of its popular Composers & the Voice program. Chosen by Composers & the Voice Artistic Director Steven Osgood, the 2011-2012 season will include composers Mikael Karlsson, Robert Paterson, Rachel Peters, and Ronnie Reshef and composer/librettist teams Zach Redler/Sara Cooper and Sidney Marquez Boquiren/Daniel Neer. The primary focus of Composers & the Voice is to give composers and librettists experience working collaboratively with singers on writing for the voice and contemporary opera stage.