Kathryn Lewek News

Lyric Opera of Chicago presents a new production of The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's beloved, enchanting opera about the triumph of good over evil.  

Poor Beaumarchais. A crucial friend of the American Revolution, French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais's great Figaro comedies have been both favored and scorned by history. Just two years after The Marriage of Figaro premiered in Paris, Mozart's 1786 adaptation eclipsed the theater version, remaining one of opera's supreme masterworks to this day. And the Rossini version of the first Figaro play, THE BARBER OF SEVILLE, has a been an operagoer's favorite ever since its Rome premiere in 1816.

The Oratorio Society of New York fulfills its role as New York's champion of the grand choral tradition with the opening program of its 2016-17 season:  Mozart's "Great" Mass in C Minor, written to celebrate the composer's marriage, and Bruckner's Te Deum, a gem of a 19th-century choral masterwork that Bruckner called "the pride of my life."

Lyric Opera of Chicago presents an all-new production of Mozart's The Magic Flute just in time for the holidays, December 10, 2016 - January 27, 2017.

The Metropolitan Opera has just announced a cast change advisory. Janai Brugger will sing the role of Pamina in the December 20, 23, 26, 30 matinee, January 2 and 5 performances of Mozart's The Magic Flute, replacing Layla Claire, who has withdrawn due to pregnancy.

The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY), New York's standard for grand choral performance, will mark its 2016-17 season with performances of symphonic choral masterworks of Handel, Mozart, Bruckner, and Britten, ending with Bach's monumental Mass in B Minor. Leading the OSNY for its 144th season will be Kent Tritle, in his 12th year as Music Director.

SDG Music Foundation's 2016 Chicago Bach Project concert will feature J. S. Bach's monumental 'Mass in B Minor,' BWV 232, with Grammy Award-winner John Nelson conducting an all-new cast of soloists and the Chicago Bach Choir and Orchestra.

SDG Music Foundation's 2016 Chicago Bach Project concert will feature J. S. Bach's monumental 'Mass in B Minor,' BWV 232, with Grammy Award-winner John Nelson conducting an all-new cast of soloists and the Chicago Bach Choir and Orchestra.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2016-17 season, the 50th anniversary of its home at Lincoln Center, will feature 225 opera performances of 26 operas in a varied repertory that ranges from 18th century masterpieces to one of the most acclaimed operas in recent years. Repertoire for the company's 132nd season will include the Met premiere of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's 2000 opera L'Amour de Loin, as well as new stagings of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, Dvo?ak's Rusalka, and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. A gala concert on May 7, 2017 will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the company's Lincoln Center location with performances by opera's leading stars honoring the Met's past and future. Ticket prices will not increase, remaining the same as in the current season, and audience development programs instituted by the company in recent years will continue.  

Lyric Opera of Chicago's general director Anthony Freud and music director Sir Andrew Davis confirmed today the repertoire and casting for the company's 2016/17 season - the second season that they have fully planned together.  

Canada's greatest achievement in music, LOUIS RIEL, is returning to the Canadian Opera Company stage in a new production to help mark the 150th anniversary of the country's confederation. LOUIS RIEL is one of six landmark operas unveiled today at the public launch of the COC's 2016/2017 season at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

Over the summer, the Glimmerglass Festival presented Bernstein's take on Candide. As philosophical as it is satirical, the productiontransports Voltaire's novella and its Enlightenment-era ideas to the stage, and features classic tunes such as 'The Best of All Possible Worlds,' 'Glitter and Be Gay' and 'Make our Garden Grow.' WQXR just featured the show as a part of its Saturday at the Opera series, and you can check out audio of the broadcast below!

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.  – The Glimmerglass Festival opened the last of its four productions on Sunday with Bernstein's take on Candide. As philosophical as it is satirical, the productiontransports Voltaire's novella and its Enlightenment-era ideas to the stage, and features classic tunes such as “The Best of All Possible Worlds,” “Glitter and Be Gay” and “Make our Garden Grow.”

I am taken back to the first Opera I saw as a kid and the pomp and circumstance with wearing a tux and walking to the lavish theatre; this was when I fell in love with classical music. Often times we hear opera and other classical art forms are inaccessible to the people, but Houston Grand Opera's English translation of Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE (Die Zauberflote) proved that opera isn't a stuffy, highbrow art form for the bourgeois. THE MAGIC FLUTE premiered on September 30, 1791 at Emanuel Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, and Mozart conducted the orchestra. The MAGIC FLUTE often referenced as a singspiel, is an opus with spoken dialogue which lends itself to the elements of classical musical theatre. The heart of this new work was an excerpt from the oriental genie tales collected by poet Christoph Martin Wieland but transitioned to have Masonic elements from the novel Sethos by Abbe Jean Terrasson.

Houston Grand Opera is proud to present The Magic Flute, one of two Mozart offerings for the 2014–15 season. From the coloratura pyrotechnics of the Queen of the Night to Pamina's anguished lament, to the comic love duet of Papageno and Papagena, Mozart's genius is evident as the music in The Magic Flute illustrates his unique and profound understanding of humanity. The Magic Flute marks the American premiere of Sir Nicholas Hytner's iconic English National Opera staging, in a revival directed by Ian Rutherford.

After a resoundingly successful fall season and the launch of its new holiday opera series with the world premiere of Iain Bell and Simon Callow's A Christmas Carol, Houston Grand Opera (HGO) rings in 2015 with two beloved productions: a reprise of Michael Grandage's knockout staging of Puccini's Madame Butterfly, which triumphed at its 2010 Houston debut, and the American premiere of Sir Nicholas Hytner's iconic English National Opera staging of Mozart's The Magic Flute in a revival directed by Ian Rutherford.

Houston Grand Opera is proud to present The Magic Flute, one of two Mozart offerings for the 2014–15 season. From the coloratura pyrotechnics of the Queen of the Night to Pamina's anguished lament, to the comic love duet of Papageno and Papagena, Mozart's genius is evident as the music in The Magic Flute illustrates his unique and profound understanding of humanity. The Magic Flute marks the American premiere of Sir Nicholas Hytner's iconic English National Opera staging, in a revival directed by Ian Rutherford.

Mozart's final opera, Die Zauberflöte, returns to the Met October 6 for its first full-length performances in German in five seasons. Julie Taymor's imaginative production will be conducted by Adam Fischer and star English tenor Toby Spence as the hero Tamino; South African soprano Pretty Yende as the princess Pamina in her first Met performances since her star-making 2013 company debut; Macedonian soprano Ana Durlovski in her Met debut as Pamina's mother, the terrifying Queen of the Night; Austrian baritone Markus Werba as Papageno, the hapless birdcatcher who is caught up in Tamino's quest; American bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the mysterious Speaker of the Temple; and German bass René Pape as the Queen of the Night's nemesis, Sarastro.

German bass Tobias Kehrer will make his Met debut this season as Sarastro in six performances of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. The performances—on October 21, 25 matinee, 27, 31, November 3, 8 matinee—will be Kehrer's American debut. He replaces Franz-Josef Selig, who has withdrawn for health reasons.

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).