Ken Howard News

American soprano Ailyn P rez makes her role debut as the glamorous courtesan in the title role of Tha s, opening November 11 for seven performances.

The 2009 winner of the George London-Leonie Rysanek Award and American opera's latest Rigoletto: Marjorie Owens, soprano, and Quinn Kelsey, baritone, with Myra Huang, piano, will offer the second event in the season's George London Foundation Recital Series at The Morgan Library & Museum on Sunday, December 10, 2017, at 4:00 pm.

American soprano Ailyn P rez makes her role debut as the glamorous courtesan in the title role of Tha s, opening November 11 for seven performances.

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

On Oct 14, 2017, Los Angeles Opera presented Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, NABUCCO in a new and extremely well detailed production by Thaddeus Strassberger.

During the final day of the SAG-AFTRA National Convention in Los Angeles, SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris unveiled the President's Award, an inaugural honor that celebrates someone who has given meritorious service to the union and its members.

On October 7, 2017, Los Angeles Opera presented Georges Bizet's THE PEARL FISHERS starring sweet-voiced Mexican star tenor Javier Camarena as Nadir. Steel-voiced Mexican baritone Alfredo Daza, was Zurga, his rival for the hand of Leila, a beautiful priestess who had taken a vow of chastity.

The trio of soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, mezzo Joyce DiDonato and tenor Joseph Calleja promised a fine evening of singing for the Met's new NORMA and, for the most part, there wasn't much to quibble about. Too bad Sir David McVicar--and his design team--couldn't come up with something a little bolder, a little braver, a little more inventive than wandering trees and a giant lair that looked like an igloo in the off season to anchor its new production.

Soprano Erin Wall is one busy woman. Luckily, the talented (and funny!) singer had some time to sit down with BroadwayWorld's Taylor Long to talk about singing, joke about her composer boyfriends, and share some of the preparation involved in mounting a large-scale opera like ARABELLA.

CARMEN, the title character in Georges Bizet's opera, is a young woman who wants the social freedoms nineteenth century men simply took for granted. Sung magnificently by Ana Maria Martinez, Carmen is suave and self-confident, but enroute to certain destruction. Currently, L A Opera is offering an excellent performance of this beloved opera that Angelinos should not miss.

The Met's first new production since 1969 of Strauss's rich, romantic masterpiece stars Renée Fleming in one of her signature roles as the Marschallin, opposite El?na Garan?a as Octavian, the impulsive young title character, on Great Performances

On August 1, 2017, Santa Fe Opera presented Johann Strauss II's operetta, DIE FLEDERMAUS (THE BAT). The original German libretto was by Carl Haffner and Richard Genée. The audience heard it sung in an English translation by Ruth and Thomas Martin with dialogue adapted by Charles Ludlam from W. S. Gilbert's play ON BAIL. Gilbert based his play on a work by Meilhac and Halévy.

George Frideric Handel composed the opera seria, ALCINA, for a 1735 premiere at London's Covent Garden. Handel's anonymous librettist based his text on Riccardo Broschi's 1728 book for L'ISOLA DI ALCINA. Three years following its 1735 run, ALCINA was revived but after that it fell dormant until the twentieth century. On July 29, 2017, Santa Fe Opera premiered a co-production of ALCINA with the National Opera of Bordeaux and the Teatro Real of Madrid.

The Golden Cockerel was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's last opera. He wrote it in 1905 as a satire on the Russian government of the time. As with many political satires, the libretto that Vladimir Belsky based on Pushkin's poem THE TALE OF THE GOLDEN COCKEREL can still make some points over one hundred years later. On July 28, 2017, Santa Fe Opera presented THE GOLDEN COCKEREL in a production by Paul Curran conducted by Emmanuel Villaume.

On July 22, 2017, Santa Fe Opera presented the world premiere of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell's opera THE (R)EVOLUTION OF STEVE JOBS. The new piece was co-commissioned by Santa Fe, Seattle, and San Francisco Operas. Director Kevin Newbury used a great deal of new technology in telling Jobs' story. In eighteen short scenes, a prologue and an epilogue, he covered important events in Steve's life by touching on specific dates in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and early twenty-first century. Since there is no intermission in this ninety-minute piece, the drama constantly builds to its eventual climax with the death of the hero, and the denouement leaves the audience to contemplate his values and the effect his life had on all of us.

On July 21, 2017, Santa Fe Opera presented Ron Daniels' production of Gaetano Donizetti's bel canto work, LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR. Beginning with a storm and several huge rainbows, the open sides of Santa Fe Opera's Crosby Theatre allowed the audience to watch the sun set as the orchestra played the opera's overture. Based on Sir Walter Scott's novel, THE BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR, the opera tells the story of a young woman who loses her reason when forced to marry a man she does not love.

Anna Netrebko reprises one of her most acclaimed roles as Tatiana, the naive heroine of Tchaikovsky's opera, adapted from Pushkin's classic verse novel. Peter Mattei stars as the title character, who rejects Tatiana's love until it's too late. Eugene Onegin airs on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, August 13 at 12 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.)

Anna Netrebko reprises one of her most acclaimed roles as Tatiana, the naive heroine of Tchaikovsky's opera, adapted from Pushkin's classic verse novel.

In celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month, American Opera Projects (AOP) will make available to the public the video of their 2014 World Premiere production of the opera As One from June 23-30, 2017 on the AOP website.