Ken Howard News

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report the passing of actor Tom Lacy. The news was confirmed by The Old Globe on Twitter.

The Met has announced a specially-curated 'Bel Canto Favorites' week for its Nightly Met Opera Streams, a free series of encore Live in HD presentations and classic telecasts streamed on the company website during the coronavirus closure.

By the time Lise Davidsen appeared in the Met’s December revival of Tchaikovsky’s QUEEN OF SPADES, the company had already scheduled the soprano for five other major roles in seasons to come. One opera they didn’t schedule was TANNHAUSER, with its spectacular aria for Elisabeth--“Dich teure Halle”--which Davidsen has made it something of a calling card. She did, however, use it to kick off her recital in the MET STARS IN CONCERT series at Norway’s Oscarshall palace, which can be heard on demand through September 9.

The Met has announced the Week 23 schedule for its Nightly Met Opera Streams, a free series of encore Live in HD presentations and classic telecasts streamed on the company website during the coronavirus closure.

When was the last time you heard a concert at the Met for $20? It could have been Saturday afternoon--with Jonas Kaufmann kicking off an online, live concert series, MET STARS LIVE IN CONCERT. It helped to remind us what we're missing without live opera and stars worth going out of the way for.

Great Performances at the Met: The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess premieres Friday, July 17 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).

It's a busy week for Piotr Beczala, at least on the Met on Demand. It started with Monday's free broadcast of 2014's RUSALKA, opposite Renée Fleming (when the interview that follows was conducted) to Saturday night's free ADRIANA LECOUVREUR performance opposite Anna Netrebko, from January 2019. You can also hear him in excerpts from WERTHER, opposite Joyce DiDonato, which was scheduled for last month at the Met, but sidelined by COVID-19. The arias were recorded in JDD's living room, to give audiences a glimpse of what they might have missed in the complete performance.

Some people dream of a White Christmas--or at least an end to the horrors of COVID-19 and a semblance of life returned to normal. I'll drink to that. But high on my list of events I'm hoping to hear in a world turned back on its feet, is the return of Richard Strauss's DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN to the Met.

The Met on Demand had another week of exciting performances, from the divine [Rossini's IL  BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA] to the, well, the divine [Adams's NIXON IN CHINA].

59E59 Theaters is now presenting 'Mr. Toole,' a production that will appeal to literature and drama lovers alike. The Off-Broadway premiere of this play is superbly written by Vivian Neuwirth, finely directed by Cat Parker, and features an outstanding cast.

The Met had a wonderfully conducted performance of Wagner's DER FLIENGENDE HOLLANDER with a marvelous singer in the title role. Unfortunately, that was in 2017, when the Met's Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin was on the podium and Michael Volle was the forceful Hollander. This time around, when Francois Girard's new Expressionist production had its premiere the other night, with Valery Gergiev at the helm and Evgeny Nikitin as the Dutchman, things did not go so smoothly.

San Francisco Opera's 2020 Summer SeasonSan Francisco Opera presents a trio of masterworks spanning the 18th century to the present for its 2020 Summer Season at the War Memorial Opera House June 7a?"July 3. In an update announced today, Caroline H. Hume Music Director Designate Eun Sun Kim will conduct Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani replacing James Gaffigan who has withdrawn from the production due to family reasons. The summer season will also include George Frideric Handel's Partenope in Christopher Alden's popular production and the Bay Area premiere of composer Mason Bates' kaleidoscopic exploration of life, love and creativity, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.

I admit this is an absolutely personal, totally one-sided view of what gave one man opera thrills last year and what I will look back on with delight. Some are old works, some are new, some are individual performers, some are ensembles, some are complete productions, some are merely the highlight of an evening, most are domestic, a few are foreign. In any case, as the new decade begins, I recall that these are the vocal highlights that made my heart beat a little faster and made me look forward to the year ahead.

A funny thing happened the other night at the Met when the curtain came down on William Kentridge's stunning new production of Alban Berg's cruel and devastating WOZZECK. The audience didn't rush from their seats to escape into the night. They stayed and cheered for an opera with a reputation for being, well, challenging for opera-goers weaned on Figaros and Flutes, Aidas and even Ring Cycles.

Get a first look and check out reviews for the Met Opera's The Queen of Spades! Tchaikovsky's eerie thriller of imperial Russia has its first performances at the Met since 2011. Tenor Yusif Eyvazov is Hermann, the fanatical gambler whose obsession with a powerful secret drives him to madness. Soprano Lise Davidsen makes her highly anticipated Met debut as his long-suffering lover, Lisa, with mezzo-soprano Larissa Diadkova as the otherworldly Countess. Baritone Igor Golovatenko is Yeletsky, baritone Alexey Markov is Tomsky, and Vasily Petrenko conducts. 

I know it takes a leap of faith for the Met to schedule something outside the ABC operas--AIDA, BOHEME, CARMEN plus a TOSCA, TURANDOT and a few others--and go for something a little more off the beaten track. Tchaikovsky's QUEEN OF SPADES certainly falls into that category, even though it isn't exactly an unknown. The current production by Elijah Moshinsky, conducted by Vasily Petrenko, which still looks like new and opened the other day for the season's run, is not just well-sung and beautiful to see but makes a very good case for doing it more often.

There's nothing subtle about Lyric Opera's staging of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally's contemporary opera DEAD MAN WALKING. Based upon the novel of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, DEAD MAN WALKING focuses on Sister Helen's relationship with 29-year-old Joseph De Rocher, a prisoner on death row in Angola, Louisiana convicted of the murder of a young couple (and the sexual assault of a young woman). While DEAD MAN WALKING clearly aims to be morally complex in its exploration of capital punishment and the notion of whether or not we should also treat criminals as human beings, the piece feels overwrought. The debate at the opera's center is painted with broad strokes; at one point, we literally see protestors outside the prison holding picket signs depicting both sides of the argument.

Dead Man Walking, the powerful opera by composer Jake Heggie and librettist-playwright Terrence McNally, will have its long-awaited Lyric premiere this month. There will be six performances Nov. 2-22 at the Lyric Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago. Tickets start at $39 and are available at lyricopera.org/dmw or by calling 312-827-5600.

With apologies to Gluck, “Che faremmo senza Jamie Barton?”—'Where would we be without mezzo Jamie Barton?”--in the revival of Mark Morris's production of ORFEO ED EURIDICE at the Met, under Mark Wigglesworth's firmly rhythmic baton. ORFEO, written in the mid-18th century, was an opera of a different stripe for its time. (The Met uses the 1762 Vienna version, one of many.) It leans heavily on dance and choral singing, as well as recitative.

Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, an operatic fable about the power of music, returns to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time since 2011 for seven performances beginning October 20, 2019.