Los Angeles Opera News

Vancouver, BC ~ On June 2, four of Canada's most talented singers will join forces with the Vancouver Opera Orchestra and Vancouver Opera Chorus for a celebratory concert featuring timeless opera favourites. BraVO!, a rare treat for music lovers, will be conducted by VO Music Director Jonathan Darlington and will recognize the retirement of VO's General Director James W. Wright, after 17 years at the head of the company.

World-famous sculptor Anish Kapoor will design the sets for ENO's unmissable new production of Tristan and Isolde. Directed by Daniel Kramer and conducted by former ENO Music Director Edward Gardner, Tristan and Isolde is one of the most hotly-anticipated arts events of 2016.  

San Francisco Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti today announced that he will step down from his position at the end of his current contract, which expires on July 31, 2018.  Mr. Luisotti, age 55, will continue to serve as San Francisco Opera music director through the 2017-18 Season. Today's announcement was made in the War Memorial Opera House theater before the full company of staff, musicians, chorus, dancers and crew.

Goodman Theatre announces Broadway stars John Dossett and Douglas Sills will join the cast of War Paint, a new musical starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole as Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, respectively. Dossett will portray Tommy Lewis, Miss Arden's husband and chief marketing officer, and Sills will portray the ambitious Harry Fleming, Madame Rubinstein's clubby confidante and faithful ally.

New Dramatists, Tony Honor recipient and the nation's premier playwright development laboratory, will celebrate six-time Tony Award winning actress, Audra McDonald with their 2016 Distinguished Achievement Award at its 67th Annual Spring Luncheon tribute.

Audra is expecting! Today it was announced  that The West End production of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill will be postponed as the show's star Audra McDonald has announced that she and her husband, actor Will Swenson, are expecting a baby.

The New York Choral Society will present Handel's biblical oratorio Israel in Egypt under the baton of Music Director David Hayes, today evening, May 10th, 2016, 8pm at Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium. Composed entirely from selected passages from the Bible's Old Testament, Israel in Egypt relates the harshness of the Israelites' captivity in Egypt and their subsequent triumphant escape from the Pharaoh's oppressive regime. Israel in Egypt is atypical in Handel's choral output, as it contains little solo material and is dominated by large-scale virtuosic choruses that exhibit Handel's mastery as a musical storyteller.

Derek Blount, Chairman of the WaterTower Theatre Board of Directors, today announced the appointment of Gregory Patterson as Managing Director. Patterson, the Company's Director of Development and Marketing for the past nine years, will assume his new position effective immediately. The newly created position reports to the Board of Directors.

HOUSTON, TEXAS – Houston Ballet, America's fifth largest ballet company, unveiled the first phase of a marketing plan for Artistic Director Stanton Welch's new production of The Nutcracker which premieres on November 25, 2016. To build upon the anticipation and excitement surrounding the upcoming production Houston Ballet's marketing team has devised a unique three-phase brand campaign to introduce audiences to the new look and feel of the ballet.  

Houston Ballet, America's fifth largest ballet company, unveiled the first phase of a marketing plan for Artistic Director Stanton Welch's new production of THE NUTCRACKER which premieres on November 25, 2016.

MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale)will open its 75th anniversary season with Ricky Ian Gordon's 27, with libretto by Royce Vavrek, starring Stephanie Blythe, Heidi Stober,Theo Lebow, Tobias Greenhalgh, and Daniel Brevik, conducted by Ted Sperling, and directed by James Robinson, with Orchestra of St. Luke's on October 20 and 21, 2016at New York City Center.

A re-imagined version of the 1921 musical SHUFFLE ALONG, one of the earliest stage hits starring, written and directed by African-Americans, opens tonight, April 28, on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre. SHUFFLE ALONG has a new book and is directed by George C. Wolfe, choreographed by Savion Glover. Scroll down to learn more about the company, plus watch SUNDAY MORNING's recent behind-the-scenes look at the show!

Pittance Chamber Music presents distinguished artists from the ranks of the Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles Opera Orchestra and Chorus in a program including works by Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Franck, Piazzola and Gernot Wolfgang at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music on June 22 at 8:00 p.m.

Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which has not been seen on the Met stage in almost a decade, opens April 22 led by James Levine, who recently announced that he would assume the new title of Music Director Emeritus at the conclusion of the Met's current season.

Dazzling Italian pianist Alessio Bax, who has headlined a succession of memorable concerts with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra in recent years, will rejoin the ensemble for a season-ending performance of Beethoven's monumental “Emperor” Piano Concerto No. 5 at the Lobero Theatre on Tuesday, May 17. Also featuring Mendelssohn's satisfying “Reformation” Symphony No. 5, the concert will begin at 7:30 pm, following the orchestra's final “Supper Club” dinner of the season. Ticket sales are underway.

Jim Schubin of Plainsboro, NJ, and Brian Vu of Los Angeles, both earned top prizes in the 2016 Lotte Lenya Competition, sponsored by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and held on April 16, 2016 in Kilbourn Hall of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.

Patti LuPone is bringing her no-nonsense Broadway swagger to the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre tonight in a new show titled, DON'T MONKEY WITH BROADWAY, as part of Symphony Space's 'Project B-Way/95' series.

Goodman Theatre has announced Broadway stars John Dossett and Douglas Sills will join the cast of War Paint, a new musical starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole as Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, respectively. Dossett will portray Tommy Lewis, Miss Arden's husband and chief marketing officer, and Sills will portray the ambitious Harry Fleming, Madame Rubinstein's clubby confidante and faithful ally.  

Albanian lyric tenor Saimir Pirgu will make his New York City Merkin Concert Hall recital debut today, April 9 at 8pm. Performing selections from his recently released album, 'Il Mio Canto,' (Opus Arte), Pirgu will be accompanied by pianist Lucy Arner.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation is thrilled to announce that soprano Tamara Wilson – whose “voice of steely beauty and great power” (Houston Chronicle) has already won international accolades – has been named as winner of the 2016 Richard Tucker Award. Dubbed the “Heisman Trophy of Opera,” the Tucker Award carries the foundation's most substantial cash prize of $50,000, and is conferred each year by a panel of opera industry professionals on an American singer at the threshold of a major international career. Featuring such luminaries as Renée Fleming, Stephanie Blythe,Lawrence Brownlee, David Daniels, Christine Goerke and Joyce DiDonato, the list of past winners reads like a who's who of American opera.