Marilyn Horne News

Fort Worth Opera (FWO) announced today the news that the FWO-TCU Lesley Artist Program, in collaboration with the TCU Opera Studio, has expanded from four to eight artists for the 2018-2019 season. These talented young singers have been selected through a highly competitive nationwide audition process and will perform in the company's productions of Hansel and Gretel and composer Michael Ching's Three Pigs Remix. This season's artists are sopranos Anne Wright and Janani Sridrar, mezzo-sopranos Bridget Cappel and Heather Weirich, tenors Jonathan VanKuren and Myles Garver, and baritones Sam Parkinson and Erik Larson. This prestigious discovery and training program is led by Fort Worth Opera's Coordinator of Educational Outreach, Sheran Goodspeed Keyton, and David Gately, Director of the TCU Opera Studio.

Following an exciting kickoff at Bryant Park, the Carnegie Hall Citywide free concert series continues this fall with a vocal recital and jazz in Manhattan, Cuban son and Greek dance in Brooklyn, Afrobeat and Afro-Cuban music in the Bronx, and honky-tonk and Broadway hits in Queens. The series, now entering its 43rd year, brings leading artists and rising stars to all five boroughs of New York City.

San Francisco Opera today announced a cast change for Gaetano Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, opening September 8 and running for six performances through September 27. Romanian-American baritone Andrew G. Manea will perform the role of the Duke of Nottingham, replacing Artur Rucinski who has withdrawn due to lung injuries sustained in a serious bicycling accident involving a car in his native Poland. He is expected to make a full recovery. Rucinski deeply regrets having to withdraw but looks forward to returning to San Francisco Opera in the future.

The Metropolitan Opera Guild today announced that the honoree of the 84th Annual Guild Luncheon will be legendary soprano Anna Netrebko. The celebration will take place on Friday, October 26th at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City.

The Metropolitan Opera Guild today announced that the honoree of the 84th Annual Guild Luncheon will be legendary soprano Anna Netrebko. The celebration will take place on Friday, October 26th at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City.

Throughout the upcoming 2018-2019 season, the Carnegie Hall Citywide concert series will bring more than thirty free performances by top classical, jazz, world, and popular music artists to seventeen different venues across New York City. Presented in partnership with local community organizations, Carnegie Hall Citywide showcases outstanding mainstage artists and rising stars across a wide variety of genres, tapping into the pulse of the city and bringing people together to share in the joy of music. Formerly known as Carnegie Hall's Neighborhood Concerts, the newly-named series builds on Carnegie Hall's tradition of bringing free performances to New York City neighborhoods for more than forty years.

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson announced that the company's 2018 Summer Festival will feature new productions of four operas at The Spa Little Theatre in Spa State Park, along with a wide variety of free and ticketed concert events from May 26 through July 15 at venues throughout the region.

After a national search, Florida Grand Opera (FGO) has chosen three new singers for the 2018-19 FGO Studio. One of the most respected and highly competitive studio programs in the nation, the FGO Studio, led by Artistic Directors Diana Soviero and Bernard Uzan, provides comprehensive career development to emerging artists who have demonstrated potential to make major contributions to the field of opera

Scott Wheeler's opera, The Sorrows of Frederick, will be seen at Brooklyn's Irondale Center on Friday, May 18, 2018, at 8pm. Act 1 of this two-act opera is being presented as part of Center for Contemporary Opera's Development Series. The libretto is by Romulus Linney. Mark Shapiro conducts and Beth Greenberg is the stage director with Keith Phares singing the title role of Frederick.

Soprano Nadine Sierra has been named the winner of the 13th annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera. The $50,000 award, the largest of its kind in the United States, is given to extraordinarily gifted singers between the ages of 25 and 40 who have already appeared in featured solo roles at the Met. The award, given in honor of Beverly Sills, was established in 2006 by an endowment gift from the late Agnes Varis, a managing director on the Met board. In 2009 Sierra became the youngest ever winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and has gone on to make her mark at the Met with memorable performances in Verdi's Rigoletto, and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Idomeneo and Don Giovanni. In the Met's 2018-19 season, Sierra will reprise the role of Gilda in Rigoletto.

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson announced the complete casting and programming for the company's 2018 Summer Festival, which will feature new productions of four operas at The Spa Little Theater in Spa State Park, along with a wide variety of free and ticketed concert events from May 26th through July 15th at venues throughout the region. Single tickets, as well as subscription packages, are on sale now at www.operasaratoga.org.

Award-winning actor/director Frank Ferrante re-creates his acclaimed New York and London stage portrayal celebrating America's greatest comedian - Groucho Marx.  You will feel as though Groucho is back, as Ferrante sings, dances and performs classic routines on the North Coast Rep stage, April 23 & 24 at 7:30pm.

Just about the most spectacular opera event of the season so far arrived at Carnegie Hall Sunday afternoon, with the English Concert and Harry Bicket making their annual foray into Handel territory, with a superb RINALDO.

On Tuesday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall, acclaimed American tenor Lawrence Brownlee presents the New York premiere of Cycles of My Being, a new song cycle composed by Tyshawn Sorey with lyrics by Terrance Hayes that explores the realities of life as a black man in America. Brownlee—hailed as one of “the world's leading bel canto tenors” by the Associated Press—is conducted by composer Tyshawn Sorey and joined by violinist Randall Goosby, cellist Khari Joyner, clarinetist Alexander Laing, and pianist Kevin Miller for Cycles of My Being, which is co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall as part of the Hall's 125 Commissions Project. The program opens with Schumann's Dichterliebe, to be performed alongside pianist Myra Huang.

I spoke recently with Elaine Alvarez who will be singing the lead role this weekend in the San Diego Opera's production of Florencia en el Amazonas by Mexican composer Daniel Catan and librettist Marcela Fuentes-Berain. Alvarez told me that when she got a call from the San Diego Opera's General Director David Bennett, 'I was at a train station in France, and it was cold. I started jumping up and down! And he was like, 'Do you think you're going to be ready to sing this? Is this in line now with where your voice is.' And I'm like, a hundred percent! Yes! Yes! Yes!' Spanish was her first language, Florencia appealed to her Latin heritage, and she knew her voice was ready. She'd sung Beatrice in Catan's earlier opera Rappaccini's Daughter and was delighted with the opportunity to make her San Diego debut with another of his works.

The New York Choral Society (NYCHORAL) will hold its annual Spring Gala at New York's Metropolitan Club (1 E 60th St, New York, NY 10022) on Thursday evening, April 5, 2018, starting at 6:00 pm. The organization will honor renowned opera singer and recitalist Stephanie Blythe with the NYCHORAL Music Excellence Award for her contributions to the musical profession, as well as Sylvia R. Hoisington who is celebrating her 50th season with the chorus. Produced in partnership with the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, the evening's showcase performance will feature soprano Amanda Majeski and tenor Ben Bliss, both of whom will be participating in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Cosi fan tutte from March 15 to April 9, 2018. Members of the NYCHORAL Chamber Ensemble will also perform. The evening will feature a silent auction of unique items and experiences. The program is as follows:

The New York Choral Society (NYCHORAL) will hold its annual Spring Gala at New York's Metropolitan Club (1 E 60th St, New York, NY 10022) on Thursday evening, April 5, 2018, starting at 6:00 pm.

Carnegie Hall announced today that its one-night-only benefit concert performance of Leonard Bernstein's Candide on Wednesday, April 18 at 7:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage will feature Broadway starsRyan Silverman (Side Show, Cry-Baby,Chicago) as Maximilian and Bryonha Marie Parham (The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, AfterMidnight, Prince of Broadway) as Paquette. They join the previously announced Paul Appleby (Candide), Erin Morley (Cunegonde),Patricia Racette (Old Lady), William Burden(Governor), and John Lithgow (Voltaire / Dr. Pangloss).

Academy Award-nominee, Angela Bassett will join Kathleen Battle as a guest narrator in Battle's program Underground Railroad: A Spiritual Journey accompanied by pianist Joel Martin and the LA-based choir, The Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya) on Thursday, March 29 at 8:00pm.

REPRISE 2.0 is now announced, presenting a season of three classic American musicals at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, by Marcia Seligson, Producing Artistic Director of the new performing arts organization.  REPRISE 2.0 is partnering with the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television's Department of Theater (UCLA TFT), chaired by Brian Kite.