Mark Campbell News

San Francisco Opera Tad and Dianne Taube General Director Matthew Shilvock announced today that the Company's 2020 Summer Season, scheduled to take place June 7a?"July 3 at the War Memorial Opera House, has been canceled. Ongoing developments in the global effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including orders by the City of San Francisco to shelter in place through at least May 3, as well as other state and federal travel restrictions and safety measures, prohibit the Company's ability to prepare, build, rehearse and perform this summer.

Three World Premiere English-language opera productions are available for livestream on the American Opera Project website, www.aopopera.org.

Fort Worth Opera will host free YouTube Premieres and Facebook Watch Parties of the operas Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World on April 16 and 18, and Feel the Tango on April 23 and 25, 2020.

On Site Opera, New York's pioneer opera company rooted in site-specific storytelling and the immersive experience, announced today a three week initiative to bring industry operatic giants from their Artistic Advisory Council together to initiate discussions across multiple areas of focus. Established in the Fall of 2019, the diverse Council was assembled to bring together artists to steer the organization into new levels of exploration and growth.

Fort Worth Opera (FWO) announced today the creation of FWO Arts-In-Place.

The Dramatists Guild Opera Committee has shared exclusive footage of an interview with Terrence McNally.

The following is information on concert cancellations and postponements for:

On Wednesday, March 18 at 7 pm, Princeton-based composer and conversationalist extraordinaire Julian Grant tells all­­a?"or maybe just enougha?"about his life, travels, and musical adventures in China and Central Asia at a free Soundtracks talk at the Princeton Public Library. While living in Hong Kong, he hosted a classical music radio show. He also lived in Tokyo and, from 2007-10, in Beijing, where he worked with the Beijing New Music Ensemble and attempted to master the yang qin (butterfly harp). This immersion in learning a traditional Chinese instrument proved to be the genesis of a suite of music titled a?"a??a??a?? (Five Generations, One House), a work soon to be given its US premiere by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.   

On Saturday, March 21, 2020 at 8 pm and Sunday, March 22, 2020 at 4 pm, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra (PSO) welcomes virtuoso violinist Stefan Jackiw to the Richardson Auditorium stage on the campus of Princeton University. Mr. Jackiw performs Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor on a program with the US premiere of Princeton-based composer Julian Grant's work a?'a??a??a?? (Five Generations - One House) and a performance of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36 in honor of the composer's 250th birthday. Edward T. Cone Music Director Rossen Milanov conducts.

Director Glenda Pearce is known for her attention to detail and she has successfully replicated the realism of the retirement home; highlighting the atmosphere and the experiences of the diverse characters who live there and delivering the humour.

I was delighted to hear that the Oratorio Society of New York's world premiere at Carnegie Hall of SANCTUARY ROAD (Naxos 8.559884)--a work for orchestra, chorus and a quintet of soloists--had been captured on disc. Not only is the story worth bringing to a broader audience, but the magic of the work, composed by Paul Moravec with a libretto by Mark Campbell based on the writings of William Still, “a conductor for the Underground Railroad,' merits hearing over and over again.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler today announced the company's 2020-2021 season. It features four mainstage productions, including The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, both of which are being performed on a Lyric Opera of Kansas City stage for the first time. Two all-time favorites known for incomparable melodies - Verdi's beloved La traviata and Bizet's passionate Carmen - round out the extraordinarily diverse season. The Kansas City Symphony Orchestra will accompany all performances at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Find biographies of the casts and creative teams at Lyric Opera of Kansas City and find high-resolution photos here.

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.

On Monday, March 2, 2020, at Carnegie Hall, the Oratorio Society of New York performs the U.S. premiere of a new critical edition of one of the masterpieces of choral music, Brahms's A German Requiem (Ein deutsches Requiem) a?" a work that the organization gave its very first U.S. performance, more than 140 years ago. OSNY Music Director Kent Tritle conducts, and the featured soloists are Susanna Phillips, soprano, and Takaoki Onishi, baritone.

Utah Opera Artistic Director Christopher McBeth today announced the programming and creative teams for Utah Opera's 2020-21 season, sponsored by the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation.

Kent Tritle begins the new decade with his first organ recital at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in two years, Bach's St. John Passion with the Cathedral Choir, and both a new edition of Brahms's A German Requiem and the world premiere of A Nation of Others, an oratorio about Ellis Island with music by Paul Moravec and libretto by Mark Campbell, with the Oratorio Society of New York.

The Atlanta Opera has announced its 41st season. True to the vision of Tomer Zvulun, the company's Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director, the 2020-21 lineup boasts major new productions of three critically important works: Das Rheingold, one of the most iconic in the canon; The Sound of Music, one of the best-loved classics of musical theater; and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, one of contemporary opera's most palpable hits, now receiving its Southeast premiere. Together with the Atlanta premiere of As One, Steve Jobs is one of two topical and much talked-about new operas in Atlanta's award-winning Discoveries series, which breaks down barriers between artists and their audience by providing intimate, immersive experiences in nontraditional spaces.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced the Company's 98th season, which opens on September 11, 2020 with an Opening Night Celebration featuring soprano Albina Shagimuratova and tenor Pene Pati in concert with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by Music Director Designate Eun Sun Kim. Opening Night festivities include San Francisco Opera Guild's Opera Ball, BRAVO! CLUB's annual Opening Night Gala and two new events: the Opera Supper in the Veterans Building's elegant Green Room and, for the entire audience, a celebratory, post-concert toast to the season.

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??Opera Philadelphia scored a hit at O19, a?oeits increasingly essential September festivala?? (New Yorker), with the world premiere of Denis & Katya. A timely and immersive multimedia chamber opera by composer Philip Venables and librettist-director Ted Huffman, the new work was recognized with the 2019 FEDORA-GENERALI Prize for Opera and by inclusion in the New York Times's a?oeBest Classical Music of 2019.a?? Commissioned and produced in collaboration with Music Theatre Wales and Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier, now Denis & Katya makes its European debut with a tour of Wales (Feb 27a?"March 27) and dates at London's Southbank Centre (March 13 & 14), underscoring Opera Philadelphia's role as a?oea hotbed of operatic innovationa?? (New York Times) that represents a?oeone of North America's premier generators of valid new operasa?? (Opera News).

The Dramatists Guild Opera Committee's Librettist Initiative premieres the short film a?oeCredit the Librettist: Conversations with Today's Opera Makersa?? at Opera America's New Works Forum on Thursday, January 16 at 10am at the National Opera Center, 330 7th Avenue, 7th Floor, New York.