Massimo Zanetti News

Tradition, a desire to embrace the new and the ever increasing international profile are the predominant features of the 2016 edition of the Festival Verdi in Parma and Busseto. This year's festival, returning for the month of October (www.festivalverdi.it), will be dedicated to the German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller, who has always been a source of inspiration and subject matter for Italian composers throughout time, including above all Giuseppe Verdi.

Beloved director, producer, screenwriter and actor Martin Scorsese was honored by the Friars Club with their highest tribute last night, and BroadwayWorld brings you photos from the evening below! The Entertainment Icon Award was given to Scorsese, whose career spans more than 50 years, and who will be one of only a handful of recipients of the award in the Club's 100-year history.

Millions of college students returning to campus this month will likely have a single-serve coffee brewer among furnishings for their dorm rooms and apartments. As a result, students will contribute to the estimated 10 billion plastic brew cups discarded annually into the country's landfills*.

CHICAGO, April 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ American consumers will be introduced to the first certified 100 percent compostable single-serve coffee pod on Earth Day (Friday, April 22) in Chicago.

Tradition, a desire to embrace the new and the ever increasing international profile are the predominant features of the 2016 edition of the Festival Verdi in Parma and Busseto. This year's festival, returning for the month of October (www.festivalverdi.it), will be dedicated to the German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller, who has always been a source of inspiration and subject matter for Italian composers throughout time, including above all Giuseppe Verdi.

Tradition, a desire to embrace the new and the ever increasing international profile are the predominant features of the 2016 edition of the Festival Verdi in Parma and Busseto. This year's festival, returning for the month of October (www.festivalverdi.it), will be dedicated to the German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller, who has always been a source of inspiration and subject matter for Italian composers throughout time, including above all Giuseppe Verdi.

The Minnesota Opera kicks off its 2015 – 2016 season at the Ordway Music Theater on September 26, 2015, with Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, the company's first production of this meltingly beautiful — yet hilarious — work since 1987.

Otello. Aida. Don Carlo. The comparisons are irresistible.

Overheard at the opening night intermission of SD Opera's glittering production of Verdi's 'A Masked Ball': 'The music is really good.' Love and death, jealousy and revenge, assassination and intrigue, culminating in a dazzle of song, dance, and a shower of sparkling gold...

A Wagner-loving cat and a childhood listening to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts influenced Lesley Koenig's eventual plunge into the world of opera.

What's it like to be the most beautiful, most desired young woman who throws the wildest parties in all of Paris - and to be losing your life just as true love finally finds you? Welcome to the glittering, dark, hope-filled, doomed world of the Parisian demimonde, where the romantic tragedy of Verdi's La Traviata takes place.

Lyric Opera of Chicago's new production of Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata, opening on November 20 and continuing for nine more performances through December 20, will be performed absolutely complete, general director Anthony Freud announced today. Beginning with the company's inaugural season (1954), the work has been presented by Lyric in 13 seasons, but never with every note of Verdi's score included.

On November 20, Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja-Gramophone magazine's 2012 Artist of the Year-returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago to headline La traviata in an incisive new production from Princess Grace Award-winning director Arin Arbus (Nov 20-Dec 20). The tenor's most recent appearance at the venerable company was opposite Anna Netrebko in La boheme last season, when he "restored powerful and idiomatic singing to the character of Rodolfo" (Chicago Sun-Times), and justly "earned the torrent of applause he received" (Chicago Tribune). In October, Calleja released Amore, his latest album for Decca Classics. Drawing inspiration from legendary tenors-including Enrico Caruso, whom Calleja plays in James Gray's upcoming film The Immigrant, Amore includes such favorites as "Besame Mucho," "La Vie en Rose," "Time to Say Goodbye," and "You Raise Me Up."

What's it like to be the most beautiful, most desired young woman who throws the wildest parties in all of Paris - and to be losing your life just as true love finally finds you? Welcome to the glittering, dark, hope-filled, doomed world of the Parisian demimonde, where the romantic tragedy of Verdi's La Traviata takes place.

Lyric's fabulous 2013-14 season is about to begin! To help audiences make the most of their opera experience, Lyric Opera of Chicago offers an array of lectures, tours, galas, and other special events during its 59th season, September through May. Please take note of these highlights for your season-preview coverage and calendar listings.

Single tickets go on sale to the general public today, Aug. 1, for Lyric Opera of Chicago's 59th season.

Today, the iconic Chock full o'Nuts coffee brand launches an online photo contest titled, “Get Back to What's Good.” The grand prize: an exciting three-night trip to New York City and the possibility for your photo to be the next Chock full o'Nuts ad.

This spring, Thomas Hampson's U.S. engagements take him from opera house to concert and recital hall, and from Verdi and Mahler to the latest in contemporary American composition. The baritone makes his company role debut as Iago in Otello at the Metropolitan Opera (March 11) and premieres new chamber works by Michael Hersch (Feb 26) and Mark Adamo (April 24), before touring the latter to the Boston Celebrity Series (April 26) and New York's Lincoln Center (April 28). Besides singing songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Indianapolis Symphony (Feb 22-23), his orchestral collaborations also take him back to Europe to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a star-studded gala benefit (April 10) and reprise the title role of Simon Boccanegra with the Vienna Symphony, in a concert performance that will be recorded for future album release (April 13 & 17).

Lyric Opera of Chicago and its general director, Anthony Freud, announced the lineup for Lyric's 2013-14 season today. Joseph Calleja, Joyce DiDonato, Nathan Gunn, Thomas Hampson, Ana Maria Martinez, Matthew Polenzani, and Patricia Racette are among those headlining the new season's offerings. These comprise 67 performances of eight different operas, beginning October 5, 2013 and concluding March 23, 2014: new productions of Parsifal, La traviata, The Barber of Seville, and Rusalka (Lyric premiere); a revival of Otello; and new-to-Chicago stagings of Madama Butterfly, Die Fledermaus, and La clemenza di Tito. Lyric's music director, Sir Andrew Davis, will lead three operas, and guest conductors Marco Armiliato, Bertrand de Billy and Michele Mariotti will make their house debuts. Additionally, Lyric will present a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music in the spring of 2014, continuing the company's American Musical Theater Initiative, and Davis will conduct a special Subscriber Appreciation Concert in March featuring Lyric's creative consultant - the star soprano Renee Fleming - with tenor Jonas Kaufmann.

Lyric Opera of Chicago and its general director, Anthony Freud, announced the lineup for Lyric's 2013-14 season today. Joseph Calleja, Joyce DiDonato, Nathan Gunn, Thomas Hampson, Ana Maria Martinez, Matthew Polenzani, and Patricia Racette are among those headlining the new season's offerings. These comprise 67 performances of eight different operas, beginning October 5, 2013 and concluding March 23, 2014: new productions of Parsifal, La traviata, The Barber of Seville, and Rusalka (Lyric premiere); a revival of Otello; and new-to-Chicago stagings of Madama Butterfly, Die Fledermaus, and La clemenza di Tito. Lyric's music director, Sir Andrew Davis, will lead three operas, and guest conductors Marco Armiliato, Bertrand de Billy and Michele Mariotti will make their house debuts. Additionally, Lyric will present a new production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music in the spring of 2014, continuing the company's American Musical Theater Initiative, and Davis will conduct a special Subscriber Appreciation Concert in March featuring Lyric's creative consultant - the star soprano Renee Fleming - with tenor Jonas Kaufmann.