Matthew Polenzani News

The George London Foundation for Singers has been honoring, supporting, and presenting the finest young opera singers in the U.S. and Canada since 1971.

Kristine Opolais stars in her first Met performances of her breakthrough role, the title character in Antonin Dvoák's Rusalka, in a critically acclaimed new staging, directed by Mary Zimmerman and conducted by Mark Elder, on GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET Sunday, June 18 at 12 p.m. on PBS

Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan opera is divine.I had the wonderful opportunity to experience Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera (Lincoln Center NYC) this week. Well, the Met did it again! With a perfect, minimalist set, great costumes, creative choreography, and the perfect cast, this is an entertaining, beautiful and fun performance: Only the Met can provide such a top notch rendition of this famous classic.

Beginning Wednesday, June 21, the Met will present Summer Encores, featuring select performances from the groundbreaking Live in HD series, in more than 300 movie theaters across the United States. The 2017 Summer Encores series offers screenings of four popular Live in HD transmissions: Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de Perles (June 21), Verdi's Macbeth (June 28), Verdi's Nabucco (July 12), and Bizet's Carmen (July 19).

On Saturday, May 13 at 12:30pm, the Peterborough Players will present a live streamed broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's production of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. 

For a new production that was supposed to mark a farewell for soprano Renee Fleming to a role (the Marschallin) if not to staged opera performance in general, Robert Carsen's version of Richard Strauss's DER ROSENKAVALIER at the Met seemed more of a farce and less a tale of regret about passing time than usual. And the “star” role seemed more of an aside than the center of it all.

Richard Tucker Music Foundation named soprano Nadine Sierra as winner of 2017 Richard Tucker Award; simultanously, it announced its roster of study and career grant recipients.

Soprano Nadine Sierra - who at 28 years old is already establishing herself as a fixture at many of the world's leading opera houses, including those of Paris, Milan, Berlin, and New York - was named today by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation as the winner of the 2017 Richard Tucker Award.

More than 400 opera aficionados and performers - including opera stars Harolyn Blackwell, Lauren Flanigan, Ailyn Perez, Diana Soviero, Teresa Stratas and surprise presenter Renee Fleming, were among those who attended the 12th Annual OPERA NEWS Awards at The Plaza Hotel last night.

More than 400 opera aficionados and performers - including opera stars Harolyn Blackwell, Lauren Flanigan, Ailyn Perez, Diana Soviero, Teresa Stratas and surprise presenter Renee Fleming, were among those who attended the 12th Annual OPERA NEWS Awards at The Plaza Hotel last night.

Renee Fleming sings her final performances of one of her signature roles as the Marschallin in the Met's new production of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, opening April 13. Robert Carsen directs the new production-the company's first new staging of the piece since 1969-with Sebastian Weigle conducting all performances. The starry cast includes El?na Garan?a in her company role debut as the Marschallin's young lover, Octavian, opposite Erin Morley as Sophie, the innocent young woman who comes between Marschallin and Octavian; Gunther Groissbock as Baron Ochs, the Marschallin's oafish cousin; Marcus Bruck in his Met debut as Sophie's father Faninal; and Matthew Polenzani as the Italian Singer. Kathleen Kim sings Sophie in the April 28 and May 1 performances.  

Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen returns to Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage after nearly 20 years to conduct The MET Orchestra in three concerts this May and June. The first concert in the series, on Wednesday, May 31, at 8:00 p.m., features an all-Mahler program with mezzo-soprano Susan Graham and tenor Matthew Polenzani singing selections from Des Knaben Wunderhorn alongside Symphony No. 1 in D Major. On Saturday, June 3 at 3:00 p.m., Maestro Salonen leads the orchestra in Schumann's Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 97, 'Rhenish' alongside Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, featuring mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill and tenor Stuart Skelton. For the final concert in The MET Orchestra series, on Tuesday, June 6 at 8:00 p.m., Mr. Salonen conducts Mahler'sBlumine and Kindertotenlieder, featuring mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. Also on the program is Sibelius's Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 105 and his Violin Concerto in D Minor, featuring guest soloist Christian Tetzlaff. Mr. Salonen last conducted in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage in 1998.

After a lavishly praised star turn in Washington National Opera's revival of Dead Man Walking this winter, Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham turns to a U.S. tour in April of her equally successful and wide-ranging recital program, “Frauenliebe und -leben: Variations,” inspired by and centered on Schumann's iconic song cycle, with longtime recital partner Malcolm Martineau. She also joins a cast of the world's greatest opera luminaries to celebrate the Metropolitan Opera House's 50 Years at Lincoln Center in an Anniversary Gala; performs selections from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Met Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen in Carnegie Hall; and sings Berlioz's La mort de Cléopâtre, a staple of her signature French repertoire, with the San Antonio Symphony.

James Levine, Christoph Eschenbach, Gustavo Dudamel, Susanna Malkki, Kent Nagano, a "virtual" Esa-Pekka Salonen, and three conductors making Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts take the podium. 

In addition to the previously announced artists appearing at the Met's 50th Anniversary at Lincoln Center Gala on May 7, singers slated to appear include Stephanie Blythe, Joseph Calleja, Dwayne Croft, David Daniels, Yusif Eyvazov, Vittorio Grigolo, Christopher Job, Latonia Moore, Yunpeng Wang, and Dolora Zajick.

The Warner Theatre's 2016-17 Met Opera Live in HD Season continues with Mozart's IDOMENEO in the Nancy Marine Studio Theatre on Saturday, March 25 at 12:55 pm. A complimentary, 45 minute pre-opera lecture by Dr. Marguerite Mullee will be offered to all ticket holders in the Nancy Marine Studio Lobby at 11:00 am.

No one can accuse the Met of skimping when it put together its current revival of Mozart's opera seria IDOMENEO. Yes, the production's 35 years old, but with this cast, it hardly mattered: tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, elegant and Mozartian to the nth degree, the suave and poignant mezzo Alice Coote as his son, Idamante, and the pristine, gorgeous soprano Nadine Sierra as Ilia, the captured Trojan princess, under Music Director Emeritus James Levine. But it was the fourth of the leading players, the full-bodied lyric soprano Elza van den Heever, as Elettra, who blew the roof off.

Sonya Yoncheva brings her acclaimed interpretation of the doomed courtesan Violetta Valery to Live in HD audiences for the first time, opposite rising American tenor Michael Fabiano as her lover, Alfredo.  Don't miss a LIVE in HD transmission of The Met Opera's La Traviata on Today, March 11 at 12:55 p.m. as part of the Craig's Fine Jewelry Live in HD Series.  Violetta, a young and consumptive courtesan is exhausted after years of service, and wants nothing better than to relax and enjoy the time that she has left, free and footloose from men and worries. However, a chance meeting at a party she hosts, with the handsome yet naive Alfredo sees her question her existence and her loneliness without a lover to call her own. She encourages his love.

In our time, IDOMENEO is the earliest of Mozart's operas regularly done, its full title being IDOMENEO, RE DI CRETA OSSIA ILIA E IDAMANTE--or IDOMENEO, KING OF CRETE, OR ILIA AND IDAMANTE. “Ilia” of the extended title is the daughter of Priam, the king of Troy. (“Idamante” is Idomeneo's son.) At the Met starting this week, Ilia is being sung by the skyrocketing young American soprano, Nadine Sierra.

Sonya Yoncheva brings her acclaimed interpretation of the doomed courtesan Violetta Valery to Live in HD audiences for the first time, opposite rising American tenor Michael Fabiano as her lover, Alfredo.  Don't miss a LIVE in HD transmission of The Met Opera's La Traviata on Saturday, March 11 at 12:55 p.m. as part of the Craig's Fine Jewelry Live in HD Series.  Violetta, a young and consumptive courtesan is exhausted after years of service, and wants nothing better than to relax and enjoy the time that she has left, free and footloose from men and worries. However, a chance meeting at a party she hosts, with the handsome yet naive Alfredo sees her question her existence and her loneliness without a lover to call her own. She encourages his love.