Matthew Polenzani News

Following a successful season presenting The Met Opera Live in HD, three extraordinary productions return to the big screen at The Ridgefield Playhouse as part of their Summer Encore Series, including the blockbuster hit The Merry Widow.

    Following a successful season presenting The Met Opera Live in HD, three extraordinary productions return to the big screen at The Ridgefield Playhouse as part of their Summer Encore Series, including the blockbuster hit The Merry Widow.  On Friday, July 24, at 7:00 p.m. it's Willy Decker's stunning production of Verdi's La Traviata, starring the riveting singing actress Natalie Dessay as Violetta.  Matthew Polenzani is Alfredo Germont, the young man from a good family who risks everything for Violetta. Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Giorgio Germont, Alfredo's father. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.  On Friday,

Visit here to find a theater near you showing this summer encore on July 8. 

The Metropolitan Opera's annual Summer HD Festival, which presents free outdoor screenings of operas on Lincoln Center Plaza each summer, will return with 10 screenings of performances featuring the company's leading artists in a varied selection of operas by Bartók, Bizet, Gounod, Mozart, Offenbach, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, and Verdi, running on consecutive nights from August 29 through September 7.

WHO:  Music Director Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Chorus, prepared by Chorus Director Duain Wolfe, and soloists soprano Camilla Nylund, mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova, tenor Matthew Polenzani, and bass-baritone Eric Owens

The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago celebrates its 40th season with its annual Rising Stars in Concert program tonight, March 21, at 7:30pm at the Civic Opera House. The talented singers and pianist of the 2014-15 ensemble will perform with members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra in works of Bellini, Berg, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Donizetti, Floyd, Gounod, Handel, Korngold, Mozart, Puccini, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Rossini. Rising Stars in Concert is offered in celebration of an exceptionally successful year of study and performance for these up-and-coming artists.

The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago celebrates its 40th season with its annual Rising Stars in Concert program Saturday, March 21, at 7:30pm at the Civic Opera House. The talented singers and pianist of the 2014-15 ensemble will perform with members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra in works of Bellini, Berg, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Donizetti, Floyd, Gounod, Handel, Korngold, Mozart, Puccini, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Rossini. Rising Stars in Concert is offered in celebration of an exceptionally successful year of study and performance for these up-and-coming artists.

Lyric Opera general director Anthony Freud announced that the stage of the Civic Opera House has been named for Kenneth G. Pigott, who served as Lyric's president and CEO from 2011 until his death on February 13.

Lyric Opera of Chicago invites the public to join the Lyric Opera family as we celebrate the life of Kenneth G. Pigott, who served as president and CEO of Lyric Opera of Chicago from 2011 until his death in February 2015.

Lyric Opera of Chicago invites the public to join the Lyric Opera family as we celebrate the life of Kenneth G. Pigott, who served as president and CEO of Lyric Opera of Chicago from 2011 until his death in February 2015.

The winners of the 44th annual George London Foundation Awards Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers were announced at the conclusion of the competition's final round this evening, which took place in a front of a capacity audience at Gilder Lehrman Hall at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

Baritone Quinn Kelsey has been named the recipient of the tenth 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 designated for extraordinarily gifted singers between the ages of 25 and 40 who have already appeared in featured solo roles at the Met.

After a season's hiatus, the popular and critically-acclaimed Art of the Song series returns to Alice Tully with recitals by four luminous vocal artists.

A beautiful mechanical doll. An irresistible courtesan. A visit from beyond the grave-or is it just an illusion? All these, plus an imaginative hero who never gets the girl, show up in The Met's new production of Jacques Offenbach's masterwork. Les Contes d'Hoffman has been inspired by a variety of influences that reflect the opera's multiple dramatic layers-including Kafka, classic Hollywood cinema, and even Woody Allen. Town Hall Theater will broadcast this new production today, January 31st at 1pm.

A beautiful mechanical doll. An irresistible courtesan. A visit from beyond the grave-or is it just an illusion? All these, plus an imaginative hero who never gets the girl, show up in The Met's new production of Jacques Offenbach's masterwork. Les Contes d'Hoffman has been inspired by a variety of influences that reflect the opera's multiple dramatic layers-including Kafka, classic Hollywood cinema, and even Woody Allen. Town Hall Theater will broadcast this new production on Saturday, January 31st at 1pm.

Over three days of preliminary auditions on February 23-25, 2015, 90 of the best young American and Canadian opera singers will compete to reach the final round of the 44th annual George London Foundation Awards Competition.

After a season's hiatus, the popular and critically-acclaimed Art of the Song series returns to Alice Tully with recitals by four luminous vocal artists.

Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann will return to the Met stage January 12, with Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo in his first company performances of the title role, a poet whose attempts at romance are repeatedly thwarted.

Summer saw the passing of two of opera's most iconic figures: Licia Albanese, at the age of 105, and Carlo Bergonzi, at 90.