Seattle Opera's 50th Anniversary season continues with The Consul, a riveting Cold-War thriller coming to McCaw Hall for the first time. In this tale, an inhuman bureaucracy poses a formidable obstacle for a woman desperate to flee a totalitarian state with her family. Menotti's intensely human score won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1950, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Musical Play and played for more than 100 performances on Broadway. Seattle Opera's production, which features several leading alumni of the Seattle Opera Young Artists Program, opens on Saturday, February 22, and runs for seven performances through Friday, March 7.
On the occasion of composer Benjamin Britten's centennial, the Met will present its first performances of his 1960 opera A Midsummer Night's Dream in more than a decade. James Conlon leads his first Met performances of the opera, which is directed by Tim Albery in a revival of his acclaimed 1996 production.
SHOW BOAT is back in an appealing production by the Washington National Opera. The Kennedy Center Opera House is a fitting berth for Captain Andy's Cotton Blossom and the happy/troubled show folk who make it their home. Boasting a cast and chorus of 100, WNO's SHOW BOAT allows the story to roll along the 40-year time span and the glorious music to enthrall the audience once again.
Michael Todd Simpson will sing the role of Escamillo in The Glimmerglass Festival's production of Carmen beginning July 15, replacing Keith Miller who has withdrawn from the role. The new Anne Bogart-directed production runs through August 23 in the Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown, New York.
