New York City Opera News

BroadwayWorld reports with great sadness the passing of Daniel Levans of a lung infection on September 15, 2015 in New York City.

San Francisco Opera today announced cast changes for the Company's new production of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, presented October 8–28, 2015, and for Mozart's The Magic Flute, presented October 20–November 20, at the War Memorial Opera House.

(Los Angeles) September 17, 2015 — LA Opera's 30th Anniversary Season will include the west coast premiere of Song from the Uproar, a new multimedia opera by Brooklyn-based composer Missy Mazzoli. This compelling new work is presented under LA Opera's Off Grand banner, which complements the company's mainstage programming through a wide variety of forms of artistic exploration. A unique combination of live music and original film, Song from the Uproar was inspired by the life and writings of early 20th-century explorer Isabelle Eberhardt. The audience witnesses key moments in her life: the death of her family, her journeys in the North African desert, her ecstatic religious conversion and, ultimately, her tragic drowning in a flash flood at the age of 27. 

MasterVoices kicks off the 2015-2016 season with The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Dutyon October 15-16, 2015 at 8pm at New York City Center, 131 W. 55th Street, New York City. Following the success of our 2012 Mikado at Carnegie Hall, MasterVoices' semi-staged presentation of The Pirates of Penzance will feature a cast of stars from the Broadway and opera worlds, along with Orchestra of St. Luke's performing Arthur Sullivan's original orchestrations under the direction of Artistic Director Ted Sperling. Single tickets are $30-$130 and are available at NYCityCenter.org.For more information visit: www.mastervoices.org/city-center-series.

Broadway quadruple threat and Bistro Award winner, Robert Creighton, recently seen as the title character in the critically lauded CAGNEY at The York Theatre Company, returned to 54 Below on Tuesday, September 15th at 7pm with AN EVENING WITH ROBERT CREIGHTON. Creighton, one of the busiest actors working in the musical theater, will sing his favorite music from the early decades of the 20th Century, along with his original songs.

Yale Repertory Theatre opens its 2015-16 season with the world premiere of INDECENT, a new play with music, written by Paula Vogel, created by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman, and directed by Rebecca Taichman, at the University Theatre (222 York Street), October 2-24. Opening Night is Thursday, October 8. The world premiere of INDECENT is a co-production with La Jolla Playhouse, where it will play November 13-December 10.

On Friday, October 9, noted orchestrator and conductor Fred Barton will bring the music of Broadway and the American Songbook to the Schimmel Center at Pace University, in American Showstoppers: An Evening of Johnny Mercer. In his seventh concert at Pace, Fred Barton now brings the power of Mercer's music and lyrics front and center, with a 14-piece orchestra and a cast of 16 Broadway singers and dancers, with direction and choreography by Scott Thompson. The cast is headlined by Damon Kirsch, Tony nominee Lee Roy Reams, two time Tony nominee Vivian Reed, Nick Spangler, Tony Nominee Lauren Worsham, and Tony Award winner Karen Ziemba. The cast also features Jesse Luttrell, Sean McGibbon and Molly Pope.

Broadway quadruple threat and Bistro Award winner, Robert Creighton, recently seen as the title character in the critically lauded CAGNEY at The York Theatre Company, returns to 54 Below tonight, September 15th, at 7pm with AN EVENING WITH ROBERT CREIGHTON.  Creighton, one of the busiest actors working in the musical theater, will sing his favorite music from the early decades of the 20th Century, along with his original songs.

ISLE of KLEZBOS, the swinging all-women's klezmer sextet, will debut at 54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, on Friday, September 25 at 9:30 PM.

One remarkable dance team. One big chance. One small twist. You gotta be over 60. Broadway In Chicago and Producers Dori Berinstein and Bill Damaschke announced the individual tickets for GOTTA DANCE, the new Broadway-bound musical about professional basketball's first ever aged 60-and-older dance team, go on-sale to the public on Sunday, September 13. GOTTA DANCE begins performances on December 13, 2015 and runs through January 10, 2016 at Broadway In Chicago's Bank of America Theatre (18 W Monroe St, Chicago).

Stephen Sondheim's macabre musical thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street receives its highly anticipated San Francisco Opera premiere in a production featuring a cast of notable operatic stars and performed with Sondheim's original score for the lyric stage.

The Huntington Theatre Company opens its 2015-2016 season with the Tony Award-winning musical A Little Night Music, Stephen Sondheim's most romantic and popular work, led by Tony and Olivier nominee Haydn Gwynne, as well as Broadway's Stephen Bogardus and Lauren Molina. Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois (after all the terrible things I do; Smart People; Rapture, Blister, Burn; and Becky Shaw) will direct. Performances will run tonight, September 11, through October 11, 2015 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre.

NJTV, New Jersey's public television network, and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) announced a talent-rich line-up for season three of the award-winning American Songbook at NJPAC series.

The CSO launches its 2015-16 Masterworks season with the beloved and electrifying Carmina Burana conducted by Music Director Rossen Milanov in his first full season at the helm of the orchestra.

Eric Owens will begin his tenure as The Mary and James G. Wallach Artist-in-Residence by curating, hosting, and performing in In Their Footsteps: Great African American Singers and Their Legacy, conducted by Thomas Wilkins in his Philharmonic debut.

Vancouver, BC ~  Vancouver Opera kicks off the exciting 2015-2016 season with Giuseppe Verdi's thrilling blockbuster, Rigoletto. Powerful baritone Gordon Hawkins will sing the title role, with international superstar soprano Simone Osborne as Gilda and acclaimed tenor Bruce Sledge as the Duke. Sensational melodies, heartbreaking drama and vivid characters make this dark, tender drama of love and revenge irresistible.

WILMINGTON, Del. – OperaDelaware has appointed Jason Hardy to the newly created position of Managing Director, effective Sept. 1, it was announced today.

The Play Company (PlayCo), led by Founding Producer Kate Loewald and Executive Producer Lauren Weigel celebrates its 15th Anniversary season with programming that exemplifies its unique commitment to premiering plays from around the world, including the U.S., to advance a dynamic, international experience of contemporary theater as part of the American repertoire.

David Lutken and Friends gave the Mr. Finn's Cabaret audience some great Folk/Country music last night and BroadwayWorld was there.

WASHINGTON)—Washington National Opera (WNO) today announced details for the fourth season of the American Opera Initiative, its comprehensive commissioning program that brings contemporary American stories to the stage while fostering the talents of rising American composers and librettists. Three pairings of new opera composers and librettists—Christopher Weiss and John de los Santos, David Clay Mettens and Joshua McGuire, and Sarah Hutchings and Mark Sonnenblick—will premiere new one-act operas, each based on a contemporary American story, in a semi-staged concert performance on December 2, 2015 in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Composer Luna Pearl Woolf and librettist Caitlin Vincent, an alumnus of the program's second season, will present their new hour-long work Better Gods—based on the life of Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii—on January 8 and 9, 2016 in the Terrace Theater.