New York City Opera News

The British Theatre Academy is to produce Disney's My Son Pinocchio Jr. as part of its second annual summer season takeover at Southwark Playhouse.

Bay Street Theater is pleased to announce the cast and creative team for the first show of the 2019 Mainstage Season. The World Premiere of THE PROMPTER (May 28- June 16) a new comedy by Wade Dooley; will be directed by Scott Schwartz, Bay Street Theater's Artistic Director.

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts presents Inna Faliks, piano, one of the most "adventurous and passionate" (The New Yorker) artists of her generation, performing a world premiere by Richard Danielpour and works by Rodion Shchedrin, Schumann and Chopin in her Wallis debut on Sunday, May 12, 2019, 7 pm, in The Wallis' Bram Goldsmith Theater. The Ukrainian-born American pianist gives the world premiere of Iranian-American composer Danielpour's Eleven Bagatelles for Piano, Shchedrin's Basso Ostinato, Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasie, Op 61, and Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, Op 13, with posthumous variations. Faliks, Head of Piano at UCLA, performs on leading stages around the globe, garnering acclaim for her musical "poetry and panoramic vision" (The Washington Post) and "riveting passion" (The Baltimore Sun). Grammy winner Danielpour is "an outstanding composer" (New York Daily News) and one of the most recorded composers of his generation with a list of commissions from Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Dawn Upshaw, Emanuel Ax, the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Guarneri and Emerson string quartets, among many others. Like Faliks, he also teaches at UCLA, as Co-Area Head, Composition.

At each Wednesday Bryant Park Dance Party event, audiences will learn basic steps with expert instructors from 6pm to 7pm by the Bryant Park Fountain, then get the chance to test out their new moves to the hot sounds of live music as performed by some of the New York City's best dance bands from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.

New York City Opera has announced that Blythe Gaissert & Michael Kelly and Briana Elyse Hunter & Jorell Williams will comprise the rotating casts of its upcoming production of AS ONE.

Join the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra and the University of Michigan's University Musical Society Choral Union on April 27th at 8:00 PM in Ann Arbor's Hill Auditorium for a season finale performance of Beethoven's monumental Symphony No. 9.

Was the pairing of Iain Bell and Mark Campbell--respectively, composer and librettist of New York City Opera's (NYCO) world premiere STONEWALL--'love at first sight”? I asked them. We were at the workshop in New York earlier this month that allowed them and director Leonard Foglia to cross the t's and dot the i's (and hear their new work performed).

Following yesterday's highly competitive semifinal competition, nine singers will advance to the final phase of the 65th annual Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, America's largest vocal competition. The winners will receive individual cash prizes of $15,000, while the remaining finalists will receive prizes of $7,500.

In a sure sign that Spring has finally arrived, Bryant Park is proud to announce its first free-to-the-public outdoor performance of the season on Tuesday, April 23 with the Sixth Annual Shakespeare Birthday Celebration, a 455th birthday party for The Bard. Bryant Park welcomes back one of New York's most beloved theater companies, The Drilling Company (TDC), renowned for their Shakespeare in the Parking Lot series. As longtime Bardolators know, William Shakespeare is believed to have both born and died on the same date: April 23. Fittingly, this event will show all sides of Shakespeare's talents, including his role as a musical inspiration.

The John Eaton Foundation presents a very special concert to honor the beloved late composer on what would have been his 84th birthday on Saturday, March 30th at 8pm at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space. Celebrating John Eaton's Legacy will feature John Eaton's Sor Juana Songs as well as premieres and works by former students Richard Cameron-Wolfe, Winnie Cheung, Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, Carol Ann Weaver, Marc Satterwhite, Eugene O'Brien, Patricia Morehead, Judith Sainte Croix and Randolph Peters. Produced by Nelda Nelson-Eaton & Alanna Maharajh Stone. Admission is free. Donations to The John Eaton Foundation are welcome: https://johneatonfoundation.org/

This Spring marks the start of the 36th season of the Verdi Chorus, who will present their Spring Concert, L'Amore e la Vita (Love and Life) for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on April 6 and 7. Led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum, the Verdi Chorus is the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily on the dramatic and diverse music for opera chorus. This program, which Ketchum humorously calls the Rom-Com of opera, will feature selections from two Verdi operas I vespri siciliani and Ernani, three Donizetti operas - Don Pasquale, La fille du r giment and L'elisir d'amore, as well as operatic sequences from Bizet's Les p cheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), Delibes' Lakm , and Puccini's La rondine.

Three of LA's most acclaimed musicians will share their personal stories at Bravissima! Jewish Women in Music at The Braid, home of Jewish Women's Theatre (JWT) in Santa Monica on April 7 from 10 a.m. to noon. 

Next week, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club & Private Event Destination, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.

Can opera be a medium for social commentary and change? I've been thinking about this lately--or, more accurately, yet again--since attending a preview of the new Jeanne Tesori-Tazewell Thompson opera, BLUE, which was part of the Guggenheim Museum's fascinating Works & Process series. The performance of excerpts and roundtable with its creators were part of preparations for the work's world premiere this summer at the Glimmerglass Festival.

A moving voyage through the sounds of the Black American experience returns to Aaron Davis Hall as City College Center for the Arts (CCCA) presents "A Soulful Music Celebration" on Saturday, April 6, at 3 p.m. The event, featuring Marvin Lowe and Friends and narrated by Obie-award winning actress Barbara Montgomery will take audiences on a journey through the music created by Africans and African-Americans in response to their trials and triumphs over the centuries. The soulful trek also seeks to inspire contemporary listeners to use their own voices to create change and help unite all people in these trying times.

The New York Pops, led by Music Director and Conductor Steven Reineke, gives a concert entitled Movie Mixtape: Songs from the Silver Screen, today, March 15 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall, joined by acclaimed vocalists Mykal Kilgore, Storm Large, Ashley Park, and Ryan Silverman. The orchestra performs iconic songs from beloved movies include 'Over the Rainbow' from The Wizard of Oz, 'Moon River' from Breakfast at Tiffany's, 'The Way We Were' from The Way We Were, and 'Footloose' from Footloose.

Chicago Opera Theater's Orli and Bill Staley Music Director Lidiya Yankovskaya and Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson General Director Ashley Magnus today announced the plans for the company's 47th season, to include productions of two exciting contemporary operas, a Chicago premiere by Rachmaninov, and the company's second world premiere commission. Yankovskaya will conduct each of these Chicago Opera Theater (COT) productions.

Long Beach Opera (LBO) premieres Philip Glass' In the Penal Colony in collaboration with California Repertory Company (CalRep) April 25 (sold out), 26, 27 (sold out), at 7:30 PM; April 28 (sold out), at 2:30 PM; May 2, 3, 4, at 7:30 PM; and May 5 (sold out), at 2:30PM at the CSULB Studio Theater, 1250 N. Bellflower Blvd. Long Beach, CA 90815. Performed in English.

Principal Guest Conductor David Charles Abell returns to his hometown of Philadelphia for Cole Porter's Broadway: Too Darn Hot, the explosive penultimate performance of The Philly POPS 40th Anniversary Season, April 12-14 at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. 

Twenty-eight performers selected to compete for a chance to win top prizes of $20,000, $15,000, and $10,000; total prizes to exceed $75,000; an all-star team of musical theater, opera, and Kurt Weill experts to adjudicate semifinals and finals.