Paul Curran News

Building on two previous seasons that ended “in the black,” The Dallas Opera is very proud to announce that it has maintained a balanced operating result for a third consecutive fiscal year, as of June 30, 2015. 

Following recent grand-scale stagings of Don Carlo and Nabucco it is again with Verdi that Opera Philadelphia makes its first appearance of the season at the Academy of Music, with the American premiere of a stylish new production of La traviata from award-winning Scottish director Paul Curran.  Highlighted by a black-tie Opening Night Gala (Friday, Oct. 2), and a free HD broadcast in Independence National Historical Park to mark the company's fifth annual Opera on the Mall event (Saturday, Oct. 3), Opera Philadelphia's presentation showcases the company and role debuts of Metropolitan Opera favorite Lisette Oropesa as Violetta and Grammy Award-winner Alek Shrader as Alfredo, with Music Director Corrado Rovaris, whose “ownership of Verdi rivals any of the late greats” (Opera News), at the podium. 

2015 HELPMANN AWARDS ***THIS ARTICLE WILL BE UPDATED LIVE ON MONDAY 27TH JULY 2015***

Tonight, the countdown to the 2015 HELPMANN AWARDS began with the announcement of the 2015 HELPMANN AWARDS Nominees.

Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman, whose many credits include the Tony Award-winning musicals Crazy for You, Contact, and The Producers, makes her Met debut with a lavish new staging of Lehar's effervescent operetta The Merry Widow

Acclaimed Polish film director Mariusz Treliski makes his highly anticipated Met debut with the Metropolitan Opera's new production, inspired by classic noir films of the 1940s, bringing together two rarely performed one-acts

 The Dallas Opera is proud to announce the names of the six distinguished professionals selected to participate in the inaugural session of the Institute for Women Conductors at The Dallas Opera:

DALLAS, MAY 21, 2015 – The Dallas Opera is pleased to announce the winner of the 2015 “Maria Callas Debut Artist of the Year” Award: incandescent Russian soprano Ekaterina Scherbachenko.

Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman, whose many credits include the Tony Award-winning musicals Crazy for You, Contact, and The Producers, makes her Met debut with a lavish new staging of Lehár's effervescent operetta The Merry Widow. Star soprano Renée Flemingadds a beguiling new character to her wide-ranging Met repertory as Hanna, the widowed Pontevedrian millionairess.

Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman, whose many credits include the Tony Award-winning musicals Crazy for You, Contact, and The Producers, makes her Met debut with a lavish new staging of Lehr's effervescent operetta The Merry Widow.

Met Music Director James Levine conducts Wagner's epic human comedy Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg('The Mastersinger of Nuremberg') in its first Great Performances at the Met broadcast.

Maria Callas got the world used to hearing singing that was not always pitch-perfect yet still essential listening. I kept thinking about this at the Met the other night during the new production of Rossini's LA DONNA DEL LAGO with a cast headed by a couple of stars, mezzo Joyce DiDonato and tenor Juan Diego Florez, who are well known for their bel canto style.

The Met's effervescent production of Rossini's classic comedy Il Barbiere di Siviglia featuring some of the most instantly recognizable melodies in all of operareturns to Great Performances at the Met on Sunday, March 22 at 12 p.m.

Opera Philadelphia's 41st Season serves as a reminder that the company is, as The Washington Post reports, “taking chances, offering unusual and new work along with repertory staples, and carving out a place for themselves as proponents of American opera.” As General Director & President David B. Devan and Jack Mulroney Music Director Corrado Rovarisannounced today, the carefully curated 2015-2016 lineup offers two new American operas: the East Coast Premiere of Cold Mountain, by composer Jennifer Higdon and librettist Gene Scheer and starring the dream team of Nathan Gunn, Isabel Leonard, and Jay Hunter Morris (February 2016); and the World Premiere of ANDY: A Popera, a Warhol-inspired opera-cabaret featuring a score by Dan Visconti and original songs by Heath Allen (September 2015).

Acclaimed director Richard Eyre's production of Carmen stars Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili in the title role of the seductive gypsy, a part she has sung to acclaim at many of the world's leading opera houses. Aleksandrs Antonenko sings the obsessed soldier Don José, soprano Anita Hartig is Micaëla, andIldar Abdrazakov is the toreador Escamillo, led by Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado. Carmen will be broadcast on THIRTEEN'S Great Performances at the Met Sunday, February 22 at 12 p.m. on PBS. (In New York THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.)

Giuseppe Verdi's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth comes to THIRTEEN's Great Performances at the Met with an internationally renowned cast headed by Russian star soprano Anna Netrebko in her North American debut as the fatally ambitious Lady Macbeth. Serbian baritone Željko Lu?i? sings the title role; German bass René Pape is among his victims of his bloody rise to the throne as Banquo, and Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja sings the role of his heroic rival Macduff.

?Mozart's elegant masterpiece of marital discord, Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and staged by Richard Eyre, is the season premiere of Great Performances at the Met tonight, January 16 at 9 p.m. on PBS.

DALLAS — The Dallas Opera is proud to announce the five phenomenal mainstage productions of the 2015-2016 Season, “Seeking the Human Element,” to be presented in the magnificent Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center located in the Dallas Arts District.

The Dallas Opera is proud to announce the five phenomenal mainstage productions of the 2015-2016 Season, “Seeking the Human Element,” to be presented in the magnificent Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Centerlocated in the Dallas Arts District.

The Dallas Opera is proud to announce the five phenomenal mainstage productions of the 2015-2016 Season, “Seeking the Human Element,” to be presented in the magnificent Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House at the AT&T Performing Arts Center located in the Dallas Arts District.