Beginning Wednesday, June 19, the Met will present Summer Encores, featuring select performances from the celebrated Live in HD series, in more than 400 movie theaters across the United States and Canada. The 2019 Summer Encores opens with Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, seen in Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher's acclaimed production, with tenor Vittorio Grigolo and soprano Diana Damrau as the star-crossed lovers. The series continues with the Met's classic production of Puccini's La Bohème; Rossini's comedy Il Barbiere di Siviglia with a winning cast led by mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, tenor Juan Diego Flórez, and baritone Peter Mattei; and Verdi's monumental Aida, with superstar soprano Anna Netrebko in the title role, opposite mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili as her rival, Amneris.
The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live high-definition cinema simulcasts, will begin its 14th season on October 12, with the Met's production of Puccini's Turandot, starring Christine Goerke in the title role, led by the Met's Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
The Metropolitan Opera today announced its 2019 20 season, which opens on September 23 with a new production of the Gershwins' classic American opera Porgy and Bess, last performed at the Met in 1990, starring Eric Owens and Angel Blue, directed by James Robinson and conducted by David Robertson.
Baritone Peter Mattei and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni star as opera's most notorious seducer in Mozart's masterpiece of dark comedy. Cornelius Meister makes his Met debut conducting performances that also include sopranos Rachel Willis-Sørensen and Guanqun Yu as Donna Anna, sopranos Federica Lombardi and Susanna Phillips as Donna Elvira, and basses Ildar Abdrazakov and Adam Plachetka as Leporello.
The Metropolitan Opera presents Mozart's timeless drama Don Giovanni, with 12 performances January 30, 2019, to April 18, 2019. All performances of Michael Grandage's production are conducted by Cornelius Meister in his Met debut.
Sarasota Opera is pleased to announce the line-up for the 2018 season of 'HD at the Opera House' and "Classic Movies at the Opera House". This weekly series of filmed performances has allowed Sarasota Opera to expand its programming from the fall and winter season to year-around. The 2018 "HD at the Opera House" series will open on Sunday, May 20th and run through September 30th and will include presentations of Ballet and Theater from some of the world's most famous venues and companies including the Royal Opera House; Teatro alla Scala in Milan; Royal Shakespeare Company; Vienna State Opera; and the Royal Ballet. Each presentation will begin at 1:30pm.
Richard Wagner's last opera, PARSIFAL, is a tough nut to crack. With its highly religious overtones, lack of action and incredible length (it ran about 5 hours 40 minutes the other night), it's not exactly a 'light night' at the opera--even if for those of us who consider opera to be a 'light night'. Still, with the right cast and conductor, it can be transcendent. The Met's new revival came pretty close to getting us there.
Accelerating his arrival as Music Director by two seasons, Yannick Nezet-Seguin will take up the post in time for the start of the Metropolitan Opera's 2018-19 season, it was announced today.
Klaus Florian Vogt will sing the title role in the first revival of one of the most acclaimed Met productions in recent years, Wagner's final opera, Parsifal, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin and directed by François Girard.
The International Opera Awards are pleased to announce the finalists for this year's Awards. These were selected by an international jury chaired by John Allison, editor of Opera magazine and classical music critic with The Daily Telegraph: 'It's gratifying to see how the International Opera Awards just keep growing. With a record number of nominations to consider, and our biggest and most international jury yet, I'm delighted to say that our exciting shortlists-covering six continents and around 30 countries-reflect the truly cosmopolitan nature of the art form. Despite the challenges faced by opera companies almost everywhere, opera is vibrantly alive.'
It's just about time to wish you all a happy 2018--but I'm not quite ready to put 2017 to rest. Though it won't go into the annals as one of the best years ever, there were quite enough performances and performers that made this year a winner for me, operatically speaking at least, in my corner of the world.
Anna Netrebko reprises one of her most acclaimed roles as Tatiana, the naive heroine of Tchaikovsky's opera, adapted from Pushkin's classic verse novel. Peter Mattei stars as the title character, who rejects Tatiana's love until it's too late. Eugene Onegin airs on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, August 13 at 12 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.)
Anna Netrebko reprises one of her most acclaimed roles as Tatiana, the naive heroine of Tchaikovsky's opera, adapted from Pushkin's classic verse novel.
The Warner Theatre's 2016-17 Met: Live in HD Season continues with Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN held in the Nancy Marine Studio Theatre on Saturday, April 22 at 12:55 pm. A forty-five minute complimentary pre-opera lecture by Nunzio DeFilippis will be offered to all ticket holders in the Studio Theatre lobby at 11:00 am.
The Metropolitan Opera's 2017-18 season will feature 220 performances of 26 works, including two Met premieres, one co-commissioned by the company and one an older masterpiece having its first Met performances; a variety of repertory favorites, three in new productions; and performances of Verdi's towering concert work for soloists, orchestra, and chorus, the Requiem. Of note, Broadway star Kelli O'Hara is set to return to the Met in Così fan tutte this season.
WGN America has shared the compelling extended trailer for season two of its hit original drama, OUTSIDERS, which will return today, January 24 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.
It didn't strike me until the lights were going down for the start of CARMEN last Thursday that this was the second night in a row that Met audiences were being transported to the same town in sunny Spain. Truth be told, “sunny” is hardly an adjective I'd hardly use to describe Bizet's tragedy in the shadow of the bullring, while it's just about right for dizzy events of Rossini's charmer, IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA, which I'd heard the night before.
