Richard Tucker News

Opera Saratoga announces its 2015 Summer Festival season, which will run from July 2 - July 26, 2015 at multiple venues throughout Saratoga Springs, New York.

New York, NY - On Sunday, October 12th at 6:30 pm, the New York Choral Society (NYCS) returns to Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for its twenty-first performance as guest artist at the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala, one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season. Tenor Michael Fabiano, 2014 winner of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award and widely considered one of the greatest young tenors in the world today, will join such luminaries as Anna Netrebko, Joseph Calleja, Marcello Giordani, Ildar Abdrazakov, and previous Tucker Award laureates Angela Meade, Isabel Leonard, and Stephen Costello in a star-studded program of favorite arias and ensembles led by Emmanuel Villaume, Music Director of the Dallas Opera. Like last year's gala, which celebrated the centennial of legendary tenor Richard Tucker, the concert offers a unique opportunity to hear what the New York Times styled 'a dream team of opera singers,' and will be recorded for later broadcast on Live from Lincoln Center on PBS.

'Cherubino is crazy in some ways, in good ways,' says Isabel Leonard, who is singing the role of the young male page in the Almaviva household in the Metropolitan Opera's new Richard Eyre production of LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. 'He sees everything in Technicolor, eyes wide open, taking everything in, not missing a second that he could possibly enjoy in his life.”'

Already the undisputed 'reigning new diva of the 21st century' (Associated Press), Anna Netrebko scored a fresh triumph this past month, winning ECHO Klassik's 'Female Singer of the Year' award for a record-breaking third time. Never content to rest on her laurels, however, the ever-evolving Russian-born soprano continues expanding her horizons in 2014-15. She makes two American role debuts at the Metropolitan Opera, as Verdi's Lady Macbeth in an all-star Macbeth that will be beamed live around the world to launch the company's Live in HD season, and headlining a new staging of Tchaikovsky's Iolanta that will be broadcast Live in HD on Valentine's Day. In Europe, she makes house role debuts in the title roles of a new Manon Lescaut at the Bavarian State Opera and Anna Bolena at the Zurich Opera, besides reprising her portrayal of Anna Bolena at the Vienna State Opera and completing her season's quartet of leading roles as Mimì in La bohème at Covent Garden, where her final performance will again be broadcast live to cinemas worldwide. In concert this season, Netrebko remains the soprano of choice for gala appearances, in the Richard Tucker Gala at New York's Lincoln Center and in Munich and Salzburg, as well as singing a recital in Colorado, 'Verdi and Verismo' arias in Barcelona, selections from Macbeth in Rome, Strauss's Four Last Songs in Paris, and revisiting her acclaimed Iolanta on a European concert tour that culminates at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Angela Meade - the face of Opera News's forthcoming annual "Diva" issue - dominates the New York cultural scene this season. In concert, the American soprano makes her New York Philharmonic debutunder Alan Gilbert's direction in Verdi's Requiem (Jan 15-17), and gives two performances at Carnegie Hall, first joining the Philadelphia Orchestra for Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony (Oct 31), and then starring in Rossini's William Tell with Italy's Teatro Regio di Torino led by Gianandrea Noseda (Dec 7), in the penultimate stop on their North American tour.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Joseph Kaiser will no longer be participating in the Sunday, September 21st performance of Voce: Rising Opera Stars in Recital. Paul Appleby (tenor) and Andrew Garland (baritone) will be joining Julia Bullock (soprano) and pianist, Steven Blier for the afternoon featuring French and American repertories.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation holds its annual gala, one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, on Sunday, October 12 at Avery Fisher Hall in New York's Lincoln Center.

Pink House Productions previously announced the New York City premier of YOU, ME AND THAT GUY, a hilarious 80 minute comedy about a recent college grad who uses the magic of a mystical open mic to heal her relationships with her technology saturated family and friends. Written by Stephen Sanow*, YOU, ME AND THAT GUY will open the 2014 Araca Project.

Washington National Opera (WNO) presents An Evening with Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pe?rez, featuring the celebrated husband-and-wife stars of last season's production of The Elixir of Love, tonight, September 10, 2014 in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Accompanied on piano by Danielle Orlando, Costello and Pe?rez will perform songs, arias, and duets from popular works by Verdi, Puccini, Hahn, Tosti, Falla, Heggie, and more.

The Metropolitan Opera will open its 130th season on Monday, September 22 with a new production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and directed by Richard Eyre.

The 'red hot' Ailyn Perez-Stephen Costello duo, having been likened to rock star couples, rarely perform together.

San Francisco Opera presents the Company premiere of Carlisle Floyd's two-act opera Susannah today, September 6 at the War Memorial Opera House.

Described by Opera News as the “lyric soprano who truly seems to have it all,” Ailyn Pérez takes the stage at leading opera houses on both sides of the Atlantic in 2014-15 for an exciting new season that features house debuts at both the Metropolitan Opera and Houston Grand Opera, the latter also serving as a role debut for Pérez as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello.

On a U.S. duo recital tour this September, Stephen Costello and Ailyn Pérez -- the husband-and-wife team dubbed “Pérello” by the BBC and “the Jay-Z and Beyoncé” of opera by Vanity Fair -- sing romantic favorites from their hit album release, Love Duets.

Pink House Productions announced today the New York City premier of YOU, ME AND THAT GUY, a hilarious 80 minute comedy about a recent college grad who uses the magic of a mystical open mic to heal her relationships with her technology saturated family and friends. Written by Stephen Sanow*, YOU, ME AND THAT GUY will open the 2014 Araca Project.

Legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman and renowned cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot join forces for a musical exploration of liturgical and traditional works in new arrangements for both chamber orchestra and klezmer settings on THIRTEEN's Great Performances, airing tonight, August 28 at 9 p.m. on PBS. (Check local listings.) (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the program Sunday, September 21 at 7 p.m.)

Houston Grand Opera's 2014–15 season, the company's 60th anniversary season, includes the world premiere of A Christmas Carol by Iain Bell—the company's 55th new commission —from award-winning Dickens authority Simon Callow; the continuation of HGO's first Ring cycle, with the American premiere of La Fura dels Baus's groundbreaking take on Die Walküre; the American premieres of Sir Nicholas Hytner's The Magic Flute and Lee Blakeley's Sweeney Todd; a 60th Anniversary Gala Concert featuring mezzo-soprano (and HGO Studio alumna) Joyce DiDonato; and a host of career-shaping role debuts that speak to Patrick Summers's gift for casting. Together with the company's first presentation of John Cox'sOtello, and the returns of Göran Järvefelt's beloved Così fan tutte and Michael Grandage's hit staging of Madame Butterfly, these rich offerings serve once again to illustrate some of the ways that HGO—still the only opera company with two Grammys, two Emmys, and a Tony—epitomizes “one model of what a forward-looking opera company could be” (Greg Sandow, Arts Journal).