Rod Gilfry News

ARIADNE is an opera that shows the beauty of great voices and this cast had plenty to offer. Amanda Echalaz, whose voice has significant heft to it, sang Ariadne with beautiful rose velvet tones. She was a bit of a witch in the prologue, but in the opera, her voice rolled out over the audience like waves in the ocean. Offering pathos at the beginning, Echalaz's use of a tapestry of vocal color made her transition to Bacchus's lover credible

Tickets go on sale today for the Met's Emmy® and Peabody Award-winning Live in HD series' 2017-18 season, which begins on October 7 with the company's new production of Bellini's Norma.

LA Opera Off Grand presents the West Coast premiere of Matthew Aucoin's Crossing in two concert performances on May 25 and 26. Crossing will be presented at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (The Wallis), located at 9390 North Santa Monica Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. Mr. Aucoin, now in his second season as Artist in Residence with LA Opera, is both composer and librettist of the opera; he will also conduct the performances.

Due to ticket demand, LA Opera Off Grand and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts have scheduled an additional performance of Crossing, composed and conducted by Matthew Aucoin, LA Opera's Artist in Residence. The added performance will take place on Friday, May 25, at 8pm, which will be the work's West Coast premiere.

Allan Clayton's performance as Hamlet is riveting.

The Verdi Chorus celebrates its 35th anniversary with its Spring 2018 concert The Force of Destiny for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on April 28 and 29 led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum. As the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily on the dramatic and diverse music for opera chorus, their program will feature selections from three Verdi operas - La forza del destino, Nabucco, including the famed chorus "Va, pensiero," the opening party scene of La traviata, and conclude with beloved melodies from Strauss' Die Fledermaus.

Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), the Posthumously Celebrated Artist, Writer and Feminist, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, the Surrealist, Chilean Filmmaker, Inspire This Production Developed on Double Edge's Farm in Rural Western Massachusetts

Birdland Jazz Club will present vocalist Lorna Dallas in Home Again for one night only as part of the "Broadway at Birdland" concert series, on Monday, February 26, 2018 @7pm.

Eli and Edythe Broad General Director Pl cido Domingo has announced the repertory and artist roster for the company's 2018/19 season, planned by Mr. Domingo in collaboration with Richard Seaver Music Director James Conlon and Sebastian Paul and Marybelle Musco President and CEO Christopher Koelsch. The season will include six mainstage productions presented at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with additional performances presented elsewhere through the company's Off Grand initiative.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced plans for the 2018 19 Season. The Company's 96th Season will open Friday, September 7 with a gala double-bill performance of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in Jos Cura's production with an international cast featuring Lianna Haroutounian, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Roberto Aronica, Marco Berti and Dimitri Platanias, conducted by Daniele Callegari. To usher in the new opera season, San Francisco Opera Guild will produce its signature benefit event, Opera Ball 2018.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced plans for the 2018 19 Season. The Company's 96th Season will open Friday, September 7 with a gala double-bill performance of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in Jos Cura's production with an international cast featuring Lianna Haroutounian, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Roberto Aronica, Marco Berti and Dimitri Platanias, conducted by Daniele Callegari. To usher in the new opera season, San Francisco Opera Guild will produce its signature benefit event, Opera Ball 2018.

The Verdi Chorus will present its Fall 2017 concert 'Love's Passions and Potions' for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on November 18th and 19th led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum.

The Verdi Chorus will present its Fall 2017 concert 'Love's Passions and Potions' for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on November 18th and 19th led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum.

It's 'deja vu all over again' goes the quip attributed to the NY Yankees pitcher Yogi Berra. But that's the feeling I had with Thomas Ades's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, with libretto based on the Luis Bunuel film, 'El angel exterminador,' by Tom Cairns and the composer. (Cairns also directed.) Not that the opera looks or sounds like anything else recently produced on the Met's stage, except perhaps for Ades's own TEMPEST. Rather, it's because it seems like the operatic arm of France's Nouvelle Vague, the New Wave, of the late '50s and '60s.

The Met Opera presents the American premiere of Thomas Ad s's THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, and the critics are weighing in!

Thomas Ad s conducts the Metropolitan Opera premiere of The Exterminating Angel with eight performances from October 26 to November 21, 2017. The critically acclaimed opera, staged by the librettist Tom Cairns, is a co-commission and co-production of the Metropolitan Opera; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Royal Danish Theatre; and Salzburg Festival, where the production premiered in 2016.

Bob Bayne, Anna Lively and Lively Entertainment will present a concert version of the 1987 musical Romance/Romance.

I wouldn't exactly call Matt Aucoin, 27, a show-off, even though he wrote the music and libretto for THE CROSSING--his 2015 opera having its NY debut at BAM's Next Wave Festival this past week--and conducted the performance as well. (He left the subtle, fine direction to Diane Paulus, who originally mounted it at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, where it was commissioned for the National Civil War Project.) But I would say he's remarkably (and justifiably) confident.

CROSSING plays through October 8 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the critics are weighing in!

BAM presents The New York premiere of Matthew Aucoin's acclaimed opera Crossing, an American Repertory Theater production directed by Diane Paulus, running tonight, October 3, through October 8, 2017 at BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave).