S. Katy Tucker News

Beginning in November with Handel’s Julius Caesar in Egypt, in its first staging by the company, the season continues with the return of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Rossini’s beloved Barber of Seville, and the Southeastern premiere of the Grammy award-winning opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, in a new production by Carl W. Knobloch Jr. General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun.

Washington National Opera today announced its 2021–2022 season featuring a triumphant return to the Opera House stage, four world premiere commissions celebrating the Kennedy Center’s 50th Anniversary, debuts from acclaimed and rising opera stars, the return to the pit for Principal Conductor Evan Rogister and the WNO Orchestra & Chorus, and more.

On March 20, 2021, San Francisco Opera presented a free stream of Richard Wagner’s opera Siegfried as part of Francesca Zambello’s 2017-2018 American Ring. Forest projections set the mood for Runnicles and Zambello’s nature-friendly, quasi-impressionistic rendering of the opera. Lighting Designer Mark McCullough illuminated the opening scene as though it was  a dream.

On the weekend of  March 13 and 14, San Francisco Opera streamed its 2018 production of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre to opera lovers around the world. Director Francesca Zambello moved the story to a modern time in which Wotan was a captain of industry and Hunding was a hunter with a house full of trophies, one of which was his fair-tressed wife.

San Francisco Opera's online Ring Festival continues throughout March with free streaming of Richard Wagner's four-part The Ring of the Nibelung and live ticketed events online. The Ring Festival schedule featuring an array of interviews, panel discussions and lectures with artists and scholars has been updated, including the addition of two new free events.

On Saturday, March 6, 2021, San Francisco Opera did a wonderful thing. The company put the opening opera of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungen online, free to  the world of opera lovers and the universe of the curious. Anyone with access to the Internet can see the entire Ring on weekends in March, and I, for one, am extremely grateful. 

San Francisco Opera Tad and Dianne Taube General Director Matthew Shilvock announces re-envisioned Spring 2021 programming including a return to live performances with a new production of Gioachino Rossini's The Barber of Seville and concerts offered in a drive-in setting at San Rafael's Marin Center in April and May.

The Metropolitan Opera announced today that the ongoing health crisis has resulted in the cancellation of the entire 2020-21 season, but the company also announced ambitious artistic plans for its 2021-22 season, which will open with the Met premiere of Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

Evans Mirageas, The Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director of Cincinnati Opera, today announced details of the company's 2021 Summer Festival, which is currently scheduled to open June 13 and continue through July 25. The season marks a return to the stage following the cancellation of the company's 100th Anniversary Season due to the pandemic.

On August 18, marking the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Park Avenue Armory and lead partner National Black Theatre, together with nine other New York City cultural institutions, unveiled the next phase of the 100 Years | 100 Women initiative.

On August 18, marking the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Park Avenue Armory and lead partner National Black Theatre, together with nine other New York City cultural institutions, will unveil the next phase of the 100 Years | 100 Women initiative.

The Bard Conservatory Orchestra joins an exciting principal cast of singers in a fully staged performance of Richard Strauss's once infamous, now famous opera, Salome—a biblical story, with a twist. The program, directed by R. B. Schlather and performed by the Bard Conservatory Orchestra, Leon Botstein, conductor, features leading opera singers Melody Moore, Jay Hunter Morris, Nathan Berg, Betsy Bishop, Robert Stahley, and others, including students of the Conservatory's Graduate Vocal Arts Program. Salome takes place Friday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 5, at 2 p.m. in the Fisher Center's Sosnoff Theater. Tickets start at $15 and can be ordered online at fishercenter.bard.edu or by calling the box office at 845-758-7900. $5 student tickets are available to Bard undergraduate students through the Passloff Pass.

Bad haircuts can be tragic, but none more so than for Samson, the Biblical figure whose strength was sapped the moment his mullet was gone. The treacherous shearing by a revenge-seeking Delilah launched centuries of retelling, including Camille Saint-Saëns' opera 'Samson and Delilah' which the Washington National Opera is currently presenting at the Kennedy Center in repertoire with 'Don Giovanni.'

The Canadian Opera Company's HANSEL AND GRETEL, directed by Joel Ivany, is a spectacularly detailed production; unfortunately, the sheer amount of things happening at every moment overwhelms the gorgeous music and talented cast.

Everyday magic comes alive in a new production that transplants Hansel and Gretel's adventures from a wooded forest setting to modern-day Toronto. As the siblings make their way through a contemporary high-rise neighbourhood in search of food, they must rely on their wits – and each other – to outsmart danger along the way. All throughout, cutting-edge stage technology paints a picture of the characters' vivid imaginations, creating a theatrical experience unlike any other. Hansel & Gretel runs for seven performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on February 6, 8, 11, 15, 16, 19, 21, 2020.

Washington National Opera's (WNO) 2019a?"2020 season continues with Saint-Saëns's romantic tale of love and betrayal in a new WNO production of Samson and Delilah, March 1a?"March 21, 2020 in the Opera House. Dubbed by BET the a?oeBeyoncé of Opera,a?? J'Nai Bridges makes both her WNO and role debuts in the famously challenging role of the enchanting Delilah.

The Atlanta Opera has announced its 41st season. True to the vision of Tomer Zvulun, the company's Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. General & Artistic Director, the 2020-21 lineup boasts major new productions of three critically important works: Das Rheingold, one of the most iconic in the canon; The Sound of Music, one of the best-loved classics of musical theater; and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, one of contemporary opera's most palpable hits, now receiving its Southeast premiere. Together with the Atlanta premiere of As One, Steve Jobs is one of two topical and much talked-about new operas in Atlanta's award-winning Discoveries series, which breaks down barriers between artists and their audience by providing intimate, immersive experiences in nontraditional spaces.

Cincinnati Opera is pleased to announce the casting of principal roles for composer Gregory Spears and librettist Tracy K. Smith's new opera Castor and Patience, which will have its world premiere in Cincinnati, July 16 - 26, 2020, highlighting the company's 100th anniversary season.

MasterVoices, led by Artistic Director Ted Sperling, continues its 2019-20 season on January 10 and 11 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice with the New York premiere of Iron & Coal, Jeremy Schonfeld's multimedia rock-opera about his family's experience in the Holocaust and its aftermath. Along with MasterVoices, joining Schonfeld onstage will be distinguished theater artist Rinde Eckert, tenor Daniel Rowan, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and the New York-based contemporary music ensemble, Contemporaneous.

Charlotte's Off Broadway presents the Off-Broadway premiere of Confidence (and The Speech), the new play, written by Susan Lambert Hatem and directed by Hannah Ryan (Hamilton, An American in Paris) which is playing a limited engagement at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street – between 9th & 10th Avenues).