Soloman Howard News

It's never going to compete with the thrill of being part of the audience at a one-of-a-kind live performance, but there are a great many possibilities for enjoying filmed live opera performances that can be streamed for free online these days. The most exciting presentation to date is the Metropolitan Opera's At-Home Gala featuring artists singing from their own homes, or where they find themselves, on Saturday, April 25 at 1:00 pm New York time.

 A four-opera saga that unfolds over the course of a single week. Three weeklong cycles to be presented at Lyric in a thrilling new production that has earned rave reviews and attracted audience members from every corner of the planet. One magical lump of gold that leads to the end of one world and the beginning of another. In opera's most monumental undertaking, characters inspired by Norse mythology battle over power and love, violate sacred oaths, and make unimaginable sacrifices a?" all set to Richard Wagner's brilliant, glorious music. The word 'epic' is often overused, but it truly applies to the Olympian achievement that is The Ring of the Nibelung.

There must have been a two-for-one offer on the day director Barbora Horakova visited the Regietheater prop-store to kit out her Luisa Miller for English National Opera. White walls and plenty of black marker pens to daub on them; geometric structures; sinister clowns; a chorus all costumed somewhere between circus-freak and sexy-Bedlam; a quartet of contemporary dancers scraping and draping themselves across the set: we got them all in this hectic, wilful, defiantly joyless staging of Verdi's tragedy of love across the class divide.

Washington National Opera's (WNO) 2020-2021 season offers an ambitious mix of sweeping political epics and intimate stories of interpersonal relationships, centered on human pursuits of justice, power, and love. Led by General Director Timothy O'Leary and Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, WNO announces the six mainstage titles in the 2020-2021 season: Fidelio, Nixon in China, Boris Godunov, Rigoletto, Così fan tutte, and La bohème.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced the Company's 98th season, which opens on September 11, 2020 with an Opening Night Celebration featuring soprano Albina Shagimuratova and tenor Pene Pati in concert with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra conducted by Music Director Designate Eun Sun Kim. Opening Night festivities include San Francisco Opera Guild's Opera Ball, BRAVO! CLUB's annual Opening Night Gala and two new events: the Opera Supper in the Veterans Building's elegant Green Room and, for the entire audience, a celebratory, post-concert toast to the season.

Winner of the Newcomer Award at the International Opera Awards in 2018, Barbora Horáková Joly brings her contemporary staging of Luisa Miller to the London Coliseum.

The whimsical tale of The Magic Flute comes to life at Washington National Opera (WNO) at the Kennedy Center Opera House from November 2a?"23, 2019. Performed in English with projected surtitles, this production of The Magic Flute features design by famed children's author/illustrator Maurice Sendak. This light-hearted and comical opera is a delight for newcomers and opera fans alike.

Verdi's heart-wrenching romantic drama Luisa Miller returns to Lyric Opera of Chicago for the first time in more than three decades on Saturday, October 12 at 7:30pm. Enrique Mazzola, Lyric's music director designate, will be on the podium.

Washington National Opera (WNO) presents Otello, Verdi's penultimate opera, in its return to the Kennedy Center Opera House after a nearly 20-year absence, from October 26a?"November 16, 2019.

Verdi's heart-wrenching romantic drama follows a pair of star-crossed lovers who are driven apart by one man's selfish plot. The battle between passionate love and violent jealousy is set to thrilling, electrifying music. 

With more than 1,000 artists and more than 500 free events in three new sunlit pavilions and more than 130,000 square feet of new landscaped green space at the nation's cultural capital, the REACH opens its doors in exactly one month's time with 16 full days of creativity in action, providing artists and audiences with the opportunity to experience art as never before. Marking the first expansion at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in its 48-year history, the REACH welcomes the public with an inclusive, multi-genre, multidisciplinary Opening Festival on September 7a?"22. See the video trailer here.

More artists and activities have been added to the REACH Opening Festival, the free 16-day celebration highlighting the many and varied ways that the Kennedy Center's newly expanded campus will connect, inspire, and engage audiences and artists. Please see below for an updated artist roster, and visit https:cms.kennedy-center.orgfestivalsreach for additional information.

On June 28, 2019, Santa Fe Opera opened its 63rd Season with Giacomo Puccini's tale of poverty-stricken young lovers in nineteenth century Paris. Stage Director Mary Birnbaum told the tale in a straight forward manner but with with an occasional twist that fomented conversation among audience members during the intermission and after the final act. 

The Santa Fe Opera announces a casting update for La boh me, which opens the season on Friday, June 28. Nicaraguan-American soprano Gabriella Reyes will assume the role of Musetta, replacing Kirsten MacKinnon, who has withdrawn from the production for personal reasons. Reyes is a 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions grand finalist and recently made her Metropolitan Opera debut as the High Priestess in Aida, followed by performances as First Lady in The Magic Flute and Nella in Gianni Schicchi. After Reyes's Santa Fe Opera debut, she will be heard as Li in Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Marko Nikodijevi and Marina Abramovic's 7 Deaths of Maria Callas.

Tickets for Lyric Opera of Chicago's enthralling new production of Richard Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen are now on sale. 

Washington National Opera (WNO) announces the addition of Tony Award-winning actress Christine Ebersole as host and special guest artist for its 2019 Gala on Saturday, May 18, in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

San Diego Symphony Announces Rafael Payare's First Season As Music Director 2019-2020 season celebrates Beethoven at 250 with 12 works across eight months

The Handel and Haydn Society will close the 2018-19 season with a performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem. Widely acknowledged as one of the most powerful and moving masterpieces ever composed, the performance will take place on Friday, May 3, 2019 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 5, 2019 at 3 p.m. at Symphony Hall in Boston.

On Sunday, April 14 at 2:00 p.m., Harry Bicket conducts Handel's Semele at Carnegie Hall with acclaimed baroque orchestra The English Concert. In this concert presentation, soprano Brenda Rae performs the title role, joined by mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong (Juno/Ino), bass Soloman Howard, (Cadmus/Somnus), tenor Benjamin Hulett (Jupiter), countertenor Christopher Lowrey (Athamas), soprano Ailish Tynan (Iris), tenor Brian Giebler (Apollo), and bass-baritone Joseph Beutel (Priest), along with The Clarion Choir (Steven Fox, Artistic Director).

Washington National Opera (WNO) announces initial casting for its 2019 WNO Gala, celebrating local entrepreneur John J. Pohanka for his outstanding contributions to the organization. The Gala concert on Saturday, May 18, 2019, in the Kennedy Center Opera House features Evan Rogister leading theWNO Orchestra and an array of musical stars in his inaugural performance as WNO's Principal Conductor. Headlining the concert is renowned American soprano and Grammy® Award-winner Christine Goerke, joined by Washingtonian bassSoloman Howard. In demand by major opera houses around the world including Metropolitan Opera and Royal Opera House Covent Garden, WNO audiences will remember Goerke's heroic feat of stepping in last minute to take over the role of Brunnhilde during the company's first ever complete Ring Cycle in 2016. Howard, a former Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist, is the recipient of the 2019 Marian Anderson Vocal Award and most recently performed in Aida at The Met and Don Carlo with LA Opera.