Stephen Costello News

Ailyn Perez, winner of the Richard Tucker, Placido Domingo and Leonie Rysanek Awards, will make her Washington National Opera debut this March, stepping in for an indisposed colleague to star as Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. This career milestone follows on the heels of the soprano's recent success at London's Royal Opera House, where she proved herself 'a must-hear' (Guardian) in the title role of Manon.

Much like the ocean waters in which the show's title character resides, Washington National Opera's production of Moby-Dick is a bit choppy at times but is nevertheless an imaginative and soaring production. Transferring Herman Melville's 1851 novel into an opera is not an enviable task by any means. Yet, by reframing the story and having it be told in an active voice, rather than the novel's narrative tone, composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer have created a solid work, complete with a gorgeous score, stunning vocals and an eye catching visual design.

Washington National Opera (WNO) continues its 2013-2014 season with the east coast premiere of the new American opera Moby-Dick, today, February 22 to March 8 in the Kennedy Center Opera House.

General Director & President David B. Devan and Music Director Corrado Rovaris are pleased to announce Opera Philadelphia's 40th Anniversary Season, featuring a stellar cast of international opera stars in five new productions at the Academy of Music and the Perelman Theater.

On New Year's Eve, Tony Award-winning director Susan Stroman will make her Metropolitan Opera debut with a new production of Lehar's The Merry Widow, conducted by Andrew Davis.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2014-15 season will feature 26 operas, three of them company premieres, in six new productions and 18 revivals showcasing the talents of the world's leading singers, conductors, and theater artists. The three operas that will have their first-ever Met performances, each staged by a director making his Met debut, are John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, conducted by David Robertson and directed by Tom Morris, opening October 20; Rossini's La Donna del Lago, conducted by Michele Mariotti and directed by Paul Curran, opening February 16, 2015; and Tchaikovsky's one-act opera Iolanta, conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Treli?ski. Iolanta will be presented in a double bill with a new staging of Bartok's one-act Duke Bluebeard's Castle, also conducted by Gergiev and directed by Treli?ski.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) consistently brings the best the opera world has to offer to Houston stages. Time and time again, they cast operas with incredible talent and put on productions that are visually stunning as well. Their latest production of RIGOLETTO is no exception. Everything that makes performances at HGO exciting was perfectly in place. The auditorium was buzzing with excitement about the show, the cast was vocally impressive and on point, and the orchestra was playing with all the gusto and pizzazz that Giuseppe Verdi's darkly toned score requires.

Aprile Millo returns to the operatic stage in Italy this month in Puccini's Il Tabarro.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) announced today another bold season of firsts for 2014–15. As Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers and Managing Director Perryn Leech revealed, coming attractions include the world premiere of A Christmas Carolby Iain Bell—the company's 55th new commission —from award-winning Dickens authority Simon Callow; the continuation of HGO's firstRing cycle, with the North American premiere of La Fura dels Baus's groundbreaking take on Die Walküre; the American premieres of Sir Nicholas Hytner's Magic Flute and Lee Blakeley's Sweeney Todd; and a host of career-shaping artistic role debuts that speak to Patrick Summers's gift for casting. Together with the company's first presentation of John Cox's Otello, and the returns of Göran Järvefelt's belovedCosì 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).

Richard Tucker Award-winner Ailyn Pérez – the “lyric soprano who truly seems to have it all” (Opera News) – takes on a trio of starring roles at London's Royal Opera House over the coming months. After launching the new year in the title role of Manon (Jan 31–Feb 4), she makes her role debut as Liù in Turandot (Feb 17–March 10), before giving her first scheduled Covent Garden performances in the title role of La traviata opposite her husband and fellow Tucker Award-winner, tenor Stephen Costello (May 6–20). Dubbed “America's fastest-rising husband-and-wife opera stars” (Associated Press), the couple brought down the house in London two years ago, when the soprano stepped in as a last-minute replacement to partner her husband in Verdi's masterpiece.

Live From Lincoln Center will broadcast the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's 2013 gala concert, one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, from Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. The concert event will celebrate the legendary tenor's centenary with an illustrious all-American group of singers, and honoring this year'sRichard Tucker Award winner Isabel Leonard. The 'Richard Tucker at 100: An Opera Celebration' broadcast-hosted byAudra McDonald and featuring interstitial interviews with the artists, segments from backstage, and a short documentary on Richard Tucker's life-is taped from a concert on November 17, and will air on PBS stations tonight, January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).

Washington National Opera (WNO) continues its 2013-2014 season with the east coast premiere of the new American opera Moby-Dick, February 22 to March 8 in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Written by composer Jake Heggie and featuring an English- language libretto by Gene Scheer based on Herman Melville's 19th-century literary classic, Moby-Dick sweeps audiences straight out to the high seas with its massive nautical sets and dazzling multimedia visual effects, in what is perhaps the most technically challenging opera WNO has ever mounted. Renowned American director Leonard Foglia leads a talented all- American cast in performances conducted by Evan Rogister, a dynamic young American maestro making his WNO debut.

A "dream team of opera singers" (New York Times) will light up TV screens across the country on Friday, January 10 at 9 p.m. EST (check local listings) in the national broadcast of "Richard Tucker at 100: An Opera Celebration." Hosted by Audra McDonald for PBS's Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center, the telecast captures the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's recent gala concert at Avery Fisher Hall, which honored the legendary tenor's centennial. Isabel Leonard, the 2013 Richard Tucker Award-winner and a rising star in the U.S. and abroad, joined many of today's biggest names in opera-Stephanie Blythe, Stephen Costello, Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Angela Meade, Eric Owens, Ailyn Perez and Matthew Polenzani-for arias and ensembles by Verdi, Rossini, Donizetti, Puccini, Offenbach and more with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society led by Maestro Riccardo Frizza.

The opening months of 2014 bring into focus the strengths of Houston Grand Opera (HGO), which launches the new year with an extraordinary line-up. This comprises the world premieres of three important new commissions -Ricky Ian Gordon's A Coffin in Egypt, named one of the twelve "must-see opera events of the season" (Opera News), and two works exploring Houston's Vietnamese and Indian communities, courtesy of HGO's award-winning Song of Houston project; the hotly anticipated American premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's long-suppressed Holocaust opera, The Passenger, in the production that took Europe by storm; the first American presentation of a visionary and groundbreaking treatment of Das Rheingold by Catalan's La Fura dels Baus; a new HGO production of Carmen from Broadway sensation Rob Ashford; a revival of Rigoletto; and a restaged production of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, which boasts designs by fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi. As the Houston Press recently noted, "Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers is thinking bigger than ever."

Houston, December 17, 2013 ­– The opening months of 2014 bring into focus the strengths of Houston Grand Opera (HGO), which launches the new year with an extraordinary line-up. This comprises the world premieres of three important new commissions —Ricky Ian Gordon's A Coffin in Egypt, named one of the twelve “must-see opera events of the season” (Opera News), and two works exploring Houston's Vietnamese and Indian communities, courtesy of HGO's award-winning Song of Houston project; the hotly anticipated American premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's long-suppressed Holocaust opera, The Passenger, in the production that took Europe by storm; the first American presentation of a visionary and groundbreaking treatment of Das Rheingold by Catalan's La Fura dels Baus; a new HGO production of Carmen from Broadway sensation Rob Ashford; a revival of Rigoletto; and a restaged production of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, which boasts designs by fashion icon Isaac Mizrahi. As the Houston Press recently noted, “Artistic and Music Director Patrick Summers is thinking bigger than ever.”

Today, December 17 marks a major career milestone for Ailyn Perez, the 'lyric soprano who truly seems to have it all' (Opera News), when she makes her U.S. solo professional recital debut at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center. Joined by 'superb' pianist Ken Noda (New York Times), the Richard Tucker and Placido Domingo Award-winner will perform arias from Manon and songs by Reynaldo Hahn, Manuel de Falla, and Fernando Obradors - all of which are featured on her recent, celebrated Opus Arte album debut, Poeme d'un jour - together with signature arias from La traviata and Le nozze di Figaro. Presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the event represents something of a homecoming for the American soprano, for it was at Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts that she first launched her career.

Winter brings a trio of momentous house debuts for Richard Tucker Award-winner Stephen Costello. On the heels of headlining La bohème in his first appearances at Munich's Bavarian State Opera (Dec 15-23), he heads home to the States to make debuts at Houston Grand Opera, as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto (Jan 24–Feb 9), and the Washington National Opera, where he revisits Ishmael/Greenhorn, the role he originally created, in the East Coast premiere of Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick (Feb 22–March 8). The tenor will then remain in DC to reprise his star turn as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore (March 20-29). One of today's most compelling exponents of Donizetti's lovelorn peasant, Costello was the obvious choice to sing favorite Nemorino numbers at Lincoln Center's star-studded Richard Tucker Gala last month.

Winter brings a trio of momentous house debuts for Richard Tucker Award-winner Stephen Costello. On the heels of headlining La bohème in his first appearances at Munich's Bavarian State Opera (Dec 15-23), he heads home to the States to make debuts at Houston Grand Opera, as the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto (Jan 24–Feb 9), and the Washington National Opera, where he revisits Ishmael/Greenhorn, the role he originally created, in the East Coast premiere of Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick (Feb 22–March 8). The tenor will then remain in DC to reprise his star turn as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore (March 20-29). One of today's most compelling exponents of Donizetti's lovelorn peasant, Costello was the obvious choice to sing favorite Nemorino numbers at Lincoln Center's star-studded Richard Tucker Gala last month.

Centenary celebrations marking the 100th birthday of the late Brooklyn-born tenor Richard Tucker continue on December 14, when New York City's Park East Synagogue, in association with the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, presents a tribute to the cantor-turned-opera star as its ninth-annual benefit concert for the Park East Day School. The program for the special event showcases the American cantorial tradition and commemorates Tucker's devotional art as a cantor. The 8 p.m. concert at the synagogue (163 E. 67th St.) will feature Park East Chief Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, one of the world's most renowned exponents of the cantorial art, as well as operatic tenor Neil Shicoff, a New York native and veteran of the Metropolitan Opera; also on the program is the Park East Synagogue Choir under music director Russel Ger. Tickets start at $50 with proceeds supporting education activities at the Day School. For more information, contact Park East Synagogue at 212-737-6900 or info@parkeastsynagogue.org.

December 17 marks a major career milestone for Ailyn Perez, the "lyric soprano who truly seems to have it all" (Opera News), when she makes her U.S. solo professional recital debut at Philadelphia's Kimmel Center. Joined by "superb" pianist Ken Noda (New York Times), the Richard Tucker and Placido Domingo Award-winner will perform arias from Manon and songs by Reynaldo Hahn, Manuel de Falla, and Fernando Obradors - all of which are featured on her recent, celebrated Opus Arte album debut, Poeme d'un jour - together with signature arias from La traviata and Le nozze di Figaro. Presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the event represents something of a homecoming for the American soprano, for it was at Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts that she first launched her career.