Stephen Costello News

Tonight, November 17, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation celebrates the 100th anniversary of the legendary tenor's birth with a star-studded gala at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Isabel Leonard, the 2013 Richard Tucker Award-winner and a rising star in the U.S. and abroad, joins an outstanding group of singers including Stephanie Blythe, Stephen Costello, Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Angela Meade, Eric Owens, Ailyn Perez, Matthew Polenzani, and Patricia Racette. With the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society led by Riccardo Frizza they will present a program of arias and ensembles by Verdi, Bellini, Rossini, Dvorak, Puccini and Offenbach. Following the concert, which is being taped for broadcast on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center on January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. EST (check local listings), the foundation will host a gala dinner on the Grand Promenade of Avery Fisher Hall.

On November 17, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation celebrates the 100th anniversary of the legendary tenor's birth with a star-studded gala at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Isabel Leonard, the 2013 Richard Tucker Award-winner and a rising star in the U.S. and abroad, joins an outstanding group of singers including Stephanie Blythe, Stephen Costello, Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, Christine Goerke, Susan Graham, Greer Grimsley, Angela Meade, Eric Owens, Ailyn Perez, Matthew Polenzani, and Patricia Racette. With the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society led by Riccardo Frizza they will present a program of arias and ensembles by Verdi, Bellini, Rossini, Dvorak, Puccini and Offenbach. Following the concert, which is being taped for broadcast on PBS's Live From Lincoln Center on January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. EST (check local listings), the foundation will host a gala dinner on the Grand Promenade of Avery Fisher Hall.

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 on Friday, January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).

The Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric's Artistic Director James Harp has announced the third annual opera season at the new Modell Lyric. Two grand operas will be featured-Puccini's Tosca and Verdi's Nabucco-and Toujours L'Amour, the third in our gala concert series celebrating French grand opera.

Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer's award-winning opera Moby-Dick, will be broadcast on THIRTEEN's Great Performances tonight, November 1, 2013 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), as part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival.

Angela Meade, the soprano whose 57 competition wins include the Metropolitan Opera's 2012 Beverly Sills Artist Award, returns to the company in two prominent productions this fall. She launches the new season with her first Met performances in the title role of Norma (Oct 24 & 28), having demonstrated “her nearly mind-blowing mastery of Bellini's most challenging music” (Washington Times) in the same part earlier this year. Then, under the baton of James Levine, she makes her role debut as Alice Ford in a new-to-the-Met production of Falstaff (Dec 6–Jan 11) that will be beamed to movie theaters worldwide in the Met: Live in HD series (Dec 14). Meade's abundant honors include the 2011 Richard Tucker Award, and she graces a special gala concert to celebrate the legendary tenor's centennial at Avery Fisher Hall (Nov 17). She also looks forward to making two important European debuts this season: in Italy, where she gives her first performances as Mathilde in Rossini's William Tell at the Teatro Regio di Torino (May 7-18), and at the Frankfurt Opera, where she sings her first Fidelia in concert performances of Puccini's Edgar (Feb 16 & 18).

Today, October 21 marks the release of HERE/AFTER: Songs of Lost Voices, a two-CD set of recent songs and music by Jake Heggie, 'the finest American art song composer of his generation' (John von Rhein, Classical Review), to texts by the Grammy Award-nominated Gene Scheer. The generous PentaTone Classics collection features more than two hours of music from the composer and librettist of the operas Moby-Dick and Three Decembers, with performances by some of the foremost exponents of their work, including soprano Talise Trevigne, mezzo Joyce DiDonato, tenor Stephen Costello, baritone Nathan Gunn, flutistCarol Wincenc, and the Alexander String Quartet. Recorded at LucasFilm's Skywalker Ranch and produced by Grammy Award-winner Steve Barnett,HERE/AFTER seeks to give voice to silenced individuals whose stories deserve to be heard, including victims and survivors of 9/11 (Pieces of 9/11) and the great French sculptor Camille Claudel (Camille Claudel: Into the Fire). The composer explains that he and Scheer set out to capture 'the hope and newness that can come from grief,' and, as the Associated Press recently recognized, HERE/AFTER succeeds in transmuting 'memories of grief into survivor songs - some of them surprisingly joyous.' Video trailers featuring excerpts from five of the songs may be viewed here.

Richard Tucker Award-winners Stephen Costello and Ailyn Perez - dubbed "America's fastest-rising husband-and-wife opera stars" (Associated Press) - look forward to collaborating on their first album together: a recording of romantic love duets by Verdi, Puccini, Bernstein, and others, to be recorded with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Patrick Summers's leadership in December. The album is slated for release in spring 2014, and it will be the couple's first release as exclusive recording artists for Warner Classics.

On Sunday, November 17th at 6:30 pm, the New York Choral Society (NYCS),returns for its 20th year as guest artist at the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala in Avery Fisher Hall. In an evening led by Maestro Riccardo Frizza, the Gala concert will feature Isabel Leonard, winner of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, which is conferred annually upon a single artist who is on the threshold of a major international career.

Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer's award-winning opera Moby-Dick, will be broadcast on THIRTEEN's Great Performances Friday, November 1, 2013 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), as part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival.

During her 2013-14 season, rising-star soprano Ailyn Perez - winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award and the 15th annual Placido Domingo Award - embodies Verdi's iconic Violetta on both sides of the Atlantic. The Chicago-born singer portrays the composer's tragic heroine in Verdi bicentennial stagings of La traviata at Hamburg State Opera (tonight, Sep 20-27) and Ópera de Oviedo in Spain (Oct 13-19), with 2014 productions at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (Dec 31-Jan 6), London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (May 6-20) and San Francisco Opera (July 5-13). Reviewing her 2012 triumph in La traviata at Covent Garden, The Observer of the UK called Perez 'an ideal Violetta... The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama. Her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical.' But it's not only Violetta this season for the soprano, as she returns to New York for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall (Nov 17) and joins tenor Stephen Costello - her husband - for a duo recital at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (Dec 17).

October 21 marks the release of HERE/AFTER: Songs of Lost Voices, a two-CD set of recent songs and music by Jake Heggie, “the finest American art song composer of his generation” (John von Rhein, Classical Review), to texts by the Grammy Award-nominated Gene Scheer. The generous PentaTone Classics collection features more than two hours of music from the composer and librettist of the operas Moby-Dick and Three Decembers, with performances by some of the foremost exponents of their work, including soprano Talise Trevigne, mezzo Joyce DiDonato, tenor Stephen Costello, baritone Nathan Gunn, flutistCarol Wincenc, and the Alexander String Quartet. Recorded at LucasFilm's Skywalker Ranch and produced by Grammy Award-winner Steve Barnett,HERE/AFTER seeks to give voice to silenced individuals whose stories deserve to be heard, including victims and survivors of 9/11 (Pieces of 9/11) and the great French sculptor Camille Claudel (Camille Claudel: Into the Fire). The composer explains that he and Scheer set out to capture “the hope and newness that can come from grief,” and, as the Associated Press recently recognized, HERE/AFTER succeeds in transmuting “memories of grief into survivor songs – some of them surprisingly joyous.” Video trailers featuring excerpts from five of the songs may be viewed here.

During her 2013-14 season, rising-star soprano Ailyn Pérez - winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award and the 15th annual Plácido Domingo Award - embodies Verdi's iconic Violetta on both sides of the Atlantic. The Chicago-born singer portrays the composer's tragic heroine in Verdi bicentennial stagings of La traviata at Hamburg State Opera (Sep 20-27) and Ópera de Oviedo in Spain (Oct 13-19), with 2014 productions at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (Dec 31-Jan 6), London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (May 6-20) and San Francisco Opera (July 5-13). Reviewing her 2012 triumph in La traviata at Covent Garden, The Observer of the UK called Pérez 'an ideal Violetta... The bewitching young American soprano puts her heart into every twist of the drama. Her performance was glorious, the quiet passages magical.' But it's not only Violetta this season for the soprano, as she returns to New York for the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall (Nov 17) and joins tenor Stephen Costello - her husband - for a duo recital at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia (Dec 17).

Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) 2013–14 season includes the launch of the company's first Ring cycle, in a visionary and captivating production by the Catalan company La Fura dels Baus; the hotly anticipated American premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg's Holocaust opera The Passenger; the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's A Coffin in Egypt, based on the play of the same name by renowned Texas writer Horton Foote and starring iconic mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade; a new HGO production of Carmen from Broadway sensation Rob Ashford; revivals of Aida, Rigoletto, and Die Fledermaus; and, in tribute to the nation's homegrown musical theater tradition, Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music designed by fashion star Isaac Mizrahi. Through its HGOco S o n g o f H o u s t o n project—winner of the National MultiCultural Institute's Leading Lights Diversity Award—the company continues to celebrate Houston's cultural diversity with the world premieres of two new commissions exploring the city's Vietnamese and Indian communities as part of the East + West series.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared Wednesday, August 28 the second annual 'Richard Tucker Day' in New York City, marking what would have been thelegendary Brooklyn-born tenor's 100th birthday. To observe this honor, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation will lead celebrations throughout the city and online, in collaboration with a number of renowned New York institutions, including Junior's restaurant, Brooklyn Brewery, the Metropolitan Opera, The Juilliard School, the New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, WQXR, Operavore and more.

Soprano Ailyn Perez and tenor Stephen Costello - dubbed "America's fastest-rising husband-and-wife opera stars" by the Associated Press - pair to sing Verdi arias and duets with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra at the city's 76th free Stern Grove Festival on August 18. Perez and Costello will be helping the San Francisco Opera celebrate this year's bicentennial of Verdi's birth with a program of solo arias and duets. The two singers will return to San Francisco Opera for more Verdi in the summer of 2014, taking on the lead roles in the company's production of La traviata. When they performed together in a recent Lincoln Center gala, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini noted that the couple "displayed palpable chemistry in a tender duet."

Due to inclement weather conditions, tonight's final Summer Recital has been canceled. Scheduled performers were Ying Fang, soprano, Mario Chang, tenor, Brandon Cedel, bass-baritone, Bradley Moore, pianist. The only other previous cancelled event included the Staten Island performance.

The Metropolitan Opera has cancelled the evening recitals scheduled for Thursday, July 25, 2013 due to inclement weather. The recital will not be rescheduled.

When last heard on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, mezzo Isabel Leonard and soprano Erin Morley were a couple of nuns on their way to the guillotine in LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES. This time around, the two women--along with tenor Stephen Costello--kicked off the Met's Summer Recital Series at SummerStage in Central Park, and it was the audience that lost its head.

The Met's annual concert series in New York City parks is one of the most popular summer traditions in the city. The Summer Recital Series returns in 2013 with six performances in the parks of all five boroughs. The series kicks off with a concert at Central Park SummerStage on July 16, featuring rising opera stars soprano Erin Morley, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and tenor Stephen Costello. The Brooklyn concert takes place at Brooklyn Bridge Park's Pier 1, the largest pier of the park on the East River.