The 34th season of Schwabacher Debut Recitals continues on Sunday, April 9 at 5:30 p.m. in the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater with mezzo-soprano Renée Rapier, bass Anthony Reed and pianist and San Francisco Opera Head of Music Staff John Churchwell. They will present The Woods: A Rom-Com Recital, a series of songs by American composers compiled by Reed into a narrative with original dialogue. The performance will be directed by first-year San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow Aria Umezawa.
After a lavishly praised star turn in Washington National Opera's revival of Dead Man Walking this winter, Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Susan Graham turns to a U.S. tour in April of her equally successful and wide-ranging recital program, “Frauenliebe und -leben: Variations,” inspired by and centered on Schumann's iconic song cycle, with longtime recital partner Malcolm Martineau. She also joins a cast of the world's greatest opera luminaries to celebrate the Metropolitan Opera House's 50 Years at Lincoln Center in an Anniversary Gala; performs selections from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Met Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen in Carnegie Hall; and sings Berlioz's La mort de Cléopâtre, a staple of her signature French repertoire, with the San Antonio Symphony.
The Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) will honor its Principal Conductor, Pablo Heras-Casado, and the Chairman of The Bay & Paul Foundations, David Bury, at its annual Gift of Music Gala on Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at The Plaza Hotel. The event will feature a special performance by 2016 Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard with Pablo Heras-Casado and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and will be hosted by mezzo-soprano and OSL board member Susan Graham.
On Sunday, April 30 at 2:00 p.m., Harry Bicketconducts Handel's Ariodante at Carnegie Hall with acclaimed baroque orchestra The English Concert. In this concert presentation of Handel's brilliantly melodic work, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato performs the title role joined by sopranos Christiane Karg (Ginevra) and Joélle Harvey (Dalinda), contralto Sonia Prina (Polinesso), tenors David Portillo(Lurcanio) and Tyson Miller (Odoardo), with bass-baritone Matthew Brook (King of Scotland).
Some of today's greatest singers got their start in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions including Jamie Barton, Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Angela Meade, Eric Owens, and Frederica von Stade.
After a months-long series of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, a panel of expert judges named six young singers as the winners of the nation's most prestigious vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Each winner receives a $15,000 cash prize and the prestige and exposure that come with winning the competition that launched the careers of many of opera's biggest stars.
The production will be conducted by MasterVoices' Artistic Director Ted Sperling and will feature previously announced stars Kelli O'Hara, Bill Irwin, Lauren Worsham, Christopher Fitzgerald - with Jonathan Freeman, Chris Sullivan, and Jeffrey Schecter just joining the lineup - alongside 130 singers of MasterVoices, with Orchestra of St. Luke's.
Following yesterday's highly competitive semi-final competition, nine young singers will advance to the final phase of the Metropolitan Opera's 2017 National Council Auditions, America's most prestigious vocal competition.
James Levine, Christoph Eschenbach, Gustavo Dudamel, Susanna Malkki, Kent Nagano, a "virtual" Esa-Pekka Salonen, and three conductors making Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts take the podium.
In addition to the previously announced artists appearing at the Met's 50th Anniversary at Lincoln Center Gala on May 7, singers slated to appear include Stephanie Blythe, Joseph Calleja, Dwayne Croft, David Daniels, Yusif Eyvazov, Vittorio Grigolo, Christopher Job, Latonia Moore, Yunpeng Wang, and Dolora Zajick.
San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30.
San Francisco Opera Center and the Merola Opera Program present the 34th season of the Schwabacher Debut Recitals, opening on March 26 and continuing through April 30. The four-recital series offers music lovers an opportunity to hear opera's next generation of stars in the intimate and state-of-the-art Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco.
Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) and the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) today announced plans for the 2017-18 season, comprising more than 200 concerts in eleven months presented at Davies Symphony Hall. The Orchestra's 106th season is highlighted by musical touchstones that are trademarks of MTT's artistic vision for the Orchestra.
As part of the Women's History Month Celebration, OPERA EXPOSURES, the not-for-profit opera company founded by Edna Greenwich in 2004, will present The Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield Story, a Memorial Concert in honor of America's premier female vocalist in opera and contemporary music in the 19th century, on Sunday, March 12, 2017, at 3:00 PM at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, 131 East 10th Street at Second Avenue.
The Washington National Opera opened Dead Man Walking on February 25, which continues throughMarch 11, 2017 in the Opera House. It is based on Sister Helen Prejean's acclaimed 1993 memoir, which tells of her time working with death row inmates at Louisiana State Penitentiary and of a particular relationship she developed with one of the inmates. The opera explores the human conflicts posed by society's demands for vengeance and the Christian imperative for forgiveness and love. The lyrical score by composer Jake Heggie (WNO's Moby-Dick, 2014) is widely regarded as a modern classic, while Terrence McNally's balanced libretto has been called one of the most perfect librettos of an American opera ever written.
Los Angeles Children's Chorus (LACC), one of the nation's leading choirs, honors three pillars of the arts and philanthropic fields, including opera legend Placido Domingo and philanthropists Jo Bufalino Libaw and Shawn D. Libaw, at Gala Bel Canto on Friday, March 24, 2017, 6 pm, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
Rooted in the moral conflict between society's thirst for justice and Christianity's tenet of forgiveness, the modern American opera DEAD MAN WALKING is an apt selection for the Washington National Opera this season. With a moving score by Jake Heggie and an honest, straightforward libretto by Terrence McNally, it is based on Sister Helen Prejean's 1993 memoir of her work as a spiritual advisor to death row inmates, including one in particular, Joseph De Rocher. The Kennedy Center production directed by Francesca Zambello marks the 50th international production of DEAD MAN WALKING, and it's a bold and haunting one.
The Josephine S. Leiser Opera Center and Steinway Piano Gallery Miami present the season's third pair of performances in the free concert series, 'SongFest Recital Series.' The program will be heard at Steinway Piano Gallery Miami in Coral Gables on Saturday, March 4, at 7:30 pm and at the Leiser Center in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, March 5 at 6:00 pm.
The Juilliard Opera season continues with a concert version and a fully staged production of G.F. Handel's Agrippina, presented by Juilliard as part of Carnegie Hall's La Serenissima: Music and Arts From the Venetian Republic festival.
The Metropolitan Opera's 2017-18 season will feature 220 performances of 26 works, including two Met premieres, one co-commissioned by the company and one an older masterpiece having its first Met performances; a variety of repertory favorites, three in new productions; and performances of Verdi's towering concert work for soloists, orchestra, and chorus, the Requiem. Of note, Broadway star Kelli O'Hara is set to return to the Met in Così fan tutte this season.
