The Metropolitan Opera today announced the winners of the 2009 National Council Auditions. They are: Paul Appleby of South Bend, Indiana; Anthony Roth Costanzo of Durham, North Carolina; Sung Eun Lee of Seoul, South Korea; and Nadine Sierra of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Selected from eight finalists who performed arias with the Met Orchestra, conducted by Patrick Summers, at the Grand Finals Concert on February 22, each winner takes away a cash prize of $15,000.
This spring, the Metropolitan Opera will present The Audition, a documentary film about the intense challenges and pressures young opera singers face as they try to become opera stars. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke, The Audition will be shown on 400 screens across the country on April 19 at 3pm EST (and in Canada on June 6 at 1pm EST) as part of the Metropolitan Opera's series of high definition presentations in movie theaters and performing arts centers.
The Audition is a suspenseful competition narrative that provides a revealing behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to make it as an opera star. The feature-length film documents the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, where each year thousands of hopefuls compete for a cash prize, the chance to sing on the storied Met stage-and the opportunity to launch a major operatic career.
The film focuses on the final week of the competition, as judges narrow the field down from 22 semi-finalists to11 finalists while the stakes get higher and the pressure grows more intense. The documentary crew was given unprecedented access to the singers, judges, and events backstage at the Met.
The Metropolitan Opera today announced the names of eight finalists who will sing in the 2009 National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert on February 22 at 3:00 p.m., with the Met Orchestra conducted by Patrick Summers.
Various reports have indicated the sad news that American conductor and musical theatre archivist John McGlinn passed away today, Saturday February 14th, 2009.
Eight new productions, four of which are company premieres, will highlight the Metropolitan Opera's 2009-10 season. General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine jointly announced plans that include: the Met premieres of Rossini's Armida, Verdi's Attila, Jan?ček's From the House of the Dead, and Shostakovich's The Nose; new productions of Bizet's Carmen, Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Thomas's Hamlet, and Puccini's Tosca; and 18 revivals from the company's repertory. The season is the first to be entirely planned under Gelb's leadership, in collaboration with Levine (the past three seasons were planned before Gelb became General Manager in 2006-07 but included some productions, repertoire, and casting changes made by Gelb).
This spring, the Metropolitan Opera will present The Audition, a documentary film about the intense challenges and pressures young opera singers face as they try to become opera stars. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke, The Audition will be shown on 400 screens across the country on April 19 at 3pm EST (and in Canada on June 6 at 1pm EST) as part of the Metropolitan Opera's series of high definition presentations in movie theaters and performing arts centers.
The Audition is a suspenseful competition narrative that provides a revealing behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to make it as an opera star. The feature-length film documents the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, where each year thousands of hopefuls compete for a cash prize, the chance to sing on the storied Met stage-and the opportunity to launch a major operatic career.
The film focuses on the final week of the competition, as judges narrow the field down from 22 semi-finalists to11 finalists while the stakes get higher and the pressure grows more intense. The documentary crew was given unprecedented access to the singers, judges, and events backstage at the Met.
Tchaikovsky's romantic masterpiece Eugene Onegin, based on the Pushkin poem, returns to the Met on Friday, January 30, with a superb international cast. American baritone Thomas Hampson returns to the role of Onegin, the haughty aristocrat who acknowledges love too late, opposite the Finnish soprano Karita Mattila making her Met role debut as Tatiana, who grows from a love-struck young girl to an aristocratic woman. Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk is her sister, Olga; Polish tenor Piotr Beczala is Lenski, Onegin's doomed friend; and Russian bass Sergei Aleksashkin is Gremin, the elderly prince who marries Tatiana. Aleksashkin will sing the first two performances and American bass James Morris, taking on the role for the first time at the Met, does the remainder of the run. Czech maestro Jiř? Bĕlohl?vek conducts all performances, through February 21. The production is by Robert Carsen, sets and costumes are by Michael Levine, Jean Kalman is the lighting designer, and the choreographer is Serge Bennathan.
On Monday, January 12, 2009 - 11:00 A.M. (EST)
There will be a live webcast of the Alan Gilbert and NY Philharmonic 2009-10 press conference
From the stage of Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center, Home of the New York Philharmonic
Director-choreographer Mark Morris's much-lauded 2007 production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice returns to the repertoire, with Stephanie Blythe taking on one of the pinnacles of the mezzo-soprano repertory, the role of Orfeo, for the first time in her career. Soprano Danielle de Niese, an acclaimed singer of eighteenth-century music and a graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, sings Euridice for the first time at the Met. Heidi Grant Murphy returns as Amor, which she performed at the production's premiere in 2007.
The Huffington Post reports that Barbra Streisand got an awkward kiss on the cheek from the president, and yes, she gave him a smooch back, Streisand, a vocal critic of President George W. Bush, was a guest Sunday at the White House just before one of Washington's few A-list events: the Kennedy Center Honors.
Ren?e Fleming and Thomas Hampson star in the Met's first new production of Jules Massenet's richly melodic Tha?s in thirty years. The rarely performed opera opens at the Met on Monday, December 8, and runs through January 8, with the December 20 matinee transmitted live worldwide as part of The Met: Live in HD series. 'Fleming and Hampson made a heavenly match,' Chicago Sun-Times critic Wynne Delacoma wrote when this production, which comes from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, opened there in 2002.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts selected the individuals who will receive the Kennedy Center Honors of 2008. Recipients to be honored at the 31st annual national celebration of the arts are: actor Morgan Freeman, singer George Jones, actress and singer Barbra Streisand, choreographer Twyla Tharp, and musicians Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who. They were given personal kudos by some of their talented peers in Variety.
EOnline.com is reporting that amongst those paying tribute to Barbra Streisand on December 7 at the Kennedy Center Honors will be Queen Latifah, Ne-Yo and Beyonce Knowles.
Today, November 29, the Metropolitan Opera Radio Saturday Matinee Broadcasts launches its 78th season of world-class opera heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network with the network premiere of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust.
Ren?e Fleming and Thomas Hampson star in the Met's first new production of Jules Massenet's richly melodic Tha?s in thirty years. The rarely performed opera opens at the Met on Monday, December 8, and runs through January 8, with the December 20 matinee transmitted live worldwide as part of The Met: Live in HD series. 'Fleming and Hampson made a heavenly match,' Chicago Sun-Times critic Wynne Delacoma wrote when this production, which comes from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, opened there in 2002.
The Metropolitan Opera celebrates its 125th anniversary year with a unique gala performance on March 15, 2009 at 6:00 p.m., featuring Met stars in recreations of historic classic productions and high points in the company's past. Music Director James Levine conducts the evening of 26 staged scenes that, with the use of projections, and scenic and costume recreations, will evoke the Met's illustrious history.
Young singers from around the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico will compete for $15,000 cash prizes and the chance to perform in the Grand Finals Concert on the nation's most prestigious opera stage when the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions launches its 55th annual auditions program this fall.
Noted director Robert Lepage makes his Met debut with a technologically innovative new production of Hector Berlioz's masterpiece, La Damnation de Faust, opening on November 7. Music Director James Levine will conduct the first staging of the work at the Met since 1906, with Marcello Giordani in the title role, Susan Graham as Marguerite, and John Relyea as Méphistophélès.
