Violetta News

Maestro Brian Garman to Conduct Verdi's Traviata Music Director of Young Artists Program Makes His Mainstage Company Debut

Mozart's comic masterpiece, Le Nozze di Figaro, returns to the Met repertory on September 22 with some of opera's most notable young talent, many of them in company debuts or new roles. Danielle de Niese sings Susanna at the Met for the first time, paired with the Figaro of John Relyea, who received the Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers earlier this year.

The Met has announced that soprano Angela Gheorghiu has withdrawn from the first six performances of a new production of Bizet's Carmen for personal reasons. Gheorghiu will be replaced by El?na Garan?a, who sang the title role of La Cenerentola at the Met last spring to great acclaim; that production was transmitted to movie theaters worldwide as part of the Met's Live in HD series.

Glimmerglass Opera's 2009 summer Festival Season features Verdi's La Traviata; Rossini's retelling of the Cinderella story, La Cenerentola; Menotti's The Consul and dramatized concert performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, which will run in repertory in July and August in the company's Alice Busch Opera Theater.

For 35 years, Pulitzer Prize winning THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY has nurtured hundreds of playwrights through its EMERGING PLAYWRIGHTS PROGRAM. In June, 2006, we launched NEW CITY, NEW BLOOD, a play reading series designed to serve our audiences and writers even better.

For 35 years, Pulitzer Prize winning THEATER FOR THE NEW CITY has nurtured hundreds of playwrights through its EMERGING PLAYWRIGHTS PROGRAM. In June, 2006, we launched NEW CITY, NEW BLOOD, a play reading series designed to serve our audiences and writers even better.

Donizetti's comic masterpiece L'Elisir d'Amore returns to the Met with Angela Gheorghiu reprising her acclaimed portrayal of Adina and three tenors singing the role of Nemorino for the first time with the company: Massimo Giordano, Rolando Villazón, and Joseph Calleja. Other members of the cast also making role debuts include Franco Vassallo as Belcore and Simone Alaimo as the quack Doctor Dulcamara.

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.

Kansas City opera fans have been waiting 10 years for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City to produce the audience favorite, La Traviata. On March 14, 16, 18, 20, & 22, 2009 the Lyric Opera of Kansas City will present Verdi's spellbinding tragedy, La Traviata at the Lyric Theatre in downtown Kansas City. Under the spell of one exquisite party, Violetta is tempted - and eventually swayed - to abandon her life of endless immoral pleasure to join lovesick Alfredo in the love affair of a lifetime despite Violetta's secret terminal disease. Violetta's colored past proves to be a hurdle for Alfredo's father, who persuades her to leave Alfredo for his own good. The pair is only reunited for the final moments of Violetta's life.

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City will present a 51st season of opera evoking emotions from grief to glee. To celebrate the Lyric's 50th birthday and Puccini's 150th birthday, the Lyric will open its season with the opera that started it all in Kansas City in September of 1958, Puccini's La boh?me. Opera aficionados will be thrilled to hear that the Lyric will produce the Kansas City premiere of Handel's Julius Caesar in November, the first baroque opera ever to be performed at the Lyric. March will bring Verdi's spellbinding tragedy La traviata to the Lyric stage and audiences young and old alike will enjoy everyone's favorite posing pirates in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance in May. All four full-length operas will be presented in their original language with English text projected above the stage.

Kansas City opera fans have been waiting 10 years for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City to produce the audience favorite, La Traviata. On March 14, 16, 18, 20, & 22, 2009 the Lyric Opera of Kansas City will present Verdi's spellbinding tragedy, La Traviata at the Lyric Theatre in downtown Kansas City. Under the spell of one exquisite party, Violetta is tempted - and eventually swayed - to abandon her life of endless immoral pleasure to join lovesick Alfredo in the love affair of a lifetime despite Violetta's secret terminal disease. Violetta's colored past proves to be a hurdle for Alfredo's father, who persuades her to leave Alfredo for his own good. The pair is only reunited for the final moments of Violetta's life.

Maureen O'Flynn will sing the role of Magda, replacing Angela Gheorghiu who is ill, at this evening's performance of Puccini's La Rondine. O'Flynn made her Met debut in 1998 as Juliette in Gounod's Rom?o et Juliette, a role she repeated in 2005, substituting at the last moment for an ailing colleague at the premiere of a new production. She has also sung Gilda in Rigoletto, Micaela in Carmen, and Violetta in La Traviata at the Met. The American soprano has performed at La Scala, the Hamburg State Opera, Berlin State Opera, and many other opera companies and orchestras both here and abroad.

After an absence of 82 years, Puccini's bittersweet romance La Rondine returns to the Met in a new production with a gala premiere performance on New Year's Eve. La Rondine stars Angela Gheorghiu as Magda, the Parisian socialite, and Roberto Alagna as Ruggero, her lover. Lisette Oropesa, Marius Brenciu, in his Met debut, and Samuel Ramey are the other principal singers. Marco Armiliato conducts.

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.

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.

The Met's acclaimed production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, directed by the late Academy Award-winning film director Anthony Minghella, returns to the stage for twelve performances beginning Friday, October 24, 2008. Reprising their portrayals in the production this season are sopranos Patricia Racette and Cristina Gallardo-Domâs in the title role, tenors Roberto Aronica and Marcello Giordani as Pinkerton, and baritone Dwayne Croft as Sharpless. Patrick Summers conducts the opera for the first time at Met.

The Met's acclaimed production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, directed by the late Academy Award-winning film director Anthony Minghella, returns to the stage for twelve performances beginning Friday, October 24, 2008. Reprising their portrayals in the production this season are sopranos Patricia Racette and Cristina Gallardo-Domâs in the title role, tenors Roberto Aronica and Marcello Giordani as Pinkerton, and baritone Dwayne Croft as Sharpless. Patrick Summers conducts the opera for the first time at Met.

Franco Zeffirelli's lavish production of Verdi's poignant masterpiece about love and sacrifice, La Traviata, returns to the Metropolitan Opera stage on October 20 for nine performances through November 20, 2008. Anja Harteros sings the title role for the first time at the Met.

The Metropolitan Opera opens its 2008-09 season on September 22 with a gala performance that kicks off its 125th anniversary, starring Renée Fleming in three fully-staged scenes, including some of her most acclaimed portrayals. Costumes for Fleming have been specially created for each of the scenes in the Opening Night Gala by three of the world's legendary fashion designers: John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel.