When Renée Fleming returns to LA Opera this spring to headline the Company's first performances of A Streetcar Named Desire, General Director Plácido Domingo promises that it will be an experience to savor.
Led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, Pacific Symphony's vocal initiative, “Symphonic Voices,” continues with Giuseppe Verdi's thrilling but tragic tale about a dying courtesan willing to give up everything for love in “La Traviata.” Featuring the composer's exquisite music, presented in a uniquely staged production over three nights, the orchestra is joined by a cast of world-class opera stars; including soprano Elizabeth Caballero as Violetta Valéry and tenor Rolando Sanz as Alfredo Germont. Plus, the Pacific Chorale and members of the California State University Fullerton (CSUF) University Singers help fill the concert hall with exhilarating voices as Verdi's dramatic tale unfolds. While the selection of “La Traviata” as this year's opera is a tip of the hat to Verdi's bicentennial celebration, it is also a work that St.Clair is intimately familiar with—having conducted it while general music director of the Komische Oper Berlin.
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.
French soprano Natalie Dessay makes her highly anticipated New York recital debut onWednesday, March 12 at 8:00 p.m. at Carnegie Hall in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, joined by pianist and frequent collaborator Philippe Cassard. Ms. Dessay and Mr. Cassard recently released an acclaimed recording of Debussy's works in 2012 (Virgin Classics), two of which are featured in this program—“Apparition,” and 'La romance d'Ariel.' The program also features German works by Brahms, Clara Schumann, and Richard Strauss, and French works by Duparc, Poulenc, and Fauré. Full program information is below.
General Director Plácido Domingo announced LA Opera's 2014/15 season, created in collaboration with Music Director James Conlon and President and CEO Christopher Koelsch. The upcoming season will include six mainstage productions, with 41 performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Additional performances will take place in other venues through an expansion of the Company's Off Grand initiative. The season will open on September 13, 2014, and will run through June 14, 2015.
General Director Plácido Domingo announced LA Opera's 2014/15 season, created in collaboration with Music Director James Conlon and President and CEO Christopher Koelsch. The upcoming season will include six mainstage productions, with 41 performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Additional performances will take place in other venues through an expansion of the Company's Off Grand initiative. The season will open on September 13, 2014, and will run through June 14, 2015.
The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Associate Conductor Francesco Lecce-Chong present Leonard Bernstein's On the Town on January 31-February 1, 2014 at 8:00 p.m. at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts with soprano Georgia Jarman. The program features Bernstein's Three Dance Episodes from On the Town and On the Waterfront Symphonic Suite, Foss's Time Cycle, and Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Opus 24.
NiCori Studios and Productions in association with Oakeside Bloomfield Cultural Center announces a new installment of the monthly concert series, 'Music at the Mansion', on Sunday, January 26, at 3pm. Performers include Janice Hall, Sean Harkness and Stearns Matthews. The featured performer in the 'Young Musician Moment' will be Mollyjane Boyle.
Charles Moeller and Claudio Botelho, who are in charge of the book and concept of BLACK ORPHEUS to be seen this year on Broadway, produced by Stephen Byrd, open in Rio 'All Chico Buarque's Musicals in 90 minutes', a theatrical love letter to one of Brazilian most gifted stage, movie and popular composers ('Dona Flor and her two Husbands' movie theme for instance).
The Atlanta Opera continues its 2013-2014 season with a production of Charles-François Gounod's grand opera Faust. The opera will be presented on March 8, 11, 14, and 16 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, and will be dedicated to Atlanta Opera Chorus Master Walter Huff in honor of his 25th anniversary with the company. Single tickets, ranging from $26-$133, can be purchased online at atlantaopera.org, or by calling 404-881-8885. Two-opera season ticket packages, which include Faust and the upcoming production of The Barber of Seville, are also available, offering patrons premium seating at discounted prices.
The 2014 Festival will take place from 17 May to 24 August 2014 and includes three new productions: Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera, Verdi's La Traviata and revivals of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Mozart's Don Giovanni and Handel's Rinaldo.
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.
Marc Buhaj has been named Senior Vice President, Programming and General Manager, Disney XD. It was announced today by Gary Marsh, President and Chief Creative Officer, Disney Channels Worldwide.
Puccini's La Bohème, the most-performed opera in Met history, will return to the repertory this season with 14 performances featuring a number of popular Met artists and rising stars in the leading roles. The opera opens January 14 with Joseph Calleja as Rodolfo, Maija Kovalevska as Mimì, Alexey Markov as Marcello, and Irina Lungu in her company role debut as Musetta. On March 19, Vittorio Grigolo returns to the role of his Met debut as Rodolfo, leading a cast that also includes Massimo Cavalletti in his first Met performances of Marcello and two debuting sopranos: Romanian Anita Hartig as Mimì and American Jennifer Rowley as Musetta. Susanna Phillips will reprise her Musetta on April 2 and 5, and Barbara Frittoli will sing Mimì on April 10, 14, and 18. Joshua Hopkins and Patrick Carfizzi share the role of Schaunard this season; Christian Van Horn, Nicolas Testé, and Oren Gradus sing Colline; and Donald Maxwell and Philip Cokorinos sing Benoit and Alcindoro. Stefano Ranzani will conduct all of this season's performances of La Bohème, which will be seen in Franco Zeffirelli's popular 1981 production. The April 5 matinee, starring Grigolo, Hartig, Phillips, Cavalletti, Carfizzi, Gradus, and Maxwell, will be transmitted live as part of the Met's Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 2,000 theaters in 64 countries around the world.
Just what the opera world needs: Another director who doesn't have an idea about what to do with an opera. How else could you explain the new Dmitri Tcherniakov production of Verdi's LA TRAVIATA that opened the season at Milan's La Scala, on Saturday December 7th? Seen in a HD broadcast from the Emerging Pictures' 'Opera in Cinema' series, it showed what a travesty the Russian director's production was.
The spectacular new production of Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber's THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA will make its Twin Cities' premiere tonight, December 13, 2013 through January 5, 2014 at Hennepin Theatre Trust's Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. With newly re-invented staging and stunning scenic design, this new version of PHANTOM has been an enormous success since its U.K. unveiling in March 2012.
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.
The spectacular new production of Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber's THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA will make its Twin Cities' premiere December 13, 2013 through January 5, 2014 at Hennepin Theatre Trust's Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. With newly re-invented staging and stunning scenic design, this new version of PHANTOM has been an enormous success since its U.K. unveiling in March 2012.
Tonight, November 23, Deborah Warner's new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, which opened the current Met season, will return with a new cast in the central roles.