Will Liverman News

Now that the Metropolitan Opera has had a major success with its At-Home Gala, there are other opera companies with similar ideas. The Florence May Festival, (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), will offer its presentation on Friday, May 1, 2020, at noon. P.D.T. Since many opera lovers are working from home, the audience should be enormous. 

Readers can find the opera performances at http://www.teatromassimo.it/teatro-massimo-tv-567/ Teatro Massimo of Palermo, one of Italy's southernmost points, is on the Mediterranean shore of Sicily. Along with ballets, childrens' shows and concerts, more than a dozen popular traditional operas are available to watch online. Don't miss the Teatro Massimo Gala.

 During its unplanned hiatus from public performances, LA Opera has created an extensive array of online programming under the banner LAO at Home. Here's what's on tap for next week.

Washington National Opera's (WNO) 2020-2021 season offers an ambitious mix of sweeping political epics and intimate stories of interpersonal relationships, centered on human pursuits of justice, power, and love. Led by General Director Timothy O'Leary and Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, WNO announces the six mainstage titles in the 2020-2021 season: Fidelio, Nixon in China, Boris Godunov, Rigoletto, Così fan tutte, and La bohème.

Multi-genre musical experience We Shall Overcome comes to Pepperdine University at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, 2020 at the Lisa Smith Wengler Center for the Arts.

Traveling the world as an international opera star, Angela Brown noticed something about audiences. 'I would see very few people who looked like me,' says Brown. On the surface, it looked like a racial divide, but when Brown performed at schools and universities across the country, she learned that exposure and access also played key roles in the gap. This compelled her to create her show Opera...from a Sistah's Point of View that dispels the myths surrounding the sometimes-intimidating art form called opera. By demonstrating the ethnic, geographic, and socio-economic diversity portrayed in opera characters, she helps people from all walks of life and races find themselves in and enjoy opera. She blows up the preconceived expectations of opera by mixing show-stopping arias, poignant art songs, and moving spirituals with tongue-in-cheek commentary. The show breaks down barriers for audiences that wouldn't necessarily include opera as a part of their entertainment options.

On Friday, January 10, 2020, baritone Will Liverman and pianist Jonathan King release their debut album Whither Must I Wander on Odradek Records. Whither Must I Wander is an exquisite recital of songs on the theme of travel by composers by Ralph Vaughan Williams, J. Frederick Keel, Herbert Howells, Aaron Copland, Steven Mark Kohn, Nikolai Medtner, and Robert Schumann. 

Damien Sneed's 40+-City North American tour, 'We Shall Overcome: A Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.' tour kicks off at Joe's Pub in New York, NY on Tuesday, January 14, 2020, at 9:30 p.m. Presented by IMG Artists, today's leading global performing arts management agency, the tour will make stops at concert halls and universities in the U.S. and Canada. For a complete list of the tour dates, click HERE.

The Metropolitan Opera presents the company premiere of Philip Glass's modern masterpiece Akhnaten on November 8, 2019, with performances continuing through December 7.

Sphinx Virtuosi, one of the country's most dynamic chamber ensembles, comprised of eighteen top Black and Latinx classical soloists from across the country, returns to Carnegie Hall on Friday, October 11 at 7:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. As part of The Sphinx Organization—a Detroit-based national organization dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts—the self-conducted collective presents For Justice and Peace, a performance exploring the role both artists and citizens can play in propelling peace and positivity.

Opera Philadelphia's recent revival of Puccini's romantic blockbuster had audiences and critics captivated. Now, opera lovers who missed its return at the Academy of Music, or can't wait to see it again, will have one more chance to see this beloved masterpiece on Saturday, September 14, at 7:00 p.m., as part of Opera Philadelphia's 9th annual Opera on the Mall at Independence National Historical Park.

On Wednesday, July 24, 2019, Santa Fe Opera presented Leoš Janáček's powerful dramatic opera Jenůfa. Laura Wilde, a former Santa Fe Apprentice who performed the title role at English National Opera in 2016, again sang the lead while Patricia Racette, who has often sung Jenůfa, portrayed her stepmother, Kostelnička. Both artists gave glorious dramatic interpretations of their roles in this shattering but moving opera.

On Saturday, July 20, the Santa Fe Opera will introduce Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa to audiences for the first time in the company's 63 year history. A co-production between Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera and the English National Opera, David Alden's production of Jenůfa, now adapted to the Santa Fe Opera's stage, updates the mis-en-scène from an isolated, tight-knit community in 19th-century Moravia to an impoverished industrial section of Soviet-era Czechoslovakia. Alden's staging won the 2007 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production when it was produced at the English National Opera, and its 2016 revival there received additional critical acclaim. The Independent gave it a five-star review, headlining it as “brilliantly effective.” The Sunday Times proclaimed, “David Alden's staging…takes this coruscating music-drama a notch higher, turning the screw of the drama inexorably, shatteringly, ultimately movingly. Janáček's uplifting conclusions…is one of the most beautiful 'happy ends' in opera.”

On June 28, 2019, Santa Fe Opera opened its 63rd Season with Giacomo Puccini's tale of poverty-stricken young lovers in nineteenth century Paris. Stage Director Mary Birnbaum told the tale in a straight forward manner but with with an occasional twist that fomented conversation among audience members during the intermission and after the final act. 

The Santa Fe Opera announces a casting update for La boh me, which opens the season on Friday, June 28. Nicaraguan-American soprano Gabriella Reyes will assume the role of Musetta, replacing Kirsten MacKinnon, who has withdrawn from the production for personal reasons. Reyes is a 2017 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions grand finalist and recently made her Metropolitan Opera debut as the High Priestess in Aida, followed by performances as First Lady in The Magic Flute and Nella in Gianni Schicchi. After Reyes's Santa Fe Opera debut, she will be heard as Li in Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Marko Nikodijevi and Marina Abramovic's 7 Deaths of Maria Callas.

Portland Opera is pleased to announce programming for the company's 56th season, which will open on October 25, 2019. The season will launch with one of the most powerful operas of all time, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, starring internationally acclaimed soprano Hiromi Omura in the title role. In February, the company will present An American Quartet: Four One-Act Operas in an intimate evening in the Hampton Opera Center's black box theatre. These one-acts feature Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone, Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge, Douglas Moore's Gallantry, and Lee Hoiby's Bon Appetit! The season will continue with a rare presentation of Vivaldi's opera Bajazet in March, which will be a special collaboration with the Portland Baroque Orchestra. In the spring, Portland Opera will present its annual Big Night concert and Leoncavallo's verismo masterpiece, Pagliacci. The 2019/20 season will close with the Portland Opera premiere of Jake Heggie's familial drama, Three Decembers.  

In front of projections of impressionist art and a set reminiscent of a still life painting, a simple story of romance, loss, poverty, and creation plays out. Opera Philadelphia's re-imagining of La Boheme takes the classic tale to a new level.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation announced today that Lisette Oropesa has been named as the winner of the 2019 Richard Tucker Award. The soprano already headlines major productions worldwide, and after her recent house debuts in the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor at the Teatro Real Madrid and Royal Opera House, The Guardiandeclared: “The Cuban American soprano is sensationally good. She makes the stratospheric vocal fireworks … sound easy; indeed, her every note is part of a convincing portrayal of a complex character.” Widely referred to as the “Heisman Trophy of Opera,” the Tucker Award carries the foundation's most substantial cash prize of $50,000, and is conferred each year by a panel of opera industry professionals on an American singer at the threshold of a significant international career. Past winners include such luminaries as Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Matthew Polenzani, and Deborah Voigt. Oropesa will be inducted into this who's who of American opera at the foundation's annual gala, a perennial highlight of the opera season, on Sunday, October 27, at Carnegie Hall.

The Dallas Opera presents a month-long mini-fest during the month of March, in celebration of one of the greatest and most influential composers in the history of opera: Giacomo Puccini.

With a mix of new and traditional takes on opera, Seattle Opera unveils a 2019/20 Season that offers something for everyone. Audiences will experience new-to-Seattle productions of Rigoletto, Cinderella, and Eugene Onegin; the company premiere of Charlie Parker's Yardbird; and the return of a beloved classic, La boh me.