Des Moines Metro Opera today announced a $1 million leadership gift commitment from long-time patron, opera lover, and friend Frank R. Brownell III to secure the future of one of the Company's flagship programs – the Apprentice Artist Program for young singers.
Additional financial help is on the way for Met AGMA Artists to help them bridge the gap between their current uncertain situation and the reopening of the performing arts industry. In December, the Met Chorus Artists, Inc. kicked off their Face the Music fundraising campaign to raise much-needed funds for AGMA Artists still furloughed from the Met.
The University Musical Society announces a new, multi-faceted creative partnership with The Philadelphia Orchestra for the 2021-22 season, reigniting and capitalizing on its long history with the ensemble, which served as the residency orchestra for the May Festival for 49 years, from 1936-1984.
Musical Mentors Collaborative has announced today its partnership with TodayTix. This partnership will support MMC’s upcoming holiday gala by powering ticket sales to the virtual event, an exclusive experience with performances by artists such as Sutton Foster and Deaf rapper Matt Maxey, and more.
On Canada Day, Wednesday, July 1, 2020, The CBC Virtual Orchestra gives its first performance, the world premiere of JUNO Award-winning Canadian composer Vivian Fung's Prayer.
The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra Musicians have released a statement regarding the Black Lives Matter movement.
The musicians from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, in New York City, came together virtually this week to perform Mascagni's 'Intermezzo' from the opera 'Cavlleria Rusticana'.
In the midst of this COVID-19 crisis that is gripping the world--and keeping so many people in quarantine--the Metropolitan Opera managed to pull off a brilliantly executed music coup. It connected stars, chorus members and orchestral musicians in an “At-Home Gala”--a combination fund-raiser for the Met with wonderful entertainment. And the technology worked!
For all you lovelorn, “live opera”-lovers, the Met is coming to the rescue from COVID-19 this afternoon, Saturday April 25, at 1pm New York time, with a gala concert featuring over 40 artists performing direct from their homes around the world.
In these crazy days when no theatres are open to the public, the Live in HD series on PBS is a lifeline to the Met; last Friday, on PBS' Great Performances (on WNET in New York, at least) there was this fall's TURANDOT with a first-rate cast.
The Met had a wonderfully conducted performance of Wagner's DER FLIENGENDE HOLLANDER with a marvelous singer in the title role. Unfortunately, that was in 2017, when the Met's Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin was on the podium and Michael Volle was the forceful Hollander. This time around, when Francois Girard's new Expressionist production had its premiere the other night, with Valery Gergiev at the helm and Evgeny Nikitin as the Dutchman, things did not go so smoothly.
A funny thing happened the other night at the Met when the curtain came down on William Kentridge's stunning new production of Alban Berg's cruel and devastating WOZZECK. The audience didn't rush from their seats to escape into the night. They stayed and cheered for an opera with a reputation for being, well, challenging for opera-goers weaned on Figaros and Flutes, Aidas and even Ring Cycles.
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads a brilliant new staging of Berg's masterpiece by William Kentridge, starring Peter Mattei and Elza van den Heever. On stage through January 22.
Birgit Nilsson, one of the greatest Turandots of our time, was fond of saying that Wagner made her famous but TURANDOT made her rich. Why was this so? Simply because very few sopranos can toss out the high notes, cut through the thick orchestration and sing over the huge chorus, which are the minimum requirements to approach this role. Those who can are amply rewarded.
Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin curates a nine-concert Perspectives series during the 2019a?"2020 season, including performances with three orchestras with whom he has built his remarkable careera?"The Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, and The MET Orchestraa?"as well as a rare recital appearance with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato.
You'd never know that the Met's production of Francis Poulenc's DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES is over 40 years old, except for a few giveaways. There are no dancing nuns, no nudity, no screeching train whistle as the women go to their deaths (a la SWEENEY TODD). This fictionalized version of the story of Carmelite nuns who were martyred during the French Revolution, sent to the guillotine, is certainly the most simple and eloquent work on the Met's stage these days.
Internationally renowned organist Chelsea Chen will make history when she premieres a new work for organ by Australian-Canadian composer Julian Darius Revie, featuring the genetic sequence and recorded song of an extinct bird, Saturday, March 23, 2019 at 3:00 PM at Saint Thomas Church in New York City.
The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica presents concerts with violist Richard Yongjae O'Neill, its artist in residence. On Sunday, March 3, O'Neill performs a program of British composers -- Britten, Bowen, Bridge, Carter and Clarke with pianist Steven Lin; he closes on Sunday, May 26 with a program called L.A. Masters with works by Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Brahms with Jennifer Frautschi (violin), Jesse Mills (violin), Fred Sherry (cello), and Orion Weiss (piano).
Talk about baptism by fire! That's what Gustavo Dudamel--that wunderkind of the classical conducting world--faced as he reached the podium of the Met for the first time Friday night. Not only was he conducting Verdi's great opera, OTELLO, but he was doing so with a last-minute substitute in the title role. The result: All went well with the Met's production of the masterwork.
I interviewed Diana Damrau when she had just done her first Violetta, her role debut in the Met's old Willy Decker production. It was a part she lusted over from the time she saw the 1982 Zeffirelli film, but was careful about taking on--waiting for the right time in her vocal development. That was nearly six years ago and the good news is that she has developed into a first-rate Violetta, sounding better than she has in some time, and looking every inch the glamorous (yet consumptive) courtesan.
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