Photo Credit: Cory Weaver Opera is full of parents that have difficult, often downright hostile, relationships with their children. Sometimes they are married off to unloving partners and treated like slaves or vermin. Other times, they are all together abandoned. But, while there are a lot of uncaring parents, there are many parents who love their children and who go {…}
(Photo Credit: James Glossop) Disability is a tricky subject in opera. Oftentimes, it is chastised as something dirty or mysterious or just down right funny. But in truth, it’s rather serious and a complicated theme to get right. A new opera about the perils of mental illness, love, and genuine belief has tried to reframe this with exceptional results. Composed {…}
This week Oper Im Steinbruch will open a new production of Bizet’s “Carmen.” The production will feature a soprano in the title role, something that is rarely heard today. And the soprano in question will be Joyce El-Khoury, who is making her role debut. Throughout the past years, El-Khoury has performed a variety of operas that have included the works {…}
This week the Santa Fe Opera is set to open a new production of Wagner’s early work “Der Fliegende Holländer” with a cast of superstars and rising stars. Among the cast is Nicholas Brownlee, who is singing the title role and making his role debut. Brownlee has been a mainstay at the Santa Fe Opera since his debut in 2015 {…}
The story of Clara Josephine Wieck-Schumann and Johannes Brahms is one of both fact and myth. Through their forty years of correspondence, they expressed adoration for each other and the art of music itself. Yet, do we really know what their love was like? Fresco Opera Theatre in Wisconsin had created an opera called “Clara” to explore this relationship using {…}
Does a film titled “Opera” have to be about opera? Moreover, does it even have to use operatic music? Have we come so far as to distinguish between opera and Opera, and is there a difference between being ‘opera’ and ‘operatic?’ While the answer does not exist per se, animator Erick Oh’s short film entitled “Opera”—a Marxian look at the {…}
This week, Ernesto Petti will make his debut at the Opera Australia in the title role of “Rigoletto,” marking the baritone’s role debut in the famously demanding title role. Regarding his role debut, Petti told OperaWire, “Rigoletto is a role that I have looked forward to for a long time because it has a special place in a baritone’s career, {…}
This week the Teatro alla Scala will make history by presenting the first-ever production of Dvořák’s “Rusalka. The work, which premiered 122 years ago in Prague has become a fixture at all the major opera houses in the world, but mysteriously has never been performed at the most renowned Italian theater. And for this major occasion, La Scala has brought {…}
(Photo Copyright: Priska Ketterer Luzern) Known as a luminary and artistic visionary in the acoustically-focused style of “spectralism,” a creative approach towards synthesizing technological processing and the human voice, along with her profound interest in culture, philosophy, and literature, Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) is a musical icon. Pushing the limits of what music could do and achieve as an {…}
