The Lyric Opera of Connecticut will present Puccini’s “Tosca” this November. The work will get four performances with the opening one on Nov. 3 set to take place at the Trinity-On-Main Arts Center in New Britain. That will be followed by showcases at the Garde Theater in New London on Nov. 6, the Bushnell Belding Theater in Hartford on Nov. {…}
(Credit: © Tessa Traeger) On Sept. 26, Carlo Rizzi opened the Metropolitan Opera for the third time in his career. However, that experience was unique because he was conducting “Medea” for the time ever. And it’s just the first of three works at the Met this season. A few days after the opening, the conductor returned to the podium to {…}
The Jerusalem Lyric Opera Festival has announced its 2023 Festival lineup, featuring works beloved by opera-goers. The Festival will run July 4-25, 2023. The Jerusalem International Opera Competition kicks off the season in July. Favorite arias are on tap as singers compete before a jury comprising conductors, singers, and casting directors from several of the world’s top opera houses. Performance {…}
It is something of a paradox that the proverbial dearth of tenors coexists with the announcement, in regular intervals, of some new vocal phenomenon which, after a solo recital or two, the recording industry decides to “crown before they are king” – to loosely and no less cynically paraphrase a famous saying by Mascagni. Yet too many are the instances {…}
Puccini’s “La Bohème” is headed to the silver screen on Oct. 20, 2022 courtesy of the Royal Opera House’s upcoming production. Audiences will see Richard Jones’ production with a cast starring Ailyn Pérez, Juan Diego Flórez, Andrey Zhilikhovsky, Dnaielle De Niese, Michael Mofidian, and Ross Ramgolbin. Kevin John Edusei conducts the production. There will be an encore presentation on Oct. {…}
Photo: © Genevieve Girling Christof Loy’s new production of “Tosca” for English National Opera, which first appeared in Helsinki in 2018, replaces Catherine Malfitano’s show, which received two revivals during its tenure and last appeared on the Coliseum stage in 2016. The production sees Leo Hussain return to the Coliseum pit – a distinguished Music Director of Opéra de Rouen and {…}
New York’s Heartbeat Opera has announced its 2022-23 Season, which includes a video premiere and the company’s Spring Festival, featuring significant adaptions of Puccini’s “Tosca” and Verdi’s “Macbeth.” The Season kicks off with a free video premiere of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” featuring over 100 incarcerated singers from six prison choirs. Ethan Heard adapted and directed this re-imagining of the opera in {…}
Photo credit: Guy Davies One of the first things I noticed in the program booklet for Opera Australia’s June production of “Madama Butterfly,” the first opera in their 2022 Sydney Opera House winter season, was a QR code which you could scan to give Opera Australia feedback on “Historical attitudes towards race, faith and gender…found in many traditional opera stories…” {…}
Undeniably the big story of this production of the Royal Opera House’s “Madama Butterfly,” as directed by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, was that revival director Daniel Dooner would work to create a dialogue around the work’s most problematic aspects. Such a program involved extensive instruction workshops designed to teach the cast playing Japanese characters how to move, act, laugh, {…}
West Australian Opera is set to present Puccini’s “Tosca” this July. The production, which opens on July 14 and runs through the 23rd at His Majesty’s Theatre for a total of five performances, will be staged by Patrick Nolan. The opera will star soprano Maija Kovalevska in the title role, also making her West Australian debut. She will be joined {…}
In anticipation of Signum Classic’s new release of “La Bohème” I happily reminisced about Lithuanian tenor Merūnas Vitulskis’ performance of “Madama Butterfly” which I had the chance to witness at the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg all the way back in 2015. It was an elegant voice, well placed, with a warm timbre and baritonal depth, albeit none of the customary {…}