(Credit: Monika Ritterhaus) A lot of modern opera is based on original and new stories. But it wasn’t always like that. For hundreds of years, operas in the standard repertory, regardless of their style (baroque, classical, romantic, impressionistic) were based on some other story or event. So in honor of that unique aspect of opera (other art forms are also {…}
What would you do, say, and believe for love, and most importantly, what would you ignore for the sake of love? Such standardized questions seem to permeate the fabric of the operatic world from time immemorial to the present, and the well is not showing signs of running dry anytime soon. But we must ask a second and more important {…}
This week, the Dutch National Opera will present a new production of “Anna Bolena” with a stellar cast headlined by rising star, Raffaella Lupinacci in her house debut. The Italian Mezzo-soprano will bring her acclaimed Giovanna Seymour to the Dutch house. The mezzo has performed the role at the Teatro Carlo Felice and Lithuanian Opera where critics have raved stating, {…}
On May 7, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna will open a new production of “Lucrezia Borgia,” one of Donizetti’s most popular works and one that has become a vehicle for a star soprano to show her vocal fireworks. However, it is also one of the composer’s most dramatic works and one that contains some of Donizetti’s most mature music. In {…}
On April 29, the Houston Grand Opera will open a production of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette,” one of the most renowned French operas of all time and one that contains some of the greatest extended duets. And for this occasion The opera house has assembled a bright cast that includes the rising star, Adriana González. González is making her role {…}
(Credit: Sabrina Ceballos) Verdi’s “Alzira” is likely the composer’s least-known opera. Its rarely staged or performed and it received mixed reviews when it first premiered in 1845. This week the Bilbao Opera is reviving the work in a co-production with the Gran Teatro Nacional del Perú and Opéra Royal Wallonie-Liège with well-known Verdi singers including soprano Carmen Solis. The Spanish {…}
On April 10, the Opernhaus Zürich will revive its acclaimed production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” The production will feature veteran performers and some of the most acclaimed interpreters of the opera. However, there will be a newcomer to the opera, Sandra Hamaoui. The French-American soprano will make her role debut as Gilda following her successful turn as Constance in a new {…}
On April 2, the Metropolitan Opera will revive a production of “Le Nozze di Figaro” with a new cast featuring some of the world’s greatest Mozartians and some rising stars. Among the rising stars set to grace the Met stage is Ying Fang who will sing her first Susanna on the Met stage. Having made her Met debut in 2013, {…}
Perhaps no other work within the conventional canon of comic opera, of which Rossini, Donizetti, Mozart, Webern, and Lehar find their respective places, has achieved so much lasting success as Jacques Offenbach’s two (then four) act opéra bouffon “Orphée aux enfers.” It was composed between 1855 and 1858 as a humorous reaction to the stuffy court opera aesthetic and hyper-focus {…}
