This week the Teatro Manoel di Malta is presenting Rossini’s “Armida” one of the composer’s most difficult operas and one that has six tenors. This week as the company presents the opera, Anle Gou will sing two of the opera’s tenor roles bringing out his superb Rossini tenor. Gou, who recently spoke with OperaWire about the technical challenges of Rossini {…}
(Photo: Jill Steinberg) National Sawdust and The Met Opera presented “Opera Evolved: Genre Fluidity” on Thursday, February 22nd, 2024. This was the second installment of this three-part series that, according to the program, celebrates artistic convergence by investigating the intersection of innovation and tradition at National Sawdust. The evening included composer and co-founder of National Sawdust, Paola Prestini, and theater {…}
This week, Opera San José is set to bring a production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” with a cast of rising stars and veterans of San Jose including Eugene Brancoveanu. Brancoveanu is a Tony Award-winning baritone who became a Resident Artist of San Jose during the 2019-2020 season and stayed with the company until 2023. He became a favorite of the company {…}
Having recently become a Knight and awarded the prestigious, “Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,” baritenor Michael Spyres has quickly arisen as one of modern opera’s central luminaries, sensuously consonant with others like the ineffable Sondra Radvanovsky, the Puccini grande dame Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna, Susan Graham, Mikhail Kruglov, Allan Clayton, Elīna Garanča, and Javier Camarena to name only a {…}
This week the Opera de Bellas Artes is set to revive Verdi’s “Giovanna d’Arco” for the first time in 167 years. The company will showcase a cast of leading Mexican artists, including legendary tenor Ramon Vargas, who last year celebrated his 40th anniversary at the legendary Mexican theater. Throughout his illustrious career, Vargas has received raves for his “golden” tone {…}
(Photo: Kenny Eliason on Unsplash) Music education cultivates some beautiful advantages for students. Unfortunately, the arts are losing traction within the education industry, and the focus on how beneficial music education can be is getting lost for the next generation. Educators are working to stress the importance of music in the classroom and how it can help students across other {…}
This week the Centro Cultural de Belém is set to open a new production of Beethoven’s only opera “Fidelio.” The production which is a co-production with Hamburg and Bologna, is set to feature an all-star cast that includes Gabriela Scherer in her role debut. Scherer, who is one of the most in-demand dramatic sopranos of her generation, sings her first {…}
A while ago, we took a look at Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy as personified in opera. However, there is far more than one post can allow for. When it comes to Martin Luther King Jr. and his influence on music, there’s a lot more that can be said. Outside opera, symphony’s like Leonardo Balada’s “Sinfonía en Negro” {…}
This week Rosie Aldridge made her debut at the Berlin State Opera in the role of Kostelnička in Leoš Janáček’s opera “Jenůfa.” It is a role that she recently debuted in Stuttgart and later performs it this season at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. Looking at her debut, OperaWire had a chance to do a mini-interview with Aldridge. Here is {…}
