Credit: Dario Acosta It has the elements of opera: singing; a story communicated through sound; and a hero that is born, faces obstacles, makes a sacrifice, and dies. The work in question is the public sound installation and experimental opera “The Last Stand” by Dr. Kamala Sankaram, to be presented by Creative Time in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park from September 18 {…}
(Credit: © UNHCR/Markel Redondo) Opera audiences may know Barabra Hendricks for her historical operatic performances and her forays into jazz. But for the past 35 years, Hendricks has dedicated her work to the UNHCR as the longest-serving Goodwill Ambassador. She has traveled to Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and Cote D’Ivoire as an ambassador and visited refugee {…}
OperUS, a young artist community created by and for young artists, will hold its first Growth Environment for Singers, or GEFS for short, beginning Sept. 6, 2021, in Montepulciano, Italy. The organization, founded by mezzo-soprano Fiorenza Badila Costantini and soprano Alessandra Torrani establishes a space for young singers to connect and promote and celebrate their work, regardless of gender, ethnicity, {…}
Paco Azorín is one of today’s most prolific artists in Spain. In a 25 years, he has participated in more than 300 productions in theater and opera. Recently his 2014 “Tosca” debuted at the Teatro Real de Madrid for the very first time and with it audiences got to see three different casts with the likes of Anna Netrebko, Sondra {…}
(Credit: Tyler Fayose) Femi Elufowoju Jr is a practitioner of many crafts. He’s a screen actor with 15 credits, a stage director who has been at the helm for myriads of productions, and a film director. But there was a missing piece. Elufowoju Jr is a music lover and comprehends the enormous power it can have over an audience. The {…}
Last month, Hector Armienta’s animated opera “Mi Camino” premiered for audiences around the world. The work represented one of the first animated operas in the industry and showcased the stories of migrant Latino farmworkers during the pandemic. The Mexican American composer has garnered recognition around the United showcasing works with the Pacific Symphony, Oakland East Bay Symphony, and Western Stage {…}
Scottish Opera turns 60 next year, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of its Outreach and Education program, arguably the longest-standing formal company outreach of its kind in the opera world. The department’s activities range from Paisley’s 2018 “Pagliacci”—performed in a tent with a community choir, and for which designer Tim Meacock won the Best Designer Award at the {…}
(Credit: Zen Grisdale) The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) is actively creating new life in the digital realm of opera by evolving the genre’s traditional standards and exploring alternate creative interpretations to share with audience members at a broader level through a new series called “music video remake” films. The aesthetic concept underlying OAE’s recent film which features bass-baritone {…}
Rebuilding Venice’s San Cassiano theatre will be a formidable task in and of itself, yet behind the scenes there is a raft of other issues and initiatives which need considerable attention. In this third and final part of OperaWire’s interview, Paul Atkin, the man behind the project, discusses some of these concerns, including what it means to be a public {…}
Credit: Kah Poon Not “afternoon tea,” but “aftermoon tea” is the subject of a new 25-minute opera by GRAMMY-winning composer Steven Mackey and Obie Award–winning librettist Rinde Eckert. Composed in under two months, it premieres June 10 as part of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’s “New Works, Bold Voices Lab,” which supports contemporary storytelling by American composers and librettists. Artistic {…}
Since 1999 Paul Atkin, CEO of the San Cassiano Project, has been working towards fulfilling his dream of rebuilding the world’s first public opera house, the San Cassiano theatre: a place that the world has not seen since its destruction in 1812 during the French occupation of Venice. In the first part of OperaWire’s interview with Atkin, he talked about {…}
