It was 1957 and opera was in the midst of a golden age of singing. Kurt Herbert Adler, the second general director in San Francisco Opera’s history, knew that for opera to continue, young talent needed to be fostered and grown. So he sought out the help of tenor James H. Schwabacher Jr., San Francisco Opera’s production coordinator Matthew Farruggio, {…}
Niloufar Talebi is an author, award-winning translator, multi-disciplinary artist, and producer. She has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, and the Atlanta Symphony, and her work has been featured at Stanford Live, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Kennedy Center, World Literature Today, PBS Frontline, ArteEast, Bidoun, Poetry International, Rattapalax, and Mother Jones Magazine. {…}
Encompass New Opera Theatre’s 2018-2019 season began with the world premiere of “Anna Christie,” with music by Edward Thomas and libretto by the late Joe Masteroff. Artistic Director Nancy Rhodes hosted opening night on Oct. 9, 2018, at Baruch Performing Arts Center to celebrate the debut and honor of Thomas and Masteroff. Masteroff, who died Sept. 28 made a {…}
INT. METROPOLITAN OPERA, NEW YORK. JANUARY 2012. The opera onstage is Donizetti’s “Maria Stuarda” starring Joyce DiDonato in a production by David McVicar. The run of performances of this production are set to be a major artistic success for all involved, earning strong reviews and eventually, a DVD release. Seated in the audience is a young man, his name Tom {…}
Back in 2016, Zou Shuang joined the Beijing Music Festival as Associate Program Director, initiating the New Wave Program that introduced new works to Chinese audiences, including “Winterreise,” “La Voix Humaine,” “Giovanni and Vixen” and “The Fugitive.” Her work with the music festival led her to become the Artistic Director of the festival. She has only continued to push the {…}
When conductor Jorge Parodi was a young man growing up in Argentina, he often heard a melody played as an introduction to a television series. “I never imagined it was from an opera,” he told OperaWire in a recent interview. Everyone knew that the tango melody was by Piazzolla, but it never occurred to him that the tango melody might {…}
Composer and performer Fay Kueen Wang’s is a multi-faceted performer who has drawn inspiration from avant-garde concert music, theater, film, electronic music, Chinese folk music, and indie pop, garnering rave reviews along the way. She has performed across China, Europe, and the United States in such prestigious venues as the Berliner Philharmonie, Lincoln Center, Arnold Schoenberg Center, Musikverein, Oper Graz, Merkin Hall, Joseph {…}
It all began with five ladies who belonged to Pittsburgh’s Tuesday Musical Club: pianist Virginia C. Byerly; contralto Carolyn Hunt Mahaffey; Priscilla W. Collins; Ruby N. Wickersham; and Marie M. Pease. In 1939, 80 years ago this season, these Founding Five established The Pittsburgh Opera Society, which would become the seventh-oldest opera company in the United States. The first production, {…}
It’s not every day that New York audiences will get a chance to experience the Hungarian State Opera without heading across the pond. But in just a few weeks, starting on Oct. 30, 2018, they will get that very opportunity at the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center as the company comes on tour with a number of operatic {…}
Over the last few months, one of the biggest headlines has been the announcement that the Bayreuth Festival would be taking its forces to Abu Dhabi for a couple of performances of Wagner’s “Die Walküre.” The Bayreuth Festival isn’t known for traveling abroad for its productions and Abu Dhabi is not among the recognized homes of opera. But this shift {…}
How do you make a younger audience go to the opera? That was the question that always haunted writer Cerise Jacobs through the years as she wrote numerous librettos and operas. It always confounded her that her son never showed interest in the works she created. But it was ultimately this question that inspired her to make the first video {…}
