The San Francisco Opera has announced its 2019-20 season featuring a wide array of repertory from Mozart and Verdi to Britten and Mason Bates. It’s a season that also includes company debuts, role debuts, and U.S. debuts. OperaWire had a chance to speak with General Director Matthew Shilvock on the new season and what excites him about many returning {…}
Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” and Bartók’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” will return to the Metropolitan Opera as a double after a successful run a few seasons ago. On first look, it seems like a strange combination with the composers’ styles rather different overall. It takes a truly strong maestro to move from Tchaikovsky’s lush lyrical qualities to Bartók’s challenging harmonic structures. Hungarian maestro Henrik {…}
“Alone we can do so little; together, we can do so much.” Our community has a massive impact on who we are to become and this could not be truer for those those impacted by The Governor’s School of the Arts (GSA). The school, which became a full-time program in 1987 with the aim of nurturing young artists at the {…}
“They just don’t sing as well as they used to.” You’ve heard it at some point during your opera-going. Some might dismiss such a statement as Golden Age Fallacy, nostalgic thinking that only emphasizes the positive aspects of the past and holding them up as better than the positives of the modern era. But Conrad L. Osborne thinks that is {…}
The singers, the director, and the conductor are usually the ones to get the major spotlight in the opera world. And yet, in many respects, they wouldn’t be doing anything if not for the people that bring the musical score (the single most important document when it comes to interpreting opera)to life. That task falls on the orchestra and among {…}
POP, the acronym for Los Angeles’ youthful Pacific Opera Project has a number of meanings. It can stand for Pop-up Theater (Pacific Opera Project’s productions can take place in a variety of venues and even at short notice). It can also mean “popular” (POP makes opera accessible for audiences whose principle interest might simply be an affordable night out). Over {…}
“Howards End, America” is the newest chamber opera from composer Allen Shearer and librettist Claudia Stevens and its world premiere is set for Feb. 22-24, 2019 at Z Space San Francisco. The innovative and experimental Chamber Music company Earplay, in its first fully staged opera production, co-produces it with RealOpera. “Howards End, America” is an adaptation of E. M. Forster’s {…}
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 {…}