On March 2, the Royal Danish Opera is set to open a new production of Verdi’s “Aida.” The production by British director Annabel Arden is set to highlight the personal story of the captured Aida, who falls in love with her enemy. Arden will bring the story to modern times and showcase two neighboring countries at war, which is very {…}
Hailing from Belgrade, Serbia, triple-threat (composer/pianist/coach) Milica Ilić (1985 -) sat down with me to discuss her newly premiered opera, XX Mono-Opera For Schizophrenic Voice and Tight Strings, a harrowing tale about alien females from the planet Mnemosyne-369 who have their lives upturned when they receive a mysterious signal from space. Set in the far distance future, the Y chromosome {…}
On March 3, Indiana University is set to present the world premiere of “Anne Frank” by an all-Jewish team comprising composer Shulamit Ran, librettist Charles Kondek, and conductor Arthur Fagen. Fagen is a professor of music and chair of the Jacobs School of Music Department of Orchestral Conducting and the son of Holocaust survivors. His mother, Rena, was a prisoner in Auschwitz {…}
On Sunday, Feb. 19, the New York Virtuoso Singers will present “American Invention,” a concert featuring seven world and New York premieres by such composers as Anthony David, Tania León, Elena Ruehr, Peter Zummo, Edie Hill, William McClelland, and David Paterson. Leading the performance will be conductor Harold Rosenbaum. OperaWire spoke with Rosenbaum and McClelland about the program, how it {…}
Vincent Huguet is one of the most promising directors of today’s operatic world. Since his debut with “Lakme” at the Montpellier Opera in 2012, he has staged the “Mozart Da Ponte Trilogy” at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin—conducted by Daniel Barenboim and with the three shows performed over four days during the Berlin Festtage, Massenet’s “Manon” for Paris {…}
Tan Dun is arguably the most famous and influential Chinese composer, having written numerous operas such as “The First Emperor,” “Marco Polo,” “The Peony Pavilion,” and “Tea: A Mirror of Soul.” He has also written film scores (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), organic music, and several classical and symphonic works. And now, there’s “Buddha Passion.” Inspired by the famed Chinese composer’s {…}
In July 2019, Irish National Opera premiered “Least Like The Other” at the Galway International Arts Festival to a raft of fabulous reviews. The short opera, which lasts approximately 70 minutes, is an intensely disturbing work that explores the brutal and life-destroying system that led to Rose Kennedy having a lobotomy at the age of 23. She was born into {…}
Back in 1983, Hao Jiang Tian arrived in New York from Beijing with $35 in his pocket and limited communication skills in English. One of his first stops from that trip was the Metropolitan Opera where he witnessed a performance of “Ernani” with Luciano Pavarotti. A decade later, Tian would take the stage with the famed Italian singer as part {…}
Japan Society will premiere Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang’s newly commissioned opera, “note to a friend,” as part of the 10th Anniversary of the Prototype Festival in January 2023. This new work reimagines three texts written by Ryunosuke Akutagawa and navigates the nuanced complexities of a human being’s perspective on his own life and afterlife. OperaWire visited more with Lang about {…}
Composer, librettist, and singer Ashi Day is a composer with a strong penchant for revitalizing opera’s antiquarian stories and gender hierarchy. As one of the eight women to receive funding as part of Opera America’s Opera Grants for Women Composers (OGWC), her present chamber opera project, “Waking the Witch” is scheduled to receive its first workshop performance December 9-10th at {…}
On Nov. 16, City Lyric Opera will present the New York premiere of composer Lori Laitman and librettist Leah Lax’s “Uncovered.” The opera, which premiered in March 2022 in Utah, is based on Lax’s memoir exploring her journey out of Hasidic Judaism to freedom as a gay woman. The opera represents the fifth work in the artform for Laitman following {…}