Bass-baritone Derek Welton started his journey toward performing on the big stages in Australia when, after language studies and social work in 2004, he discovered his passion for singing. Then, an unexpected grant and a victory in the Australian Singing Competition helped Welton continue his path to Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Soon thereafter, the singer was {…}
(Credit: Lucy Nuzum Photography) Eimear McCarthy Luddy has the admirable, but lofty, goal of becoming a major resource about vocal health and voice science for singers based in Ireland, where these resources are scarce. The Dublin-based mezzo-soprano and founder of Vocology Ireland told OperaWire, “I don’t want singers to feel alone or to feel like they have done something wrong.” {…}
(Credit: Courtesy of Music Academy of the West) Back in April the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara cancelled the in-person part of its summer program. As a result, it put all of its resources into building a high-quality online program for the summer called MARLI (Music Academy Remote Learning Institute). The program provided quality technology and training {…}
(Credit: Jonas Holthaus) “Nothing was produced for the bin.” When the COVID-19 pandemic hurricane hit the world in full force in March 2020, opera houses all over the world were struck badly. All of them were forced to cancel the rest of their 2019-20 seasons, and many new productions were taken off the stage. However, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the {…}
Before German baritone, composer, and instrumentalist Johannes Martin Kränzle joined the ranks of singers, he studied violin and directed music theater in Hamburg. The baritone studied voice with Martin Gründler and began his operatic career at such venues as Theater Dortmund, Staatsoper Hannover, and the ensemble of Oper Frankfurt. Since then, Kränzle has sung at the Metropolitan Opera; the Royal Opera House; {…}
Born and raised in Salzburg, tenor Matthäus Schmidlechner was brought to Linz by his career. While he works as an ensemble member of the state opera theater of Linz, each year he also makes appearances in his birth town, performing on stage of Salzburg Festival. In 2018 and 2019 he performed the role of the first Jew in R. Castellucci’s {…}
Back in February Seljan Nasibli released her debut album “Femme Fatales: Soprano Heroines from the Orient” on Naxos. The recording was inspired by Nasibli’s heritage and her search to represent her background through the operatic canon. The rising star soprano, who recently won the Debut Concert Hamburg International Competition and debuted at the Carnegie Hall’s Kurt Weill Recital Hall, spoke {…}
In March Raehann Bryce-Davis was in Los Angeles performing “Roberto Devereux” when the COVID-19 Pandemic struck and all performances were canceled. The world changed and Bryce-Davis was left without work. The mezzo-soprano, who is one of today’s leading rising stars in the opera world, was forced to rethink her career like many other singers. In the midst of the pandemic, {…}
(Credit: Ashley Plante) When Berlin opera houses called off their performances in March due to the COVID 19 pandemic, one rarely performed opera was stopped dead in its track- the Komische Oper’s production of “Schwanda.” Among the artists set to star in that production was American soprano Sara Jakubiak. Jakubiak, who has appeared on the most important world stages, to {…}