(Photo: Andrea Chemelli) OperaWire recently met up with the Italian soprano Francesca Aspromonte while she was preparing for her role as Servilia at Venice’s Teatro La Fenice. In spring 2026, her new CD, dedicated to the beautiful music of Alessandro Scarlatti, will be released on the Aparté label, in which she will be accompanied by her husband, Boris Begelman, on {…}
Earlier this month, soprano Katharina Konradi and pianist Daniel Heide released their new album, the third volume of their complete recordings of Liszt’s art songs. Since Liszt was one of the few Central European composers of his time who had mastered the French language in addition to German, the project is exclusively devoted to vocal settings of poems in French. Konradi is the {…}
(Credit: Manfred Baumann) Soprano Sonya Yoncheva is one of the most unique modern opera stars in the world. Where most take the conventional path, the soprano tends to experiment and move in directions that are constantly surprising. She’s engaged with the baroque repertoire, the bel canto, works by Mozart, romantic repertory, and verismo with a fluidity and mastery that few {…}
(Photo: Angéline Moizard) As a young singer from New York, Ilanah Lobel-Torres never imagined that a few bars of music in a supporting role {…}
In childhood soprano Emily Michiko Jensen performed as a “super” for San Diego Opera’s production of “Madama Butterfly,” along with her sister. Now, she will star as Cio-Cio San in Opera San José’s “Madama Butterfly”, which opens on Nov. 16 and runs through the 30th. Jensen, a Japanese-American San Diego native who draws from her rich heritage as a woman {…}
The up-and-coming British soprano Jane Burnell recently made her role debut as Countess Cortese in “Il Viaggio di Reims” at the Wexford Festival Opera. OperaWire was lucky to meet up with her for a quick interview to get to know more about her. OperaWire: What was the first opera you went to see? Jane Burrell: I was about 11 years {…}
(Photo: Missy Mazzoli is an acclaimed composer of experimental chamber operas whose oeuvre ranges from electronic avant rock to short-form chamber operas. One of the first two women to receive a commission from the Metropolitan Opera, she joined forces with her longtime collaborator, Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Royce Vavrek, to created the highly anticipated “Lincoln in the Bardo,” premiering at the {…}
(Photo Credit: Daniel Welch) If you had to boil down the one constant connecting thread of opera, romance would likely be at the top of that list of possibilities. Simply put, what connects us to the greatest of operas is usually a great love story. Think “La Bohème,” “La Traviata,” “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “Tristan und Isolde,” “Der Rosenkavalier,” etc. {…}
(Photo: Nina Wurtzel-Horiz) Jeanine Tesori is one of today’s pioneering composers. Her work transcends boundaries and spans genres, including film and opera. Her new opera, “Blue,” which received the MCANA Award for Best New Opera, and “Grounded,” the first female commissioned opera by The Metropolitan Opera, are making history. Her work focuses on political and societal complexities, woven into the {…}