(photo credit: Richard Termine) The Juilliard School opened the 2019-20 opera season with a refreshing and intimate interpretation of Mozart’s “Così fan tutte.” The overall production under the direction of David Paul evoked an immediate realization of why Mozart may have chosen Lorenzo Da Ponte’s libretto based on the effective means of humor to challenge any serious contemplation of the {…}
The 2020 Spring Festival in Budapest is set to present the Hungarian premiere of Liszt’s opera “Sardanapalo.” The premiere will star Joyce El-Khoury, Airam Hernández, and Oleksandr Pushniak with Giampaolo Bisanti conducting the Staatskapelle Weimar. The opera was discovered 30 years after the death of the composer which was discovered at Weimar’s Goethe and Schiller Archive. David Trippett, a musicologist at {…}
(Credit: Steven Laxton) The LA Opera is set to showcase the world premiere of composer, conductor, writer, pianist, and 2018 MacArthur Fellow Matthew Aucoin’s “Eurydice.” The company will present six performances with star soprano Danielle de Niese and Joshua Hopkins in leading roles. The cast will also feature Rod Gilfry, John Holiday, Barry Banks, Stacey Tappan, Raehann Bryce-Davis, and Matthew {…}
Anja Harteros has canceled tomorrow’s performance at the Bayerische Staatsoper. The company announced that Harteros will not sing the role of Elsa in “Lohengrin” on Nov. 24 and will be replaced by Johanni van Oostrum. Van Oostrum has performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper since 1996 and has performed at the Dutch National Opera, Theater an der Wien, Komische Oper Berlin, {…}
(Credit: Columbia Artists) On Sept. 23, soprano Leah Hawkins, a member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, took part in the historic opening night performance of Gerswhin’s “Porgy and Bess” with the esteemed New York company. the Metropolitan Opera. While she was not one of the major headliners in a cast that feature Angel Blue, {…}
(Credit: Orlando Mendiola) There were plenty of F’s— High F’s, Low F’s, and Middle F’s—in composer/librettist’s Felix Jarrar’s “Mother Goose: A Drag Comic Chamber Opera,” and, I’m not speaking of notes on a staff; I’m talking about the f-word. Jarrar’s latest creation and collaboration with director Bea Goodwin was crass and vulgar; in short, I loved it. “Mother Goose” was {…}
(Credit: Marina Prudenskaya Official Website) Marina Prudenskaya is set to finish out the run of “Don Carlo” at the Opéra National de Paris, replacing Anita Rachvelishvili, who was originally scheduled. This is the second performance that Rachvelishvili cancels of this run, following the Nov. 20 performance in which the mezzo sang the first two acts but withdrew halfway through to {…}
“Fidelio” is the only opera that Beethoven gave the world. And while its flaws are notable, there is no doubt that its finest, there are few things more powerful than this very opera. So to celebrate the anniversary of the opera’s world premiere on Nov. 20, 1805, we have prepared a fun little quiz that will “reveal” how you would {…}
The Young People’s Chorus of New York has unveiled its 2019 holiday festival schedule. For opera lovers, the main event will undoubtedly be the concert on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2019 when the ensemble will present its annual “Winter Wonder: A Festival Holiday Concert.” The showcase will take place at the David Geffen Hall this season and will feature soprano Nadine {…}
(Credit: Ray Burmiston / Decca Classics) Soprano Lise Davidsen is set to be a Met Opera star over the next few seasons. Per The New York Times, the soprano, who will make her debut this coming month in “The Queen of Spades” is set to perform in a number of major operas over the next three seasons. She will appear {…}
(Credit: Marco Brescia & Rudy Amisano) To close out the 2018-19 season, the Teatro alla Scala decided to present its first-ever production of R. Strauss’ “Die ägyptische Helena,” which was created between “Intermezzo” and “Arabella.” It was a work in which Strauss turned his focus back toward Greek myths, with the huge orchestrations that he had employed in “Elektra” and {…}