The Merola Opera Program 2017 Summer Festival continues into August with two fully staged performances of Rossini’s “La Cenerentola” on Thursday, August 3 at 7:30 p.m. EDT and Saturday, August 5 at 2:00 p.m. Both performances are at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. As one of the most prestigious and selective programs in the United States, Merola Opera Program {…}
Sony Classical has announced a new album for Jonas Kaufmann. The company posted a picture of Kaufmann with a sentence stating, “His new album coming this autumn!” ⠀ No further details were given. The tenor is currently performing the title role of Verdi’s “Otello” in a highly anticipated production by Keith Warner. Maria Agresta and Marc Vratogna are performing alongside {…}
Nowadays, performing Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” exactly as the composer intended is looked down upon. In fact, in today’s opera climate, historically accurate performances are far from the norm and somewhat of a lost, if not dead, art. But Kent Nagano doesn’t care and alongside the Concerto Köln, he is looking to exhume that past and give it new life. That {…}
Opera Parallèle is making some changes to its administration, adding San Francisco Attorney Jerome C. Roth to its Board of Directors. Roth is a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson, with a specialization in business and international litigation in addition to white collar criminal defense. He has been called one of the top lawyers on {…}
Catriona Morison was a big winner at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition this weekend. Not only did she come up with a huge underdog victory, but she went through to make some serious history. First off, she didn’t win her round of the Main Prize competition, but wound up in the final as the wild card participant. {…}
We can look at Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger,” which premiered on June 21, 1868, and marvel at its glorious music. Or its fascinating Schopenhauerian philosophy. Instead, let’s just look at the opera’s face value and marvel at the fact that this is an opera about singers. There are many operas laden with characters that sing within the context of the opera, {…}
On June 22, Rai 5 will broadcast Rossini’s “Il Viaggio A Reims” from the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. The production by Damiano Micheletto will be transmitted live from the theater and will feature an ensemble of singers including Mariangela Sicilia, Anna Goryachova, Juan Francisco Gatell, Adrian Sâmpetrean, Bruno De Simone, and Merto Sungu. Stefano Montanari will conduct the production. The showcase, which was originally from the {…}
Over the past few years, there has been an emergence of Russian albums recorded by many of today’s greatest divas. Many of the same arias, spanning from Rimsky Korsakov’s gorgeous oriental melodies to Rachmaninov’s lush melodies, havce been recording. It can be very difficult to listen to these pieces over and over unless that interpreter has something new to say. With her fourth {…}
“Rigoletto” can’t be topped for its humanity. A father and a daughter, a jester, a virginal naif, longing for and trying to sustain a good a life in selfish and lecherous world, power-hungry and greedy, 16th century Mantua. Such is the subject of Verdi’s middle period masterpiece. The libretto by Francisco Maria Piave is based on the play “Le Roi {…}
The Chicago Opera Theater has appointed Russian-born conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya to be its new Music Director, which will kick off during this coming season and see her appear more regularly with the company in 2018-19. The conductor has had an extensive career in the United States, where she is Artistic Director of Juventas New Music Ensemble, the Music Director with {…}
Missy Mazzoli’s opera “Breaking the Waves” has been a hit over the last year and now it has been recognized by the Music Critics Association of North America with the Best New Opera Award. This is actually the first time the organization awards this very accolade. Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek will both be honored on July 19 at the {…}