The Merola Opera Program has announced the Grand Finale concert that will cap its 2018 summer festival. The concert will take place on Saturday, August 18 at 7:30 p.m. local time at the War Memorial Opera House. The event will be conducted by Dean Williamson, who is the music director of the Nashville Opera. This year’s program features a whopping {…}
PBS will showcase Puccini’s “Tosca” from the Metropolitan Opera as part of its Great Performances Series on Friday, June 15, 2018. The broadcast will kick off at 9 p.m. EDT and will showcase soprano Sonya Yoncheva as the tragic heroine. This was the first of Yoncheva’s big season, during which she appeared on three Live in HD broadcasts. Her “Bohème” {…}
The New York City Opera has announced its first two operas for the 2018-19 Season. The season is set to include a world premiere and a modern classic that will be directed by Francesca Zambello. The company will announce the rest of the lineup in the company weeks. Productions The New York City Opera opens its 75thAnniversary with Francesca Zambello’s production {…}
The George London Foundation for Singers has been honoring, supporting, and presenting the finest young opera singers in the U.S. and Canada since 1971. The foundation and the George London Awards (the prize of the foundation’s annual competition) are named for the legendary Canadian-American bass-baritone, one of the greatest opera singers of 20th century, who devoted much of his time {…}
The Teatro La Maestranza has announced its 2018-19 season featuring opera, zarzuela, and recitals. Here is a look at what the season will offer. Opera The season opens with Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” Leonor Bonilla, José Bros, Vitaliy Bilyy, Mirco Palazzi, and Manuel de Diego. Filippo Sanjust directs the production with Renato Balsadonna conducting. Performance Dates: Oct. 26 – Nov. 4, {…}
Giacomo Aragall (or Jaume, as he was originally named) enjoyed a legendary career, even if his name is not always among the most recognized in the opera world. Born on June 6, 1939, he was singing from the age of nine onward. He made his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in 1961-62 season and then went over to La {…}
With the New York Opera Fest 2018 officially underway, OperaWire will be showcasing small previews for each major participant at the festival, as we did during last year’s event. However, we are doing things a bit differently this year and giving the floor directly to each company to speak to you, the reader, directly. Enjoy! David Hertzberg is one of {…}
Opera Naples is ready to take their renovations to the next level, thanks to their most recent donation from philanthropists David and Cecile Wang. The Wang family made a generous donation of $300,000 to Opera Naples, which will help with Phase III improvements to the Wang Opera Center. Included in the renovations are 56 additional seats, a professional control booth, {…}
This review is for the performance on June 3, 2018. It’s quite often that operas, great and otherwise, have been adapted from, what we’d call today, other media. Whether plays or novels, it was standard practice for composers such as Verdi, Puccini and even Wagner to repurpose story and characters for the operatic stage. And there are so many impressive {…}
Vicenza’s Teatro Olimpico, designed by Palladio in 1580, is Europe’s oldest indoor theater. It is based on Vitruvius’s description of the theatres of Ancient Rome, and therefore, Classical in style. It has an elliptical, steeply-raked seating space as found in Ancient Greek and Roman open-air theatres, which provides for unrestricted views of the stage. Its auditorium is decorated by plaster {…}
Ivan Magrì will replace Juan Diego Flórez as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” at the Vienna State Opera. It will be his debut with the company. He will perform alongside Paolo Rumetz’s interpretation of the title role and Aida Garifullina, who will take on Gilda. Magrì has performed at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Berlin, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro {…}