The Fort Worth Opera Festival 2019 has expanded its lineup to include four concerts that will feature some major opera stars. The festival, which kicks off on April 26, will now feature “Baguettes and Opera” starting on April 4, 2019. This will be a collaboration with Central Market of Fort Worth and will celebrate the world premiere of “Companionship,” which {…}
OPERA NEWS has been awarded the Print Merit Award in the best editorial design competition. The accolade was bestowed on the publication by The Society of Publication Designers. The award was given for the piece “Barred Genius” from the February 2018 issue (pictured above), which focused on the challenges of Meyerbeer’s operas have encountered throughout the ages. OPERA NEWS previously {…}
The recent revival of Mercadante’s “Il Bravo” was a major coup for the Wexford Festival Opera. Not only did it garner strong reviews, but it is not the winner of the “Best Opera Production” at the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards. The production was directed by Barbe & Doucet with musical direction by Jonathan Brandini. The production was broadcast globally {…}
Little Opera and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music are collaborating to showcase the operas of elementary school students in San Francisco at a Benefit Concert on April 7, 2019. The performance starts at 3:30 p.m. local time. Per a press release, the young students have been working on these operas since the beginning of the school year and will {…}
Placido Domingo celebrated his 4,000 performance of his career. In a social media post, the world famous tenor noted that with his performance of “Simon Boccanegra” at the Wiener Staatsoper on April 1, 2019, he would have sung 4,000 performances. He also mentioned that the total did not include conducting performances. Domingo once again breaks his own record for performances {…}
The Boston Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2019-20 season featuring a number of choral pieces, operatic performances and great singers. For this article we are only putting emphasis on the choral and vocal performances. Andris Nelsons conducts the opening night performance of in a program that includes Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra, Beethoven’s Fantasy in C {…}
The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions has announced its 2019 winners. Out of nine finalists Thomas Glass, Miles Mykkanen, William Guanbo Su, Elena Villalón, and Michaela Wolz won the competition, each receiving $15,000 cash prize. The winners took home the prize after a months-long series of auditions involving more than 1,000 singers at the district, regional, and national levels. The 65th annual auditions was hosted {…}
(Photo: Alessia Santambrogio) Alfredo Catalani died prematurely of tuberculosis, at the age of 39, having completed five operas. Today he is really only remembered for one of them, namely “La Wally” and even this receives only an occasional performance, and is known primarily for its famous aria “Ebben.. ne andrò lontana” and the fact one of its main characters, Hagenbach, {…}
On March 31, 2019, San Diego Opera presented Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen” to a mostly sold out audience at the Civic Theatre. Kyle Lang was both stage director and choreographer of this thoughtful and elegant production that began with two male dancers, Laurence Gonzalez and Lester Gonzalez, as a soldier and a bullfighter dancing for supremacy during the the overture. {…}
Iréne Theorin has canceled the opening night performance of “La Gioconda” on April 1, 2019 at the Gran Teatre del Liceu. The Liceu press office announced that due to illness Theorin would not be able to sing the opening night. As a result, Anna Pirozzi will open the production in the title role making her role debut. Due to the cast {…}
(Photo: Janita Sassen) Amsterdam’s “Opera Forward Festival” is an event which showcases new or relatively new operas, by well-known and lesser known composers. One of the operas on offer at this year’s festival was Micha Hamel’s “Caruso a Cuba.” Hamel is not an especially well-known composer outside his native Netherlands, but within his country he has had a number of {…}