It’s never an easy task to open a season at an opera house. But it’s even more challenging to open a season with a role debut and a world premiere. That is the feat that Daniela Mack is tasked with this week as she takes on the role of “Elizabeth Cree” in Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell’s latest collaboration. Mack, {…}
Stravinsky wrote a number of operas, but none is more potent or famed than “A Rake’s Progress,” a Faustian tale with the simple moral that “the Devil finds work for idle hands.” The opera first premiered in Venice on Sept. 11, 1951, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as Anne Trulove. It came to the US in 1953. Short Plot Summary At the {…}
We are not even going to beat around the bush here. This week’s releases come down to one artist – Maria Callas. Arguably THE singular most important opera singer of all time will get yet another re-release from Warner Classics, but with a major twist. The company is releasing a whopping 42-CD release of 20 complete operas, a Blu-Ray disc {…}
The Vienna State Opera showcases its second live streaming event on Friday, Sept 15, 2017, with a performance of Mozart’s masterwork “Le Nozze di Figaro.” The performance kicks off at 7 p.m. local time and stars Adam Plachetka and Dorothea Röschmann as the Almavivas, Andrea Carroll as the heroine Susanna and Carlos Álvarez as her fiancé Figaro. Margarita Gristkova rounds {…}
This review was for the performance on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017. Mendelssohn never left us an operatic masterpiece. He made several attempts throughout his career and even flirted with the idea of doing his own “Ring” long before Wagner actually completed one of his own, but ultimately, he will never be known as a composer for the theater. But Mendelssohn {…}
Right after “La Bohème” kicks off its run at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” will take over the headlines with 13 performances starting on Sept. 12, 2017, and ending on Oct. 14, 2017. Here are essential facts to prepare you for the classic gem before you check it out in London. 1. The opera will feature {…}
It was 2013 and Suzanne Vinnik was contacted by soprano Zulimar López, who was looking to solve a problem that every female opera singer faces – getting rid of a bunch of gowns that were hogging her closet space. “I had also experienced the same issue with my over-stuffed closet in my one bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side,” Vinnik told {…}
What is the greatest opera of all time? Everyone has his or her own opinions but a recent poll of 172 of the world’s greatest singers has yielded a consensus – Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.” The poll included such stars as tenor/baritone Plácido Domingo, sopranos Kiri Te Kanawa and Renée Fleming and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, among others, and was {…}
Joan of Arc is an iconic figure and one that has been showcased in a lot of different art forms, including opera. In recent years, some operas telling the famed heroine’s story have been given revivals, most notably Verdi’s “Giovanna d’Arco.” Of a different ilk, but no less compelling is Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans,” which will open Odyssey Opera’s {…}
The American Opera Projects has announced previews of new opera it will showcase this fall. In total there will be five major showcases, the first of which kicks off on Sept. 18, 2017. On that day, audiences will get a chance to see “Six. Twenty. Outrageous,” an opera by Daniel Thomas Davis and librettist Adam Frank. The opera is slated {…}
The Houston Grand Opera is set to relocate to kick off its 2017-18 season. This will affect the company’s season-opening runs of “La Traviata” and “Giulio Cesare” which will be showcased at a different building, instead of the Wortham Theater Center, the company’s usual home. The Wortham Theater Center suffered intense damage from Hurricane Harvey. “Although we are very sad {…}