Light Opera of New Jersey Announces Inaugural Youth Ensemble Concert

https://operawire.com/light-opera-of-new-jersey-announces-inaugural-youth-ensemble-concert/

Light Opera of New Jersey will present the inaugural LONJ Youth Ensemble Concert on Oct. 10 at 2 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The concert, which will be directed by Susan Speidel, LONJ’s Shari Loe Youth in Arts Director, will feature 18 young vocalists performing a program of arias, art songs and musical theater {…}

Special Features

While Opera House Goes Dark Independent Festivals Shine in Portugal

https://operawire.com/while-opera-house-goes-dark-independent-festivals-shine-in-portugal/

When Lisbon’s national opera house, the Teatro São Carlos, closed its doors in 2024 for preservation and maintenance of its historic character, along with a much needed modernization of its backstage facilities, the initial announcement suggested a relatively contained closure lasting perhaps a couple of seasons. With the project now expected to extend at least into 2028, the institution has {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Rossini Opera Festival 2026 Review: Il viaggio a Reims

https://operawire.com/rossini-opera-festival-2026-review-il-viaggio-a-reims/

(Photo: Rossini Opera Festival) “The Journey to Reims” occupies a singular place in Gioachino Rossini’s catalogue today: few could have imagined that a work conceived as a circumstantial celebration of the coronation of Charles X would, two centuries later, become one of the most emblematic titles of the Rossini Opera Festival (ROF) in Pesaro and a veritable testing ground for {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Rossini Opera Festival 2026 Review: L’occasione fa il ladro

https://operawire.com/rossini-opera-festival-2026-review-loccasione-fa-il-ladro/

(Photo: Rossini Opera Festival) Written in just fifteen days in 1812 for Venice’s Teatro San Moisè, this one-act burletta per musica belongs to the extraordinary period of the composer’s youth when, at just 20 years old, Rossini seemed capable of turning even the most seemingly minor plot into a theatrical mechanism of breathtaking precision, sustained by music of the highest {…}

Behind the Scenes, Interviews

Q & A: Jarvus Ricardo Hester on Founding & Managing Harlem Collective Opera, WHRL Mood Radio Harlem, Mood Magazine NYC

https://operawire.com/q-a-jarvus-ricardo-hester-on-founding-managing-harlem-collective-opera-whrl-mood-radio-harlem-mood-magazine-nyc/

Jarvus Ricardo Hester is thinking about opera beyond the traditional theater. As the founder of Harlem Collective Opera, he is exploring how classical music can become more intimate, accessible, and connected to the communities it serves. At the heart of that work is the Black Composer Project, an exploration of Black art song that has grown into something larger than {…}

Opera Meets Film, Special Features

Attempting Destruction but Creating History in G. W. Pabst’s ‘The Three Penny Opera’

https://operawire.com/attempting-destruction-but-creating-history-in-g-w-pabsts-the-three-penny-opera/

With the publication of Ross Benjamin’ translation of Daniel Kehlmann’s fictionalized story of Austrian filmmaker, Georg Wilhelm Pabst (1886-1967), The Director (2023/2025), preceded by German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s translated memoire, Every Man for Himself and God Against All (2022/2023), it’s fascinating to see how the opera-film relationship can be incredibly heterogeneous. While for Herzog, “when the whole world is transformed {…}

News

Finnish National Opera and Ballet to Present ‘The Sugar Factory’ Operas

https://operawire.com/finnish-national-opera-and-ballet-to-present-the-sugar-factory-operas/

The Finnish National Opera and Ballet will premiere four new short Finnish operas at Almi Hall on August 13, marking the culmination of the first year of “The Sugar Factory,” a new opera works program financed by the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Over the course of a year, 12 artists, four composers, four librettists, and four directors, developed the works with {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2026 Review: Billy Budd

https://operawire.com/glyndebourne-festival-opera-2026-review-billy-budd/

(© Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Tristram Kenton) Lash your picnic baskets to the deck: Benjamin Britten’s “Billy Budd” — the tangled morality tale of innocence and cruelty aboard a Napoleonic-era Man-of-War with words by E.M. Forster and Eric Crozier — has set sail once again at the Glyndebourne Festival. Michael Grandage’s production from 2010 was the company’s first staging of {…}

Editorials

Op-Ed: Opera Neo Presents Louise Bertin’s ‘Fausto’ With American Premiere Starring Young Artists

https://operawire.com/op-ed-opera-neo-presents-louise-bertins-fausto-with-american-premiere-starring-young-artists/

(Photo: Gary Payne) At 26 years old, French composer Louise Bertin launched “Fausto,” an Italian semiseria and what would be her third opera. After a largely anti-climatic and tepid response to the 1831 premiere in Paris, the opera would be shelved and forgotten for nearly 200 years. Now in 2026, Opera Neo has revived the work for the first time {…}

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Light Opera of New Jersey Announces Inaugural Youth Ensemble Concert

While Opera House Goes Dark Independent Festivals Shine in Portugal

Rossini Opera Festival 2026 Review: Il viaggio a Reims

Rossini Opera Festival 2026 Review: L’occasione fa il ladro

Q & A: Jarvus Ricardo Hester on Founding & Managing Harlem Collective Opera, WHRL Mood Radio Harlem, Mood Magazine NYC

Attempting Destruction but Creating History in G. W. Pabst’s ‘The Three Penny Opera’

Finnish National Opera and Ballet to Present ‘The Sugar Factory’ Operas

Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2026 Review: Billy Budd

Op-Ed: Opera Neo Presents Louise Bertin’s ‘Fausto’ With American Premiere Starring Young Artists