https://operawire.com/review-richard-tucker-gala-2022/
Photos: Dario Acosta The Richard Tucker Award and Gala came back in full force after two years with no awards. A galaxy of operatic stars was on hand for the event held in the newly renovated David Geffen Hall, which was designed to remedy the venue’s seemingly intractable issue with—of all things—acoustics. (Geffen Hall is the home of the New {…}
https://operawire.com/the-cleveland-orchestra-announces-select-performances-for-2023-blossom-music-festival/
Photo: Roger Mastroianni The Cleveland Orchestra has announced select performances for Blossom Music Festival 2023. The concerts will take place at the Blossom Music Center in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park from July 1-Sept. 3, 2023. Blossom Music Center is the summer home of The Cleveland Orchestra. For this article, only vocal music is listed. The performances kick off with {…}
https://operawire.com/barbican-2022-review-an-anatomy-of-melancholy/
(Credit: © Cordula Treml) “An Anatomy of Melancholy” is a new 75-minute show from countertenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Thomas Dunford, designed and directed by Netia Jones. Its title comes from Robert Burton’s famous seventeenth-century treatise on the various varieties of despair and mania that make up what now wears the guise of depression and anxiety. The musical thread connecting {…}
https://operawire.com/ashkenazy-festival-artistic-director-eric-stein-on-reviving-bas-sheve-the-importance-of-jewish-representation/
Once considered lost since its premiere in 1924 Warsaw but miraculously rediscovered in 2017 by German Musicologist Dr. Diana Matut while digging through the archives of Yale University Library, the Yiddish-language opera “Bas Sheve” (the first known opera in the Yiddish language) finally received its North American premiere at the 2022 Ashkenaz Festival. Dubbed one of the “largest and most {…}
https://operawire.com/singing-penguins-composer-allen-shearer-librettist-claudia-stevens-on-the-inspiration-for-prosperos-island/
“O brave new world that has such creativity in’t!’ “Prospero’s Island,” the forthcoming chamber opera by composer Allen Shearer and librettist Claudia Stevens, tells the tale. Ninth Planet, in co-production with InTandem, will present the world premiere at San Francisco’s Herbst Theater on March 25, 2023. It is to be performed by a cadre of young and exceptionally talented musical {…}
https://operawire.com/review-2022-weve-come-to-claim-the-throne/
Pianist/composer Felix Jarrar and soprano Michelle Trovato partnered to stage a themed recital centered on Mary Queen of Scots, titled “We’ve Come to Claim the Throne,” on July 29, 2022, at St. John’s in the Village, New York City. The theme came to Jarrar via soprano Michelle Trovato, who had been thinking for some time about a program focusing on {…}
https://operawire.com/nyu-skirball-to-present-the-north-american-premiere-of-toshio-hosokawas-hanjo/
NYU Skirball is set to present the North American premiere of Toshio Hosokawa and Yukio Mishima’s “Hanjo” on Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, 2022, at NYU Skirball. Produced by Catapult Opera and directed by Italian choreographer Luca Veggetti, Hosokawa’s “Hanjo” is based on a 14th-century Noh play and is considered a fine example of Japanese storytelling by one of the country’s {…}
https://operawire.com/the-whitney-biennial-2022-review-raven-chacons-for-zitkala-sa/
Raven Chacon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation, composed a series of 13 scores as portraits dedicated to different contemporary American Indian, First Nations, or Mestiza women working in music performance, composition, or sound art. Currently on view in the 2022 Whitney Biennial, this work creates space for better understanding the Yankton Dakota {…}
https://operawire.com/royal-college-of-music-2021-22-review-flight/
On June 28th, amidst the calmness of a beautiful evening in London, held within the palatial confines of Britten Theater, the Royal College of Music Opera Studio performed Jonathan Dove’s third opera “Flight,” a humorous yet weighty story story about the going-ons of eight individuals at an airport terminal. Although a student production, you wouldn’t have known this at all {…}