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Opera Meets Film, Special Features

Opera Meets Film: Opera Is Life in Kevin Sullivan’s ‘Magic Flute Diaries’

https://operawire.com/opera-meets-film-opera-is-life-in-kevin-sullivans-magic-flute-diaries/

Released in 2008, Canadian director Kevin Sullivan’s reimagining of “The Magic Flute” in his film, “Magic Flute Diaries,” was a profound statement on the way operatic narratives could be fused into the real world through a cross-relationship of experience, emotion, and feeling. Starring Canadian soprano Mireille Asselin as Masha/Pamina and baritone Olivier Laquerre as Papageno, the film continued the trend {…}

News

Pittsburgh Opera General Director Christopher Hahn to Retire

https://operawire.com/pittsburgh-opera-general-director-christopher-hahn-to-retire/

Pittsburgh Opera General Director Christopher Hahn has announced he will retire after Pittsburgh Opera’s 2025-26 season. Hahn announced during yesterday’s Board of Directors meeting. Hahn began his tenure with the Pittsburgh Opera’s General Director in 2008 and has served as its Artistic Director since 2000. Hahn began his career in opera in 1983 as a Rehearsal Administrator at the San {…}

News

Foundation for Contemporary Arts Announces 2025 Grants to Artists Award Recipients

https://operawire.com/foundation-for-contemporary-arts-announces-2025-grants-to-artists-award-recipients/

(Photo credit: The Wilma Theater) The Foundation for Contemporary Arts announced the 23 artists and collectives who will receive its $45,000 Grants to Artists awards. Launched in 1993, the Grants to Artists awards are unrestricted, by-nomination grants that provide recipient artists working in Dance, Music/Sound, Performance Art/Theater, Poetry, and Visual Arts. Winners exemplify contemporary, experimental work being made today. The {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Opéra National de Paris 2024-25 Review: Das Rheingold

https://operawire.com/opera-national-de-paris-2025-review-das-rheingold/

(Photo: Herwig Prammer / OnP) A very promising night indeed: Paris Opera takes its first step toward its new Ring under the direction of Calixto Bieito—one of the most exciting artists in his field—and with a promising cast. The stakes are particularly high for the company president, Alexander Neef, who would crowd his tenure with a Wagner Ring in continental {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Opéra National de Paris 2025 Review: Castor et Pollux

https://operawire.com/opera-national-de-paris-2025-review-castor-et-pollux/

(Photo: Vincent Pontent) Few operas have a more melancholic plot than this one: two brothers, twins with different fathers– one must die so the other can live. The twist? The brother destined to die happens to be immortal. In the end, they are forever united in the sky. Rameau’s “Castor et Pollux” is one of history’s great musical triumphs, and {…}

Opera Meets Film, Special Features

Opera Meets Film: The Follies of Acting Singers in Paolo Gep Cucco & Davide Livermore’s ‘The Opera!’

https://operawire.com/opera-meets-film-the-follies-of-acting-singers-in-paolo-gep-cucco-davide-livermores-the-opera/

What happens when a rather questionable story where good intentions end up futile in the face of capricious behavior is re-conceptualized? “The Opera!” by directors Paolo Gep Cucco and Davide Livermore. It is a strange sort of film where the two central characters are played by opera singers (Orpheus, Valentino Buzza and Eurydice, Mariam Battistelli) who seem woefully under-prepared to {…}

Behind the Scenes, Interviews

Q & A: American Opera Initiative’s Kelley Rourke on the Essence of Contemporary Opera & Bringing AOI to NYC

https://operawire.com/q-a-american-opera-initiatives-kelley-rourke-on-the-essence-of-contemporary-opera-bringing-aoi-to-nyc/

(Credit: Brittany Lesavoy Smith Photography) Few organizations have done as much to illuminate the possibilities of contemporary opera than American Opera Initiative (AOI). The program, founded in 2012 by Francesca Zambello, is a one-year lab of sorts for aspiring opera composers and librettists to create, workshop, rehearse, and premiere a short opera. Amongst the works to premiere under the program {…}

Special Features

Best of 2024: OperaWire’s Team on the Best Performances of the Year

https://operawire.com/best-of-2024-operawires-team-on-the-best-performances-of-the-year/

There’s been a lot of opera in 2024. And quite frankly, there’s been a lot of good opera. So as has become our tradition, here is a look at some of OperaWire’s editorial team’s picks for their personal favorite performances of 2024. Matt Costello: Act three of “Götterdämmerung” – Tanglewood It’s always a tricky thing to think about one’s “Performance {…}