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Reviews, Stage Reviews

Irish National Opera 2026-27 Review: Testament

https://operawire.com/irish-national-opera-2026-27-review-testament/

(Photo: Patrick Redmond) In 2011, Colm Tóibín’s play, “Testament,” premiered at the Dublin Theatre Festival. The piece required only a single actress, who, cast as Mary, recalls the life of her son, Jesus, as she remembers it. It is a very personal recollection, one that does not always correspond to his life as presented in the gospels. Fast forward to {…}

News

Operalia in Shanghai – Impressions From the Opening Days

https://operawire.com/operalia-in-shanghai-impressions-from-the-opening-days/

The past 10 days in Shanghai have been quite phenomenal for opera. On Oct. 17, superintendents from Vienna, London, Munich, Venice, St Petersburg and Berlin showed up for a forum celebrating the grand opening of the Shanghai Grand Opera House, China’s biggest opera house. Less than a week later, heads of major opera houses, festivals and programmes descended on Shanghai {…}

Stage Reviews

Bayreuth Festival 2026 Review: Götterdämmerung

https://operawire.com/bayreuth-festival-2026-review-gotterdammerung/

(Credit: Enrico Nawarath) “The world is a generalized form of the spirit, its symbolic picture.” – Novalis “A poet’s word alone can express what is artificial in a floating image.” – Anonymous aphorism If Wagner’s “Ring cycle” is deep, “Götterdämmerung” is its deepest point. As the Norns, mythical weavers of destiny, represent the past, present, and future, so too does {…}

Stage Reviews

Festival Verdi 2026 Review: Nabucco

https://operawire.com/festival-verdi-2026-review-nabucco/

(Photo: Roberto Ricci – Festival Verdi) Giuseppe Verdi’s “Nabucco,” the opera that established his reputation in 1842, occupies a pivotal position in his development. At a time when Italian opera remained largely governed by bel canto conventions, Verdi made the love story subordinate to a broader conflict involving political power, religious faith and collective suffering. The chorus, meanwhile, assumed an {…}

Reviews, Stage Reviews

Festival Verdi 2026 Review: Alzira

https://operawire.com/festival-verdi-2026-review-alzira/

(Photo: Roberto Ricci – Festival Verdi) A Colonial Tragedy Diminished by Melodrama Giuseppe Verdi’s “Alzira,” premiered in Naples in 1845, has enjoyed a curious afterlife. The composer’s own alleged verdict, “questa è proprio brutta” (“this is really ugly”), has become almost more famous than the opera itself. His eighth stage work, and one of the least performed in his catalogue, {…}

Business, News

Blackwater Valley Opera Festival Announces New Executive Director

https://operawire.com/blackwater-valley-opera-festival-announces-new-executive-director/

Blackwater Valley Opera Festival (BVOF) has appointed Dermot O’Callaghan as executive director, effective January 2027. O’Callaghan has been chief executive of Sing Ireland, the national organization for group singing in Ireland, since 2013. He led its transition from the Association of Irish Choirs to Sing Ireland in 2019. He has also worked with Opera Theatre Company and with Chamber Choir {…}

Business, News

Berkshire Opera Festival Appoints New President & CEO

https://operawire.com/berkshire-opera-festival-appoints-new-president-ceo-2/

Berkshire Opera Festival has appointed Martin Mansfield as its new President and CEO. Mansfield succeeds Natalie Johnsonius Neubert, who served as the company’s first President and CEO. Mansfield holds degrees from Columbia University and Fordham University School of Law and spent nearly 20 years practicing law in New York before moving into the arts. He later studied voice at the {…}

Business, News

The Grange Festival Appoints Brindley Sherratt as Artistic Director

https://operawire.com/the-grange-festival-appoints-brindley-sherratt-as-artistic-director/

The Grange Festival has announced the appointment of Brindley Sherratt as its new Artistic Director. He will succeed Michael Chance, who led the company since its formation in 2016 and retired at the end of the 2026 Festival. Sherratt is one of the world’s most respected singers and theatre practitioners and is revered for his interpretations of Mozart’s Sarastro in {…}