(Photo: Monika Rittershaus) By the middle of the second act, a third of the audience had already gone home. They were not necessarily bored—some complained that the seats were too harsh on their spines; others that, because the opera started so late, they were unwilling to return home well after midnight. The fact is, this production of “La Calisto” did {…}
The Teatro dell’Opera di Roma has announced its 2025-26 Season. Opera The season opens with Wagner’s “Lohengrin” with Michele Mariotti conducting a production by Damiano Michieletto. The cast includes Dmitry Korchak, Clive Bayley, Tómas Tómasson, Ekaterina Gubanova, Andrei Bondarenko, and Jennifer Holloway. Performance Dates: Nov. 27-Dec. 7, 2025, 2025 Davide Livermore’s production of Puccini’s “La bohème” returns with Carolina López {…}
The Angers Nantes Opera has announced its 2025-26 season. Opera Falla’s “El Amor Brujo” and “La Vida Breve” will star Lucie Roche, Patricia Petibon, Sophie Belloir, Carlos Natale, Jean-Luc Ballestra, and Laura Gallego Cabeza. Roberto Forés Veses conducts. Performance Dates: Nov. 8 & 15, 2025 Sébastien Daucé conducts Cavalli’s “La Calisto” with Lauranne Oliva, Alex Rosen, Giuseppina Bridelli, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, Anna Bonitatibus, Zachary Wilder, Petr Nekoranec, Dominic Sedgwick, Théo Imart, and José {…}
The Opéra de Rennes has announced its 2025-26 season. Opera Bertrand Cuiller conducts Handel’s “Rinaldo” with a cast that includes Paul Figuier, Mathilde Ortscheidt, Maïlys De Villoutreys, Camille Poul, and Damien Pass. Performance Date: August 30, 2025 Cavalli’s “La Calisto” will star Lauranne Oliva, Paul-Antoine Bénos-Djian, Milan Siljanov, Anna Bonitatibus, Giuseppina Bridelli, Zachary Wilder, Bastien Rimondi, Dominic Sedgwick, Théo Imart, and {…}
(Photo credit: Gisela Schenker) L’Auditori presents its 2025-26 season, “Renaixements.” For the purpose of this article only vocal works are included. Beethoven’s “Symphony” No. 9 stars Joyce El-Khoury, Silvia Tro Santafé, Elgan Llyr Thomas, and Davone Tines. They are joined by the Orfeó Català and the Barcelona and National Symphony Orchestra of Catalonia (OBC) under the direction of Ludovic Morlot. {…}
The Opéra de Rouen Normandie has announced its 2025-26 season. Opera Chelsea Lehnea, Leonardo Sanchez, and Anthony Clark Evans lead Verdi’s “La Traviata.” Dayner Tafur-Diaz conducts the production by Jean-François Sivadier. The opera will be livestreamed on Oct. 4, 2025. Performance Dates: Sept. 26-Oct. 7, 2025 Elsa Benoit and Samuel Hasselhorn lead Brahms’ Deutsche Requiem. Laurence Equilbey conducts the production {…}
The Festival de Torroella de Montgrí has announced its 2025 season. Here is a look at the vocal performances. Anne-Kathryn Olsen, Marino Fribourg, and Víctor Sordo will perform music by Jaquemin de Senleches, Jean Robert Trebor, Jean Robert Trebor, Philippe de Vitry, François Andrieu, and Bernard de Cluny. Pau Marcos, Natalie Carducc, and Guillermo Pérez also feature in the program. {…}
(Foto: Monika Rittershaus / Courtesy of Opernhaus Zürich) George Frideric Händel composed “Agrippina” during his Italian tour, a work that marked a pivotal moment in his career. It solidified his grasp of Italian opera, represented his first genuine operatic triumph, and remains the earliest of his operas for which the complete score has survived intact. The libretto, written by Cardinal {…}
Welcome back for this week’s look at the latest CD and DVD releases in the opera world. This week audiences will get a good helping of baroque favorites and rarities, star-studded albums, world premieres and some fantastic modern works by recognized composers. Rufus Wainwright’s Dream Requiem The new album showcases Wainwright’s “Dream Requiem,” an epic work for orchestra, chorus, soprano, {…}
The Premio Abbiati del Disco 2024 has announced its 2024 winners. The prizes, which are awarded by the Associazione Critici musicali italiani, saw Anna Bonitatibus’s album “Monologues” take home the award for Best Solo Album. Meanwhile, the award for Best Opera recording went to Pentatone’s “Dido and Aeneas” with Fleur Barron, Matthew Brook, Giulia Semenzato, Nicky Spence under David Bates and {…}
What does it take to make a difference in the opera world? And what does it mean? Should one be world-famous, have a star-management and a five-figure fee? I guess it’s a certain way. But then, on a planet [over]-populated by almost eight billion people, we would have just a handful of such personalities. When a couple of years ago, {…}