Credits: (Dragana Branković / Intermusica Official website / Egils Silins official website) The Staatstheater Kassel has announced the complete casts for its 2020-21 season. Here is the full rundown. Premieres “L’Ultimo Sogno,” one act opera by Giuseppe Verdi and Carlo Ciceri will feature Vlada Borovko in the role of Violetta Valéry, Giordano Lucà as Alfredo Germont, while Cozmin Sime and {…}
Grange Park Opera has announced that it will be filming Benjamin Britten’s “Owen Wingrave,” with audiences able to view the work between September and December 2020. The opera will be filmed on location in haunted houses throughout Surrey and London. “The opera requires a dozen interiors, which are well-nigh impossible to achieve on a theatre stage. However, filmed on location, {…}
(Credit: Yasuko Kageyama / Opera di Roma) The Orchestre Classique de Montréal has announced that baritone Phillip Addis will replace Dominique Côté in the presentation of Kaminsky, Reed and Campbell’s opera “As One.” Addis will be joined onstage by the mezzo-soprano Sarah Bissonnette. Performances will take place on November 20 & 21, 2020, at the Cirque Éloize in Montreal. “We {…}
(Credit: Ray Burmiston) “One voice in a million.” This is the kind of phrase on which legacies, mythologies, histories are built. And it’s the phrase that continues to crop up whenever Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen enters the operatic conversation. The soprano has definitely played her part in bringing about this idea that her voice is of a unique power. She {…}
(Credits: © Sim Canetty-Clarke / Dario Acosta / Patrick Allen) BBC Proms has announced the schedule for the two weeks of live performances at the Royal Albert Hall. Compared to the initial plans that were conveyed to the public in May, there will be no live audience. For the purpose of this article, we will focus only on vocal performances. {…}
(Photo Credit: WMB Photo) On March 5, 2020, the Curtis Institute of Music lifted the curtain on its run of Benjamin Britten’s “Albert Herring.” A springtime favorite, this opera explores themes of chastity and societal expectations through the eyes of a young greengrocer who finds himself at the center of Loxford’s May Day celebrations. The work employs a number of {…}
(Credit: Deutsche Oper Berlin/Bettina Stöß) Based on a comedy by William Shakespeare, Britten and Pears’ “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” had its world premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival on June 11, 1960, with the composer conducting. Britten and Pears tried to bring Shakespeare’s magical world onstage both as a play and as a vocal piece. Alas, the opera has since struggled {…}
Every year the Tucson Guitar Society presents a recital in which a soloist is accompanied by guitar and it is always a crowd-pleaser. This year’s event, held on Wednesday January 22, 2020, in Tucson at the University of Arizona’s 200-seat Holsclaw Hall, starred tenor Ian Bostridge and guitarist Xuefei Yang gave a recital that included music by John Dowland, Benjamin {…}
The New York Opera Fest 2019 kicked off on Monday, April 29 and for the next several weeks, New Yorkers will get ample opportunity to enjoy opera in a variety of unique ways. As has been OperaWire’s tradition over the years, we have reached out to a number of the companies participating in the festival and have asked them a {…}
Saturday, April 13, 2019 saw the second performance of the Manhattan School of Music’s production of the Springtime favorite, “Albert Herring.” With the production running for three nights, each night featured a different cast, comprised of students from the school’s Senior Opera Theater, headed by conductor Jorge Parodi and director Dona D. Vaughn. This effervescent work, composed by Benjamin Britten, {…}
Benjamin Britten, born on Nov. 22, 1913, is arguably the greatest English composer of all time. He composed a plethora of major works across a wide variety of classical styles, but he was easily one of the most influential opera composers of the 20th century. His first “opera” was “Paul Bunyan,” which had its premiere on May 5, 1941. “Peter {…}