It is time to wrap up the year and look back at our favorite moments and performers. After releasing our favorite performances of 2024 and showcasing our rising stars of the year, it’s time for OperaWire’s annual tradition of naming our top 11 singers of the year, performers that we thought stood out. Performers who had major breaks, headlined major productions or simply had {…}
The Arena di Verona has announced its 2025 season. Verdi’s “Nabucco” will get a new production. Stefano Poda will direct the new production. Amartuvshin Enkhbat, Youngjun Park, Luca Salsi, and Igor Golovatenko lead the cast that includes Anna Pirozzi, Maria José Siri, Anna Netrebko, and Olga Maslova as Abigaille, Francesco Meli and Galeano Salas as Ismaele. The cast is rounded out by Roberto {…}
San Francisco Opera’s 2024 Fall Season concludes with the Bizet’s “Carmen.” The production by Francesca Zambello will be performed between Nov. 13–Dec. 1 at the War Memorial Opera House. Mezzo-soprano Eve-Maud Hubeaux is set to make her American debut in the title role alongside Jonathan Tetelman as Don José, Louise Alder as Micaëla, and Christian Van Horn as Escamillo. The {…}
(Credit: Karen Almond / Met Opera) The Metropolitan Opera’s 2024-25 live in HD series is set to open with Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann.” The opera will be shown in HD on Oct. 5 with Benjamin Bernheim taking on the lead role. The HD will mark his second following his acclaimed run of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette.” He will be joined by {…}
(Credit: Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera) (This review was written in collaboration with Francisco Salazar) After a hyped but underwhelming opening night, the Met Opera’s second at-bat in the 2024-25 was the revival of a French classic that it hadn’t showcased since 2017. “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” is an incredible opera, rich in imagination, both in its musical and dramatic qualities. {…}
The Metropolitan Opera season is only one week away and with a new season comes anticipated new productions and revivals and will showcase some of the world’s best singers. So without further ado here are OperaWire’s most anticipated productions of the 2024-25 season. Ainadamar As listed in the 10 operas to see this fall, the Osvaldo Golijov is one of {…}
It is blatantly evident that there is a connection between the advent of cinema and the decline of Opera. Once the main form of entertainment, the operatic stage lost its prominence to the silver screen. There is something that opera used to give that cinema somehow gave, too—the question is what? Last year, the Salzburg Festival attempted to bridge the {…}
Deutsche Grammophon’s Stage + is set to present Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” from the Salzburg Festival. The stream will be presented on August 24, 2024, and will star tenor Benjamin Bernheim in his signature role as Hoffmann. Kate Lindsey, Kathryn Lewek, and Christian Van Horn will join him. Marc Minkowski will conduct the production by Mariame Clément. The stream is {…}
On June 14, 2024, the Metropolitan Opera presented its second program to its Carnegie Hall series which is set to go on tour later this month. The program combined the works of Wagner, Debussy, and Bartók. The result was an uneven opening half and a second half that was perhaps one of the best operatic performances of the entire Met {…}
(Photo credit: Emilie Brouchon / Opéra national de Paris) I’ve been told that one reads “Don Quichotte” three times in life: in one’s twenties to laugh, in one’s forties to think, and in one’s sixties to cry. This saddening saying reflects the multivocal quality of the Chevalier of La Mancha’s myth: painfully delusional and carnally human, his hallucinatory deeds are {…}
The Teatro San Carlo announced its 2024-25 season. The season opens with Dvořák’s “Rusalka” in a new production by Dmitri Tcherniakov. Dan Ettinger conducts a cast that includes Asmik Grigorian, Adam Smith, Ekaterina Gubanova, Anita Rachvelishvili, and Gábor Bretz. Performance Dates: Nov. 20-Dec. 7, 2024 Verdi’s “Don Carlo” will be conducted by Henrik Nánási and will star Piero Pretti, Gabriele Viviani, Ildar {…}