(Photo: ©OMC Marco Borrelli) A Parisian critic during the belle époque once wrote about the Opéra de Monte-Carlo: “If only the Paris Opera could assemble for one special performance a cast equivalent to the one that the inhabitants of the little earthly paradise on the Mediterranean will be able to applaud all winter long!” (La Renaissance musicale, October 8, 1881) {…}
Medici.tv pays tribute to Maurice Ravel on the 150th anniversary of his birth with a deep dive into his complete works and more. Two livestreams of composer’s instrumental work kick off the anniversary festivities. On March 27, the platform will livestream Ravel’s complete operatic masterpieces. One century to the day after its premiere at the very same venue, “L’Enfant et {…}
The OPER! Awards announced its 2024 winners on Jan. 29, 2024. The awards were held at the Dutch National Opera, which won the Opera House of the Year accolade. The evening saw Waltraud Meier, who recently retired from the opera stage, receive the Lifetime Honorary Award. The Female Singer of the Year went to Ermonela Jaho, while Michael Spyres won {…}
Welcome back for this week’s look at the latest CD and DVD releases in the opera world. This week audiences will get to hear a new recording by one of the world’s most renowned soprano as well as the complete recordings of baroque masterpieces and some world premiere pieces. Les Talens Lyriques perform Louise Bertin’s “Fausto” Les Talens Lyriques and {…}
Photo credit: Colin Miller Winners of the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2023 have been announced. This article only features winners of vocal-related works. Soprano Dame Felicity Lott took home the Lifetime Achievement Award, honoring her performance career and discography of more than 100 recordings. French soprano Véronique Gens was awarded Artist of the Year and the won the Voice and Ensemble {…}
The Gramophone Magazine has announced the 2023 award nominations. For the purposes of this article, we will only highlight the opera and vocal nominees. The opera nominees are Meyerbeer’s “Robert Le Diable” with Chœur de l’Opera National de Bordeaux, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, and Marc Minkowski (Bru Zane), Puccini’s “Turandot” with the Orchestra e Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia {…}
This week audiences will get a chance to hear a new album by a great tenor and complete operas by Mozart, Donizetti, Moniuszko, and Gluck. Romances Star tenor Piotr Beczala presents a selection of romances by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, together with the acclaimed accompanist Helmut Deutsch. In a statement, Beczala noted, “When I first began to study singing at the Katowice Academy of {…}
This week audiences will get to experience classic recordings as well as some new solo recitals and complete recordings of rarely performed operas. AMASS GRAMMY-nominated conductor Eugene Rogers brings to life Jocelyn Hagen’s setting of the Roman Catholic Mass in AMASS. This work stands apart from the Mass settings of other composers who have practiced this centuries-old genre, including Johann {…}
Pierre Boulez, eminent connoisseur of Berlioz and his oeuvre, has famously declared the French Romantic a key intermediary between Beethoven and Wagner, that is, respectively, the symphonic and operatic composers par excellence. His “Roméo et Juliette,” written in 1839, is by no means an exception as it combines, so to speak, the best of both worlds: a symphonic enacting of {…}
The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal has announced its 2023-24 season. The season opens with Camilla Tilling, Rose Naggar-Tremblay, Ladislav Elgr, Matthew Rose, and Jean-Willy Kunz. Rafael Payare conducts a program that includes Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass and Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” Performance Dates: Sept. 12-14, 2023 Gemma New conducts Colin Currie and OSM Chorus in Nicole Lizée’s “Blurr is the {…}
This week audiences will get to hear the debut of one of opera’s brightest stars and a remastered classic. Black & Blue New York Festival of Song releases “Black & Blue,” the debut solo album of British-American tenor Joshua Blue on its in-house label NYFOS Records. The album was recorded at Big Orange Sheep in November 2022, and produced by {…}