The Verbier Festival has announced the programming for its 26th edition. While there are undeniably a plethora of incredible performances of all kinds to be found throughout the many weeks of this famed festival, the aim of this article will be to focus mainly on vocal and operatic performances. Baritone Thomas Quasthoff will appear alongside guitarist Wolfgang Meyer and Trombonist {…}
The Opernhaus Zürich has announced that Italian conductor Fabio Luisi, its General Music Director, has opted out of his role as musical director for the February/March performances of György Ligeti’s “La Grand Macabre.” As a result, Maestro Tito Ceccherini, “an acclaimed interpreter of the modern repertoire” according to Opera Musica, will stand in as musical director for the upcoming performances {…}
In 2012, a version of Handel’s “Rinaldo,” written for Naples in 1718, was discovered in a castle in England. It is a reconstructed version, by a lesser-known baroque composer, Leonardo Leo, who had also included parts by Vivaldi and numerous other composers. This pastiche is the version that is being performed at the Festival della Valle d’Itria, 300 years after {…}
Fabio Luisi has been named the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s music director. The orchestra announced that the 59-year-old Italian conductor would succeed Jaap van Zweden, who will become the New York Philharmonic’s music director. In a press release, Luisi announced that over the next years he will reduce his contracts in Europe, where he is the principal conductor of three companies, {…}
Donizetti’s opera “La Favorite,” originally written in French for the L’Opera, Paris, was quickly translated into Italian, and soon became the preferred version. However, in the last quarter of the 20th century this trend was reversed and today it is the French version that is more widely performed, and for the first time, Florence’s Teatro Maggio Musicale Fiorentino has decided {…}
On Jan. 1 Fabio Luisi, one of the leading conductors of Italian operas, will lead the New Year’s concert from the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. The first part of the concert will include Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and will be followed by an intermission. The second part will be dedicated to great operatic repertoire and will include soprano Rosa Feola {…}