(Photo: Luciano Romano) In 1770, Naples’ Teatro San Carlo attempted to commission a new opera from the fourteen-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart while he was touring Italy with his father. Mozart declined, having already accepted a commission from Milan’s Teatro Ducale. The resulting opera, “Mitridate, Re di Ponto,” was never performed at the San Carlo until its 2026–27 season, when the {…}
(Credit: Emily Doyle Moore) The Santa Fe Opera has announced its 2027 season. John Fiore conducts Puccini’s “Turandot” with Paul Curran directing. Angela Meade, Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Kathleen O’Mara, and Peixin Chen star. Performance Dates: July 2-August 28, 2027 Iván López Reynoso conducts Rossini’s “Il barbiere di Siviglia” with Stephen Barlow directing. Sun-Ly Pierce, Jonah Hoskins, Luke Sutliff, Kevin Burdette, and William Guanbo Su {…}
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has announced its 2026-27 season. Klaus Mäkelä conducts Thomas Hampson in a program of music by Gabrieli, Stravinsky, and Walton. Performance Dates: Oct. 8 & 9, 2026 Klaus Mäkelä conducts Thomas Hampson in a program of music by Stravinsky, and Walton. Performance Date: Oct. 10, 2026 Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider conducts Brahms’ German Requiem with Louise Alder and Konstantin Krimmel. {…}
The Ravenna Festival announces its 2026 season. This article only features vocal concerts. Riccardo Muti leads choir singers from all over Italy for the project Cantare amantis est. Performance Dates: June 1 & 2, 2026 Nicola Zambon and Ludovico Dal Pra sing in “Il Santo folle” by Marcello Fera and Guido Barbieri, with Conductus Ensemble and Gruppo Vocale Heinrich Schütz, {…}
(Photo: © Vito Lorusso / Teatro alla Scala) During the Classical period, audiences entertained themselves with theatrical farces, literary comedies and other artistic forms that, besides amusing, also served as social critique. “Così fan tutte,” premiered in Vienna in 1790, is a direct heir to that tradition. Mozart’s work explores seduction, fidelity and the illusion of love. Its characters take {…}
(Photo: © Monika Rittershaus) “Don Giovanni” is an opera of seductions and escapes, moral wreckage and divine retribution, a shimmering mosaic of comedy, tragedy, farce, and existential dread. Yet “the mother of all operas” is also a uniquely treacherous work—at once alluring and intractable, irresistibly open yet elusive. Music’s sublimity rarely fails to connect with audiences, even in a less-than-stellar {…}
(Photo credit: Brescia and Amisano) “I should reproach myself even more if I were to allow myself to be credited with the initiative for the new genre of Italian opera … it is to my librettist Calzabigi that the main credit goes …” Gluck, letter of 1775 Let us speak directly of the opera at hand, recently brought to the {…}
(Photo credit: Brescia and Amisano) One of the most common phenomena of the 18th century was the pilgrimage of European composers to Italy, seeking to immerse themselves in the “alla italiana” compositional technique and then return to their homelands to apply this revolutionary formula. Such was the case of Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729–1774), who left his native Bohemia to settle {…}
The Royal Opera House has announced its cinema season for the 2025-26 season. Here are the opera offerings: The cinema season opens with Puccini’s “Tosca” starring Anna Netrebko, Freddie de Tommaso, and Gerald Finley. Jakub Hrůša conducts the new production by Oliver Mears. Cinema Date: Oct. 1 & 5, 2025 Antonello Manacorda conducts Verdi’s “La Traviata” and will star Ermonela {…}
The San Francisco Opera has announced its 2025-26 season. The company is set to present its “Opera Ball,” co-presented with the San Francisco Opera Guild. Performance Date: Sept. 5, 2025 The season opens with Verdi’s “Rigoletto” with Eun Sun Kim conducting the work. Amartuvshin Enkhbat leads the cast in the title role alongside Adela Zaharia, Giovanni Sala, J’Nai Bridges, and {…}
(Photos: Marco Borrelli) The Opéra de Monte-Carlo ushered in the new year with two standout productions as part of the “Mozart in Monaco” festival, organized by the resident Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo. The festival’s first offering was a semi-staged “Don Giovanni,” presented by the Wiener Staatsoper on January 19th. Cecilia Bartoli, director of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, continued her fruitful {…}