The 2026-27 season of the Bliss Song Series at Pembroke College, Cambridge is announced. Soprano Véronique Gens with Artistic Director and pianist Joseph Middleton open the season with a concert of French melodies. Performance Date: Nov. 5, 2026 Soprano Fatma Said and Middleton perform Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” and a collection of Spanish and Egyptian Song. Performance Date: Nov. 14, 2026 Mezzo-soprano {…}
(Photo: Geoffroy Schied) This performance proved an excellent revival of “Der Freischütz” for the summer Festival. First seen five years ago, Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production strips away any Romantic origins the piece has and replaces them with a cool and calculated tale for our time: be warned, spoiler alerts follow. Production Details During the Overture a film shows the main protagonists {…}
The Elbphilharmonie Hamburg has announced its 2026-27 season. Here are the vocal performances. The Philharmonia Orchestra, I Vocalisti, ChorWerk Potsdam, Anna Lapwood, and Kerem Hasan will perform music by Kristina Arakelyan, Hans Zimmer, Max Richter, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Performance Date: Sept. 14, 2026 The Ensemble Resonanz, Anna Prohaska, and Enno Poppe will perform works by Benjamin Britten, Claude Vivier, Jean-Philippe {…}
The Berlin Philharmonic has announced its 2026-27 season. Here is a look at the vocal performances. MainStage Nicholas Collon conducts the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in György Ligeti’s “Le Grand Macabre” with Sarah Aristidou, Heidi Melton, Andrew Watts, Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, Leigh Melrose, Karl Huml, Kathrin Lorenzen, and Jingjing Xu. Performance Date: August 28, 2026 Kent Nagano conducts the WDR Sinfonieorchester {…}
(Credit: Yevhen Gulenko) The Cleveland Orchestra has announced its 2026-27 season at Severance Music Center, the 25th and final year of its partnership with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst. Welser-Möst opens his final season on September 17 and 20 with Richard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs,” featuring soprano Golda Schultz alongside Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8. Performance Dates: Sept. 17 & 20, 2026 {…}
The Wiener Staatsoper has announced its 2026-27 season. Premiere Zemlinsky’s “Eine Florentinische Tragödie” and Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” will be performed in a new production with Dmitry Golovnin, Christopher Maltman, Florian Boesch, and Asmik Grigorian. Alain Altinoglu conducts the new production by Vasily Barkhatov. Performance Dates: Oct. 3-12, 2026 Barrie Kosky directs a new production of Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” with {…}
The 2025 DUET Endowment Trust Gala was held on Oct. 4, the Artscape opera house. The annual DUET Endowment Trust Gala took place in celebration of South African operatic and musical excellence. Among performers were Golda Schultz and Jacques Imbrailo, as well as Cape Town Opera’s house soloists, Judith Neilson Young Artists, vocal ensemble, and Children’s Chorus. They were joined by {…}
(Credit: Dario Acosta) Soprano Golda Schultz and baritone Jacques Imbrailo will headline Cape Town Opera’s Duet Endowment Trust Gala Concert. The concert, set for Oct. 4, 2025, will feature Brittany Smith, Nonhlanha Yende, Lukhanyo Moyake, Khayakazi Madlala, Lonwabo Mose, and Sisikelelwe Mngenela, the Cape Town Opera Vocal Ensemble and Children’s Chorus, and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra under Gaetano Lo {…}
(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 {…}
The new Robert Icke staging of “Don Giovanni” might upset more than a few spirits. The scenic proposal is certainly disruptive, and its insistence on intervening digitally in the opera’s soundscape is the most acute symptom of “directivitis” (the terrible disease that has afflicted opera directors for the last seven decades). However, I really had a great time watching “Don {…}
The Opus Klassik Awards have announced the 2025 winners. The Singer of the Year Awards went to Benjamin Bernheim for “Douce France” and Emily D’Angelo for “Freezing.” Joana Mallwitz was awarded the conductor of the year award for The Kurt Weill Album, while Aigul Akhmetshina won Young Artist of the Year for her album Aigul. Pene Pati’s “Nessun Dorma” and {…}
