The third Haydneum Eszterháza Festival has unveiled its 2025 slate. Here are the vocal showcases on offer. First up is “Armida” starring Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, Zoltán Megyesi, Attila Varga-Tóth, Szilveszter Szélpál, Ella Smith, and Léo Guilleau-Keredan. György Vashegyi conducts. Performance Date: August 29, 2025 Soprano Graciela Gibelli will join forces with Il Suonar Parlante and conductor Vittorio Ghielmi to take on {…}
I love a creatively and thoughtfully produced opera as much as anyone — but I find I am more and more drawn to the oratorio format, where the focus is squarely on the musical telling of the story. Stripped of production elements like sets, lighting effects, costumes, and staging, the experience is distilled down to the words and the music. {…}
The New Jersey Symphony will present Haydn’s “Creation” on May 2, 2025. The showcase, set to take place starting at 8 p.m. at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, will be conducted by John J. Miller. Soloists include soprano Lorraine Ernest, tenor Theodore Chletsos, and bass-baritone Jorge Ocasio. Joining the Symphony is The Archdiocesan Festival Choir and {…}
(Photo credit: Tuesday night at Lincoln Center offered some true gems, an enticing evening even for seasoned New Yorkers. All the more delightful, as part of Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City, tickets for the show were “choose-what-you-pay”, making it accessible to a wider, more relaxed summer crowd in the Wu Tsai Theater of David Geffen Hall. It’s a welcome {…}
The Mozartists are set to present “1773 – An Opera Kaleidoscope” on Nov. 2, 2023 at Cadogan Hall. The event, which is part of the MOZART 250 series, will feature Mozart’s 26th symphony alongside music by Paisello, Berezovsky, Mysliveček, Haydn, and Schweitzer. Per the official website, the 26th Symphony’s original intention is questioned by many musicologists who wonder whether it {…}
Bampton Classical Opera is set to present “The Apothecary” as part of its 30th anniversary season. The Haydn opera, which is set to open on Sept. 9, 2023, will take place at The Barn at Old Walland, Wadhurt, East Sussex. It will star Guy Beynon as Sempronio, the titular apothecary, and Iúnó Connolly as Grilletta, his ward and pupil. Joining {…}
Bampton Classical Opera has unveiled its 2023 season. It all kicks off with the double bill of Haydn’s “The Diva” and “The Apothecary” at St. Andrew’s Church in Aldoborough for its initial June performance. The operas will star Iúnó Connolly, Henry Ross, Guy Benyon, and Madeline Robinson. Mark Austin conducts and Jeremy Gray directs. Performance Date: June 15, 2023 Next {…}
On the 29th of August 1775, Joseph Haydn’s seventh opera, “L’Incontro Improvviso” (The Unexpected Encounter – Hob 28:6) was premiered at “Eszterháza,” the Hungarian palace of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, principle patron of Haydn and a strong advocate of Haydn’s symphonic repertoire. The work had accompanied a four-day visit by Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria-Este and his consort Maria Beatrice d’Este. {…}
Ian Page and the Mozartists are set to present two unique concerts celebrating music from the year 1772. The first concert, scheduled for Jan. 27, 2022 at Cadogan Hall, will feature sopranos Chiara Skerath and Jessica Cale as they perform Niccolò Jommelli’s “E Alfeo m’inganno?… Barbari, ah! non ferite” from “Cerere Placate;” “Ombra cara… Io resto sempre a piangere” from {…}
Bampton Classical Opera has announced that it will present Haydn’s “Il mondo della luna” as its 2022 production. This will be the third of Haydn’s operas that the company will be presenting. It will be sung in a new English translation by Gilly French with Jeremy Gray directing. Thomas Blunt will conduct the cast, which will be announced at a {…}
(Credit: Mark Allan/Barbican) Long before they looped the décolletés of 1920s flappers, spiraled pearls ran rings around the ocean’s ornamental output in the form of frothy swirls: white whorls whose limpid luminosity brought earthly jewelry into pre-antiquity. Seven tiers of snowy marble in a staircase or a wedding cake can spark a similar entrancement in our ultra-modern times. As {…}