René Barbera, Austrine Stundyte, Tomasz Konieczny & Issachah Savage Lead Dutch National Opera’s 2024-25 Season

The Dutch National Opera has announced its 2024-25 season. Opera René Barbera, Roman Burdenko, Aigul Khismatullina, Alexander Köpeczi, and Maya Gour Star in a revival of Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” Yi-Chen Lin conducts. Performance Dates: Sept. 2-29, 2024 Britten’s “Peter Grimes” will get a new production by Barbora Horáková. Lorenzo Viotti conducts a cast that includes Issachah Savage, Johanni van Oostrum, and {…}

Mar 22, 2024

Opéra National de Paris Review 2024: The Exterminating Angel

Photo credit: Agathe Poupeney-OnP Thomas Adès’s “The Exterminating Angel” is one of the most successful contemporary operas of the century. Beyond its many productions—the Parisian one being the best of them all—, the opera quickly entered the symphonic repertoire with a very well-crafted symphonic suite. The opera, based on Luís Buñuel’s homonymous film, follows its source material: more than a {…}

Oct 12, 2022

Ying Fang & Jacquelyn Stucker Lead Handel & Haydn Society’s ‘The Marriage of Figaro’

The Handel and Haydn Society is to perform a semi-staged production of “The Marriage of Figaro.” Raphaël Pichon, founder and artistic director of Pygmalion, will lead the performances on Nov. 17 and 18 at Boston’s Symphony Hall. The H+H Orchestra and Chorus will be joined by soprano Ying Fang as Susanna, soprano Jacquelyn Stucker as Countess Almaviva, bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum {…}

Aug 10, 2022

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2022 Review: L’Incoronazione di Poppea

(Photo: Ruth Walz) It never ceases to surprise how Monteverdi’s operas prove themselves time and again to be not just supreme examples of how the art form succeeds as a dramatic medium, able to communicate directly with present day audiences, with characters who resonate so clearly with the modern mind, even over a distance of 400 years, but also the {…}

Nov 24, 2021

Michael Spyres, Golda Schultz, Sabine Devieilhe & Emily D’Angelo Lead Festival D’Aix-En-Provence’s 2022 Season

The Festival D’Aix-En-Provence has announced its 2022 slate featuring a varied repertoire and international stars. The festival will begin on July 4 and is set to run through July 23, 2022. Here is a look at the upcoming season: Mahler’s “Resurrection” will be conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen in a production by Romeo Castellucci. Golda Schultz and Marianne Crebassa star. Performance {…}

Oct 1, 2021

Royal Opera House 2021-22 Review: Jenůfa

((c) ROH 2021) The Royal Opera House’s first new production of Leoš Janáček’s “Jenůfa” in over twenty years was one of the first casualties of the 2020 lockdown, shelved on the cusp of opening in March that year. A starry cast made it an especially hot ticket then, especially given the involvement of imaginative German director Claus Guth, and {…}

May 20, 2021

Michelle Bradley, Jacquelyn Stucker & Denyce Graves Highlight Atlanta Symphony’s 2021-22 Season

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra has announced the 2021-22 season. For this article, we will only focus on vocal performances. Sir Donald Runnicles and Jacquelyn Stucker perform an evening of music by R. Strauss, Brahms, and Eötvös. Performance Dates: Dec. 2 – 4, 2021 Sir Donald Runnicles conducts Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel“ with Kelley O’Connor, Jacquelyn Stucker, Tichina Vaughn, Stephen Powell, {…}

Mar 10, 2020

Javier Camarena, Brandon Jovanovich & Piotr Beczala Highlight Deutsche Oper Berlin’s 2020-21 Season

The Deutshce Oper Berlin has announced its 2020-21 season featuring six new productions and a new Ring Cycle. Premieres The season kicks off with “The 7 Deaths of Maria Callas,” which will be directed by Marina Abramovic. Marina Abramovic, Nadezhda Karyazina, Whitney Morrison, Leah Hawkins, Adela Zaharia, Selene Zanetti, Gabriella Reyes, and Mané Galoyan will lead the cast. Performance Dates: {…}

Jan 29, 2020

Gregory Kunde, Clémentine Margaine, & Florian Sempey Headline ‘Meyerbeer Month’ at Deutsche Oper Berlin

(Photo Source: Gregory Kunde Tenor Official Webpage) Deutsche Oper Berlin will showcase three operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer, starting on Feb. 2, 2020 and ending on March 8, 2020. The first Meyerbeer opera to take the stage on Feb. 2, 2020 will be “Les Huguenots.” The cast will include Liv Redpath, Seth Carico, Dimitris Tiliakos, Olesya Golovneva, Irene Roberts, Jörg Schörner, {…}

Jan 21, 2020

Christian Gerhaher, Anja Kampe, Magdalena Kožená Headline 2020 Aix-en-Provence Festival

(Credit: Sasha Vasiljev / Mathias Bothor, Deutsche Grammophon) The Festival Aix-en-Provence has just announced the program for 2020 season, which will include a total of six works. The season will open with Berg’s opera “Wozzeck,” starring Christian Gerhaher, Anja Kampe, Daniel Brenna, Peter Hoare, Brindley Sherratt, Evan LeRoy Johnson, J’Nai Bridges, Alexander Kiechle, Tomasz Kumięga, and Graham Clark. Sir Simon {…}

Jan 17, 2020

American Director Ted Huffman To Stage ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ At Deutsche Oper Berlin

(Credit: Deutsche Oper Berlin/Leo Seidel) American Director Ted Huffman will stage the Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In this production of the masterwork at the largest Berlin’s opera house, Huffman brings a great deal of memories of Provincetown on Cape Cod. “I think of Provincetown as being akin to the forest in ‘A Midsummer {…}