(Photo: Richard Hubert Smith) A new production of Wagner’s “Parsifal” is always a big deal, given the imaginative and actual scale of the work and the special aura that surrounds it – a triumph of Bayreuth marketing, truly, to try and restrict its performances for so many years. But this new staging at Glyndebourne Festival Opera signals the first time {…}
(Photo: Marc Brenner) Mark-Anthony Turnage is among the front rank of living British opera composers. With “Festen”, which opened at The Royal Opera last week, he now has five to his name, with a sixth to follow at Glyndebourne this autumn in the form of “The Railway Children” – a less harrowing subject than this adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg’s 1995 {…}
This week audiences cannot miss debut albums, a world premiere recording, and two acclaim DVD releases A Phoenix Rising Navona Records releases tenor Brian Smith Walters’ first album. The CD is a cross-section of chansons and Lieder spanning five centuries, and Walters navigates them with stunning bravado. Audiences will hear selections from Purcell, Copland, Schubert, Saint Saens, Tchaikovsky, Barber, Wagner, {…}
(Credit: ROH 2022 (c) Yasuko Kageyam) Benjamin Britten’s “Peter Grimes,” an opera of community disaster, has lately belonged in London to Edward Gardner in the pit and Stuart Skelton in the title role, both searingly brilliant. Deborah Warner’s new production, headed by tenor Allan Clayton, offers a vivid and contemporary alternative vision of the work that deserves to run and {…}
The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden has announced new plans for its 2021-22 season, the first full season by the company since 2019. There will five world premieres from The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera. The opera will open with a production of “Rigoletto” directed by Oliver Mears with Antonio Pappano conducting and Carlos Álvarez in the title role. He {…}
(Credit: Staatsoper unter der Linden official website) UPDATE: The Staatsoper unter der Linden will live stream Mozart’s opera “Le Nozze di Figaro” on April 1, 2021. The live stream will be available at 5 p.m. CET on the company’s official website, as well as MEZZO TV. The Staatsoper Berlin has announced that it will cancel all performances until at least {…}
(Credits: Opera Online website / Paul Foster-Williams / Gerard Collett) The Grange Festival has announced its 2021 edition which will feature several opera productions headline by opera’s greatest stars. Here is the breakdown of what’s in store for 2021. Britten’s operatic masterpiece “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will open the festival. The opera will feature Alexander Chance in the role of {…}
We are deep into the summer, but opera has not stopped. We are getting live performances throughout Europe and still getting full slates of online opera offerings. So for this week’s recommendations, we are looking at a wide range of options, including a few classic works, a recital from two major opera stars, and a lot of new operas. As {…}
Glyndebourne has announced the latest operas that it will be streaming as part of its Open House program. First up will be David McVicar’s production of “Giulio Cesare” starring Danielle de Niese as Cleopatra and Sarah Connolly as Cesare. Other cast members include Alexander Ashworth, Patricia Bardon, Angelika Kirchschlager, Rachid Ben Abdeslam, Christophe Dumaux, and Christopher Maltman. William Christie conducts. Streaming {…}
(Credits: English National Opera official website/Benjamin Ealovega) The Grange Festival has announced a series of live performances between August 21-23, 2020. Director Sinéad O’Neill has created “A Precipice,” an outdoor immersive poetic sequence using the many natural stages offered by the buildings at The Grange. Each performance will last an hour and will be presented to small guided audiences of {…}
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown theaters around the world, the Metropolitan Opera has announced not one but two weeks of nightly streams in advance. The next few weeks feature a mix of more recent performances with some classic showcases from decades ago. Here’s the rundown. Monday, May 25 – Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust Conducted by James {…}