The Opera Royal de Wallonie-Liege has announced its 2019-20 season featuring nine operas, six of which are new productions. Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” opens the season in a new production by Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera. Two casts will be led under the baton of Speranza Scappucci, featuring Svetlana Aksenova and Yasko Sato sharing the title role, Alexey Dolgov and Dominick Chenes {…}
The Theater an der Wien has announced its 2019-20 season featuring numerous rarely performed works, concert operas and a number of new productions. Opera Productions David Afkham conducts Amélie Niermeyer’s new production of Dvorak’s “Rusalka.” Maria Bengtsson sings the title role alongside Ladislav Elgr, Günther Groissböck, Natascha Petrinsky, and Kate Aldrich. Performance Dates: Sept. 19 – 30, 2019 Stefan Gottfried conducts Sam Brown’s production of Mozart’s {…}
“Night Songs & Love Waltzes” was an evening of romantic era bliss for listeners and lovers of all ages that took place at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and featured Ted Sperling’s MasterVoices choir and guest artist soloists Nicole Cabell, Kate Aldrich, Nicholas Phan and Nmon Ford. The program included 19th-Century Romantic German Song alongside Ricky Ian Gordon’s “Life is {…}
MasterVoices will showcase “Night Songs and Love Waltzes” on Friday, March 1, 2019. The performance, which will take place at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, will feature the ensemble’s 120 singers in a program of music by Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn, Clara and Robert Schumann, and Franz Schubert. There will also be a World Premiere performance of Ricky Ian {…}
No one ever pretended that opera was a cheap art form. As an extreme example, the Salzburg Festival has a budget of over 60 million euros for just six weeks, making its balance sheet the envy of several small Pacific island states. But even in countries with an immense musical patrimony such as Italy, there is a tendency for populist {…}
Joan of Arc is an iconic figure and one that has been showcased in a lot of different art forms, including opera. In recent years, some operas telling the famed heroine’s story have been given revivals, most notably Verdi’s “Giovanna d’Arco.” Of a different ilk, but no less compelling is Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans,” which will open Odyssey Opera’s {…}
The Boston Odyssey Opera has announced its new season and it is packed with a number of operatic gems. With the 2016-17 season dedicated to the writings of Oscar Wilde, the 2017-18 will shift focus to Joan of Arc. Aptly titled “Trial by Fire: Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years War,” the new season will feature operas related to {…}
Diana Damrau is no longer singing all four heroines in Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann” in Los Angeles this week. The soprano was originally slated to take on all four characters, a feat that is growing rarer and rarer these days, but recent casting details established that the German soprano will only take on Antonia and Stella in her LA Debut. {…}
This weekend a number of companies will remain on holiday breaks while many major theaters will feature great opera and great singers such as Juan Diego Florez, Brian Jagde, Renee Fleming and Marco Berti. Austria Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus” will be performed at the Vienna State Opera on Friday evening followed by Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” starring OperaWire Artist of the Week Daniela Fally {…}