Opera Lafayette announces its 30th anniversary season. Soprano Amel Brahim-Djelloul performs in the Ensemble Amedyez and and Kalanidhi Dance in the opening event, “RE|CLAIM.” Performance Dates: October 21, 22, & 24, 2024 “RE | STORE” events are centered around Edmond Dédé’s “Morgiane.” The cast features sopranos Mary Elizabeth Williams and Lindsey Reynolds, tenor Chauncey Packer, baritone Joshua Conyers, bass-baritone Jonathan {…}
On August 23, the Black Leadership Arts Collective (B.L.A.C.) will present an Inaugural Gala. The evening will feature musical favorites at Manhattan School of Music, featuring members of B.L.A.C. and Grammy-nominated pianist Kevin Miller hosted by Terrance McKnight. Soloists will include Russell Thomas, Morris Robinson, Laquita Mitchell, J’Nai Bridges, Kenneth Kellogg, Kenneth Overton, Nicole Heaston, and Lawrence Brownlee. The proceeds {…}
The Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced its 2024-25 season. Here is a look at the productions. Verdi’s “Rigoletto” is set to star Igor Golovatenko, Soloman Howard, Javier Camarena, and Mané Galoyan. Enrique Mazzola conducts the production by Director Mary Birnbaum. Performance Dates: Sept. 14-Oct. 6 2024 Elza van den Heever, Russell Thomas, Mika Kares, and Brian Mulligan star in {…}
Welcome back for this week’s review of the major CD and DVD releases. This week, audiences are in for many world premiere recordings as well as rarely performed works. Here is a look at some of the pieces audiences will discover! Virko Baley: Music for Emily Dickinson Toccata Classics releases an album dedicated to the music of Virko Baley, a {…}
(Photo credit: Seattle Opera © Philip Newton) Why build an elaborate faux-underwater set for the Rhine scenes in Wagner’s “Ring” when you have an orchestra pit that can make a perfectly plausible stage river? It’s an idea so obvious, you think surely, it must have been tried already. This is the solution found by Brian Staufenbiel, tasked with staging “Das {…}
(Credit: Karli Cadel) The Washington National Opera is set to present the D.C. premiere of “Blue.” The production, which is set to be performed from March 11 to 25, 2023 at the Eisenhower Theater, is inspired by contemporary events and Black literature, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me” and James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.” Written by Jeanine {…}
The Dutch National Opera is set to present the European premiere of Jeanine Tesori’s “Blue.” The opera is a topical set in Harlem and about a black couple who anticipates the birth of its first-born son, with both hope and anxiety. The mother worries about her son’s future as she watches him become a young man and enter the world {…}
Toledo Opera will present Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s new opera “Blue.” The work will be presented on August 26 and August 28 at 2 p.m. at the Valentine Theatre in Toledo, Ohio. The work, which is influenced by gospel music and uses vivid flashbacks, places timely issues at the forefront of modern opera. Since its world premiere in 2019 {…}
The Maryland Lyric Opera has announced its return to live performance following the pandemic, with two full-scale productions of classic Italian operas. Both operas will be presented at the North Bethesda’s The Music Center at Strathmore. The company has also announced a free digital streaming series featuring intimate recitals starring MDLO favorites, recorded live at the company’s new state-of-the-art headquarters. The {…}
Michigan Opera Theatre has officially announced details for its upcoming production of Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s “Blue.” The company, which had announced the opera as part of its 2021-22 season, has revealed that it will be directed by Kaneza Schall, whose work has been shown at Brooklyn Academy of Music, LA Philharmonic, The Shed, The Kennedy Center, Walker Arts {…}
The North Carolina Opera has announced its 2021-22 season featuring four works. Alexandra LoBianco stars as Leonore in Beethoven’s “Fidelio“ alongside Mark Delavan, Kenneth Kellogg, Takaoki Onishi, and Jason Karn. Arthur Fagen conducts. Performance Dates: Nov. 14, 2021 Lucia Cesaroni and Scott Quinn take the lead roles in Puccini’s “La Bohème“ with Shannon Kessler Dooley, Steven LaBrie, and Adam Lau. {…}