(Credit: Opernhaus Zürich official website) The Opernhaus Zürich has announced that it will cancel all the regular performances until at least May 1, 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic concerns and anticipated restrictions in the cultural sector. Among the canceled productions are Richard Strauss‘ operatic masterwork “Capriccio,” concert performances of Rossini’s opera “La donna del Lago,” as well as {…}
(Credit: Royal Opera House official website) The Royal Opera House Covent Garden has announced that it will reopen for live audiences on May 17, 2021. For the grand reopening, the Royal Opera House is planning to stage Mozart’s opera “La Clemenza di Tito” in a new production directed by Richard Jones. Mark Wigglesworth will conduct. The opera house also announced {…}
(Credits: © Jiyan Chen / (c) Wilfried Hösl) Rai5 will broadcast a 2019 concert from the Berlin Philharmonic featuring soprano Diana Damrau on Jan. 6 at 9:15 p.m. CET. The Berlin Philharmonic Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko conducted. The program for the concert includes the overture from “Girl Crazy” and “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin; “If I loved you” {…}
(Credit: Palau de la Música Catalana official website) Famed Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen has received an Honorary Knighthood by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for services to music and to relations between the United Kingdom and Finland. “This is a true personal honor, but more than that, it is meaningful to have artists honored at a national – at a {…}
The Atlanta Opera (TAO), hailed by the industry as being at the forefront of opera’s response to the pandemic with its innovative “Big Tent” series, announced the December 15 launch of Atlanta Opera Spotlight Media. The digital subscription service will provide access to monthly streaming bundles that combine concerts, special recordings, and behind-the-scenes footage with original opera productions captured live {…}
The Atlanta Opera (TAO) website greets visitors with an invitation: “JOIN US AT THE BIG TENT!” Cool. The company’s staging its 2021 productions in an enormous tent. But wait a minute; is that a circus tent? Yes, it is, and unlike the Met’s new-ish production of “Così fan tutte” in which the circus entered the opera house, The Atlanta Opera’s {…}
The City Lyric Opera in New York will present a new production of Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” from Oct. 29 to Nov. 15, 2020. The piece is based on “The Beggar’s Opera” by John Gay, and being performed in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann. The opera will be produced through both live and recorded performances for the {…}
On February 28, 2020, ASU’s Music Theatre and Opera Department presented Kurt Weill’s “Street Scene” at the Evelyn Smith Theater. Weill composed “Street Scene,” to a libretto by Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes, after arriving in the United States and it is very different from the works he wrote in Germany. Musically, its numbers run the gamut of styles from Puccini to 1940’s jazz. Weill described Street Scene” as an American opera despite its spoken passages. His music may show its European roots, but the text reflects specific American problems of the ‘40s.
The Kurt Weil Foundation For Music announced 2020 Lotte Lenya Competition semi-finalists. This is the full list of young artists who have made to the semi-finals: Michael Aiello, Gan-ya Ben-gur Akselrod, David Anderson, Zarah Brock, Anighya Crocker, Michael Day, Darren Drone, Kaden Forsberg, Crystal Glenn, Dylan Glenn, Rivers Hawkins, Jonathan Heller, Michael Hewitt, Jonah Hoskins, Elena Howard-Scott, Stephanie Jabre, Gemma {…}
Would Brecht have liked it? The effort? Definitely – the range of visual idea, the splicing of moments of fantasy with hard-core, everyday sauciness, and the righteous indignation of the young, the belligerent, i.e., the protest. Would Weill? The sharp cacophony of instruments injected any hint of romance or nostalgia, with splatter, splash, and crash, the happy-go-lucky life of the {…}
(Photo Credit: Javier del Real) BelAir Media is set to showcase the Teatro Real de Madrid’s 2018 stage production of Kurt Weill’s “Street Scene” via BroadwayHD on August 8, 2019. The media company will present this historic performance this August, which was directed for TV by Jérémie Cuviller and recorded on February 14 and 16, 2018. Those performances featured music {…}