Bryn Terfel, Rachel Redmond, Laurence Kilsby, & Jonathan McGovern Among Soloists in Glasshouse International Centre for Music’s 2025-26 Season

Glasshouse International Centre for Music has unveiled its 2025-26 classical season. This article only features vocal works. Tenor Laurence Kilsby performs in “Elgar and Vaughan Williams” with the Sinfonia of London led by John Wilson. Performance Date: October 17, 2025 “Bryn Terfel sings Schubert” features the Royal Northern Sinfonia conducted by Dinis Sousa. Performance Date: November 21, 2025 Soprano Rachel {…}

Feb 3, 2025

Mark Padmore, Elsa Dreisig, Mercedes Gancedo, & Hugo Brady Take the Stage in LIFE Victoria 2025

(Photo credits: Borggreve, Fowler, & Reason) The Lied Festival Victoria de los Ángeles (LIFE Victoria) has announced its 2025 lineup. This article only features vocal works. Soprano Elsa Dreisig and pianist Romain Louveau perform Schumann’s “Dichterliebe,” along with works by Ravel, Pesson, Ströhl, and Fauré. Performance Date: February 11, 2025 A double bill of Poulenc’s “La voix humaine” and “La {…}

Jan 30, 2025

Opéra National de Paris 2025 Review: Castor et Pollux

(Photo: Vincent Pontent) Few operas have a more melancholic plot than this one: two brothers, twins with different fathers– one must die so the other can live. The twist? The brother destined to die happens to be immortal. In the end, they are forever united in the sky. Rameau’s “Castor et Pollux” is one of history’s great musical triumphs, and {…}

Nov 14, 2024

Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg 2024-25 Review: Ariodante

(Photo Credit : Klara Beck) The Strasbourg Opera in collaboration with the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden and the Lausanne Opera is offering Handel’s “Ariodante” from November 6th-13th. The production will then go to Mulhouse on November 22nd and 24th. On closer inspection, this drama per musica announces many of the operas to come to amateurs. Thus, its three-act {…}

Jul 11, 2024

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence 2024 Review: Samson

(Photo credit: Monika Rittershaus) “So, who is signing the work?” an operagoer asks Raphaël Pichon and Claus Guth at a lunchtime panel about their opera-project “Samson.” The music is Rameau’s, but it is not that simple. According to Guth (and his Wikipedia search), Rameau did indeed compose a “Samson” with a libretto by Voltaire; however, it is all lost. Pichon {…}

May 6, 2024

Festival Alte Musik Knechtsteden Announces 2024 Slate

(Photo credit: Kost) The Festival Alte Musik Knechtsteden has announced its slate for 2024. Handel’s “Il Trionfo del tempo e del Disinganno” opens the festival. Dorothee Oberlinger directs the Ensemble 1700 with soloists soprano Lombardi Mazzulli, countertenor Alois Mühlbacher, and tenor Laurence Kilsby. Performance Date: September 21, 2024 The Academy for Early Music Berlin performs works by Handel, Geminiani, Vivaldi, {…}

Sep 6, 2023

Salzburg Festival 2023 Review: Les Troyens

Photo: © Marco Borrelli Berlioz’s “Les Troyens” is one of those operas that is larger than life. Arguably, two operas in one night. Everything sounds like the realization of romanticism’s epic promise and showcases the musicians’ talents overflowing in the hall. It is hard to not expect a lot from a performance of Berlioz’s opera with a revolutionary and Romantique {…}

Mar 8, 2023

Heidelberger Frühling Wettbewerb ‘Das Lied’ 2023 Winners Announced

Tenors Laurence Kilsby and Tae Hwan Yun have been announced as the Heidelberger Frühling Wettbewerb “Das Lied“ 2023. The first prize was awarded twice and seen to around 13,000 viewers who followed the livestream. Kilsby was joined by pianist Ella O’Neill from England, while Yun was joined by Dokyung Han from South Korea. The singing competition for Lied, founded by {…}

Sep 8, 2022

Innsbruck Early Music Festival 2022 Review: Cesti Competition

(Photo: Die Fotografen) The Innsbruck Early Music Festival’s Cesti Competition, now in its 13th year, continues to cement its standing as a prestige international singing competition for baroque specialists. The final, which took place in Innsbruck’s Haus der Musik in front of an enthusiastic audience, consisted of 10 singers from six countries, comprising two countertenors, five sopranos, two tenors and {…}

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 {…}

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 {…}