(Photo: Matthias Baus) One of the highlights, if not the highlight, of La Monnaie’s 2024–25 season must be its world premiere of Monteverdi’s new opera “I Grotteschi,” a mammoth work, lasting almost seven hours, not including intervals, performed over two evenings. Rafael R. Villalobos as Scenario, Director & Costume Designer conceived and created the production, using extracts from the Monteverdi’s {…}
The Theater an der Wien’s 2025-26 season. Rossini’s “L’occasione fa il ladro” opens the season in a production by Marcos Darbyshire. The cast includes Inna Demenkova, Alberto Robert, Roberto Lorenzi, Petra Radulovic, Ilyà Dovnar, and Lazar Parežanin. Pedro Beriso conducts. Performance Dates: Sept. 23-Oct. 14, 2025 Johann Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus” will star Thomas Blondelle, Hulkar Sabirova, Alina Wunderlin, Leon Košavić, Krešimir Stražanac, David Fischer, Jana {…}
Festival Pulsations releases its 2025 programming. Opening the festival is “Les Indes Galantes – De la voix des âmes,” an fusion of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s baroque opera and of hip-hop and krump. Laurène Paternò, Mathias Vidal, Ana Quitans, and Andreas Wolf, along with Rualité Structure, the Namur Chamber Choir, and Cappella Mediterranea perform under the baton of Leonardo García-Alarcón. Bintou Dembélé {…}
(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 {…}
The Opéra de Dijon has announced a conductor change for its production of Haydn’s “L’Isola disabitata.” The company informed audience members that Leonardo García Alarcón has been forced to cancel after testing positive for COVID-19 and will quarantine. As a result, Fayçal Karoui will replace Alarcón in rehearsals and for the performances on Nov. 27 and 28, 2021. Karoui is a {…}