The Salzburg Whitsun Festival has announced its 2023 festival and it will feature a very heavy emphasis on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. “As a musician and singer, I firmly believe in the power of music and the human voice. Therefore, the Orpheus myth is naturally one of the ancient stories that fascinates me most. It heartens me when {…}
France’s Opéra de Limoges has announced its 2022-23 season featuring five productions. The season opens with Saint-Saëns’ “La Princesse jaune” under the direction of Philippe Forget. Alexandra Lacroix directs the production which stars Camille Schnoor and François Rougier. Performance Dates: Nov. 6 & 8, 2022 Julien Dran, Mélissa Petit, Jean Luc Ballestra, François Rougier, Sophie Marin-Degor, Cécile Galois, and Edouard Portal perform {…}
(Images source: MEZZO TV website) Opernhaus Zürich will broadcast three operas on MEZZO TV throughout January and February 2021. First up will be Bellini’s operatic jewel “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” featuring Joyce DiDonato in the role of Romeo, Olga Kulchynska as Giulietta, Benjamin Bernheim in the role of Tebaldo, Alexei Botnarciuc as Capellio, and Erik Anstine as Lorenzo. Opernhaus {…}
(Credit: Svetlana Loboff / OnP) Opéra National de Paris has officially announced the cancellation of the whole run of Mozart and Schikaneder’s singspiel “Die Zauberflöte.” The opera was scheduled for several performances between Jan. 12 and Feb. 22. 2021. The cast for the production included Cyrille Dubois, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Alex Esposito, Florian Sempey, Mélissa Petit, Nicolas Testé, Julie Fuchs, {…}
(Credits: © Dario Acosta / Charles Castronovo official website / Deutsche Oper am Rhein official website / Kristian Schuller/Decca) The Salzburg Festival has announced its 2021 edition, featuring 8 operas and numerous concert performances. Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” will feature Mika Kares as Il Commendatore, Nadezhda Pavlova as Donna Anna, Michael Spyres in the role of Don Ottavio, Federica Lombardi as {…}
(Credits: Gregor Hohenberg/Sony / Chris Singer / Rebecca Fay / Artists Management Zürich official website) The Bayerische Staatsoper has announced the full slate for its 2020-21 free streaming season. Here is the look. Walter Braunfels’ “Die Vögel” will feature Wolfgang Koch, Günter Papendell, Caroline Wettergreen, Emily Pogorelc, Yajie Zhang, Eliza Boom, Bálint Szabó, Theodore Platt, George Vîrban, Charles Workman, and {…}
(Image Source: Bregenz Festival website) Bregenz Festival will showcase the Festival Days event in August, featuring several vocal and orchestral works. For the purpose of this article we will focus only on the vocal works. “Alles Wieder Gut” will spotlight bass-baritone Florian Boesch singing romantic art songs from Franz Schubert to Gustav Mahler, in a staging by the Swedish video {…}
(Credit: Anja Koehler) The Bregenz Summer Opera Festival was founded in 1946, just one year after the end of the second World War. It offers a great variety of musical events in four different venues, but it is in the “Seebühne” or floating stage, set in a platform over the Costanze lake where the big opera performances take place in {…}
(Credit: Teatro Comunale di Bologna/Vincent Pontet-Opera de Paris) This week, four rarely performed works get stagings and concert performances with formidable casts that should not be missed. There are also some classics with all-stars casts that make them unmissable. Macbeth – Wiener Staatsoper, Austria Plácido Domingo returns to the Vienna stage amidst sexual misconduct allegations to sing the title role {…}
This week will feature two unique releases from 2018 festivals. Both sets were extremely well-regarded productions when they premiered. Rigoletto C Major releases a new production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto” from the Bregenz Festival. The new release stars Stephen Costello, Vladimir Stoyanov, Mélissa Petit, Miklós Sebestyén, and Katrin Wundsam in a production by Philipp Stölzl. Enrique Mazzola conducts the production which OperaWire {…}
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 {…}