Welcome back for this week’s look at the latest CD and DVD releases in the opera world. This week audiences will be able to listen to rarities from Massenet, Mozart, and Campra. Love Bade Me Welcome The new album is a collection of choral music from composer J.A.C. Redford exploring spirituality, love, and the human experience. Blending traditional forms with {…}
(Credit: Jennifer Taylor / Met Opera) The Metropolitan Opera is reviving “Rigoletto” for the second time this season. Following a run in the fall, the Met has enlisted a new star cast featuring a promising young tenor and one of the best baritones in the world. The result was a solid evening of music and drama. Hyperactive turntable But before {…}
(Credit: Jennifer Taylor / Met Opera) This week the Met revives “Rigoletto” for the second time this season. The company has assembled yet another star cast that includes one of the most anticipated debuts of the season, Pene Pati. Pati will bring his acclaimed Duke of Mantua, a role he has performed all over the world including at the Wiener {…}
(Photo: Puccini’s most beloved masterpiece is a feast at any time of the year, but as a Christmas treat, promises to deliver many gifts. Alas, like ALL gifts, some are more desirable than others; some special, some expected and some unwanted. As is the case with this fifth revival of Richard Jones’s classic 2017 production, where some presents are more {…}
The Park Avenue Armory has announced its 2025 season. Here is a look at the vocal performances. Konstantin Krimmel and Ammiel Bushakevitz lead a program of music by Schubert, Loewe, and Vaughan Williams. Performance Dates: Feb. 22 & 24, 2025 Erin Morley and Gerald Martin Moore lead a program of music by Schumann, Berg, Saint-Saëns, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Ricky Ian Gordon. {…}
The Samoan Pene Pati is a sumptuously voiced tenor. He boasts a quintessentially lyrical sound, timbered as if made for virtually anything out of the great Romantics’ operatic pen. In “Nessun Dorma,” he once again proves his qualities: After his 2022 debut on Warner Classics, he takes on a heavily eclectic repertory which he navigates with remarkably executed showpiece notes, {…}
Welcome back for this week’s look at the latest CD and DVD releases in the opera world. This week it’s all about the tenor. Three of opera’s leading tenors release albums that feature their vocal depths and their passion. There are a number of the world premiere recordings and several choral albums. Ways You Went Donald Nally’s chamber choir The {…}
The Metropolitan Opera is set to revive Verdi’s “Rigoletto” in Bartlett Sher’s production. The opera will showcase two different casts. In the fall season, Quinn Kelsey reprises his devastating portrayal of the title court jester. operaWire noted, “Note for note, moment for moment, this without any doubt in my mind is the most compelling Rigoletto that I’ve heard at the {…}
(Credit: Vincent Beaume) We are in the middle of Sesto’s aria “Parto, Parto,” mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa sharing center stage with excellent clarinetist Nicola Boud, when we hear an explosion. As a long-time resident of the United States, my first thoughts were the most dreadful—gunshots, bomb, the apocalypse. Raphäel Pichon peacefully kept conducting, with longer pauses, perhaps, but, as the fear {…}
The San Francisco Opera has announced the 2023-24 Emerging Stars Competition. The Emerging Stars Competition, made possible by Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem, is a fund for opera singers who have made their mark on the grand stage. The company added, that through the Emerging Stars Fund, Jan and Maria help bring some of opera’s most exciting rising talents {…}
On July 14th, Le concert de Paris will take place in celebration of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The open-air classical concert of the French capital will be in front of the iconic Hotel de Ville and will showcase Cristian Macelaru conducting the Orchestre National de France and the Chorus of Radio France. Soloists will include Nadine Sierra, Lang Lang, {…}