(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 {…}
La Monnaie de Mont has announced its 2025-26 season. Opera The season opens with Verdi’s “Falstaff” starring Simon Keenlyside in the title role, Lionel Lhote, Bogdan Volkov, Sally Matthews, Benedetta Torres, and Daniela Barcellona. Alain Altinoglu and Ouri Bronchti alternate and Laurent Pelly directs the new production. Performance Dates: Sept. 21-Oct. 9, 2025 Ricard Soler Mallol and Grey Filastine showcase {…}
Raising a child is a complicated process. Raising a prodigious one is absolutely unforeseen and fraught with constant error, for no ordinary laws apply here. The Donizetti Festival in Bergamo, although still an officious event, always seemed to be this prodigy for me, every year somehow attempting to prove that Donizetti’s music might be the center of the opera world. {…}
The Donizetti Opera Festival is set to present “Roberto Devereux.” Riccardo Frizza will conduct the iconic Donizetti work, which will be presented on Nov. 15, 23, and 28. Stephen Langridge is the director of the production. The opera will star Jessica Pratt, Simone Piazzola, Raffaella Lupinacci, John Osborn, David Astorga, Ignas Melnikas, and Fulvio Valentiust. In a statement, Frizza said, {…}
Sevilla’s Teatro de la Maestranza has announced its 2024-25 season. Lirica Sondra Radvanovsky and Piotr Beczała celebrate Puccini with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla and Keri-Lynn Wilson. Performance Date: Oct. 30, 2024 Gianluca Marcianò and Jacopo Brusa conduct Puccini’s “Turandot” with Oksana Dyka, Maria Katzarava, Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev, Alejandro Baliñas, Jorge de León, Héctor Sandoval, Miren Urbieta-Vega, and Laura Brasó. Performance {…}
La Monnaie de Munt has announced the 2024-25 season. Opera Wagner’s “Siegfried” will star Magnus Vigilius, Peter Hoare, Gábor Bretz, Scott Hendricks, Wilhelm Schwinghammer, Ingela Brimberg, Nora Gubisch, and Liv Redpath. Alain Altinoglu conducts Pierre Audi’s production. Performance Dates: Sept. 11-Oct. 4, 2024 Kris Defoort’s “The Time of Our Singing ” will star Mark S. Doss, Claron Mcfadden, Simon Bailey, Levy {…}
(Photo: Amati Bacciardi) A group of shepherds wander onto the stage. Among them are three goats being given some food to eat. There should have been four goats, but apparently one had escaped. They spent their time chewing away, seemingly oblivious to the ongoing stage movement and singing, strange surroundings of the theatre and the sound of the orchestra. At {…}
With less than a month to go before the start of Pesaro’s Rossini Opera Festival, OperaWire met up with one of this season’s stars, mezzo-soprano Raffaella Lupinacci, who will be playing the role of Arsace in Rossini’s opera seria “Aureliano in Palmira,” which premiered at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala in 1813. Although it is not one of Rossini’s better-known operas, {…}
(Photo: Chiara Mirelli) Mezzo-soprano Raffaella Lupinacci, having just completed a run of performances as Giovanna Seymour in La Monnaie’s presentation of “Bastarda,” a larger-than-life presentation of Queen Elizabeth I as seen through the musical highlights of Donizetti’s Tudor tetralogy, is currently preparing for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, in which she will play the role of Arsace in “Aureliano {…}
The Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville has announced its 2023-24 season. Opera Henrik Nánási conducts a new production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” by Allex Aguilera. Stuart Skelton, Elisabet Strid, Agnieszka Rehlis, Markus Eiche, Albert Pesendorfer, Jorge Rodríguez-Norton, Fernando Campero, and Juan Antonio Sanabria star. Performance Dates: Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2023 Yolanda Auyanet and Berna Perles share the title role {…}
Belgium’s Opera de Liege has announced its 2023-24 season featuring youth opera, opera, and concerts. Fabio Biondi conducts Mozart’s “Idomeneo” with Giorgio Berrugi, Annalisa Stroppa, Maria Grazia Schiavo, Nino Machaidze, and Riccardo Della Sciucca. Jean-Louis Grinda directs. Performance Dates: Sept. 19-28, 2023 Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” is set to star Ruzil Gatin, Pablo Ruiz, Aya Wakizono, Chiara Tirotta, Vittorio Prato, {…}