If you’re looking for some classic operas, this week has quite a few of them in store. If new operas are more your thing, then get ready for a couple of world premieres. But if all you want is some concerts featuring operatic superstars, then you can be content with some of the offerings this week as well. So without {…}
Last month Bright Shiny Things released the world premiere recording of Ricky Ian Gordon and Frank Bidart’s new opera “Ellen West.” The recording was captured from the Prototype Festival in New York in January 2020, with soprano Jennifer Zetlan and baritone Nathan Gunn, the Aeolus Quartet, double bassist Evan Premo, pianist Djordje Nesic, and conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya. The new opera offers a portrait of {…}
(Credit: Opéra de Montréal official website / American Lyric Theater official website) The New York City Opera has announced a spring 2021 season featuring works by the two prominent American composers. The NYCO will first stage the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s opera “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” which is a co-production with the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Famed {…}
Bright Shiny Things has announced that it will be releasing the premiere recording of Ricky Ian Gordon and Frank Bidart’s “Ellen West” this fall. The album, which will be released on Sept. 25, 2020, stars Jennifer Zetlan, Nathan Gunn, the Aeolus Quartet, Evan Premo, Djordje Nesic, and conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya. The recording was captured this past January at the Prototype {…}
Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel” began previews last week in the lead up to its opening at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater on Monday, March 23rd. In anticipation of this work’s arrival, the Guggenheim Works and Process presented highlights of Gordon and Nottage’s individual processes while creating this work, and also brought attention to the importance of collaboration {…}
The New York Festival of Song has announced its next two concerts set for March and April. On March 25, 2020, the company will showcase a celebration of the centennial of women’s suffrage in the U.S. This concert, entitled “And Still We Dream” will be curated by composers Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Laura Karpman. Both will showcase new pieces for the {…}
This past summer, OperaWire published an interview with “Ellen West” headliner Jennifer Zetlan. When asked what she wanted audiences to take away from her experience with the opera, Zetlan’s replied that, to her, an extremely successful evening of live theater or opera was one in which the audience leaves feeling their soul touched, adding “… I hope our audiences will find themselves deeply moved {…}
The Works & Process series will continue with Lincoln Center Theater’s “Intimate Apparel” by Ricky Ian Gordon and Lynn Nottage with Bartlett Sher. The upcoming discussion will go behind the scenes of the new chamber opera based on Lynn Nottage’s popular play “Intimate Apparel,” with music by Ricky Ian Gordon and a libretto by the playwright and directed by Bartlett {…}
Jennifer Zetlan is set to take on the title role in the New York City premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Frank Bidart’s “Ellen West” at the Prototype Festival on Jan. 14-19, 2020. Zetlan interpreted the role in the world premiere of the opera during the summer of 2019 at Saratoga Springs. “Ellen West is the pseudonym of a real {…}
Baritone Robert Orth passed away at the age of 72 on July 12, 2019 in Libertyville, IL. Orth found joy in singing from a young age, participating in church and school choirs. Prior to pursuing a full-time singing career for himself in 1974, he taught music at public schools in his hometown of Chicago. Orth prided himself in being “the best baritone {…}
It’s Pride Month, so to celebrate we return to the series we began two years. This time we celebrate some of the great composers and librettists of today who have made a great impact in the opera world and whose works have given a voice to the voiceless. Jake Heggie Heggie is one of the most prolific composers of the {…}
