(Credit: Marin Driguez) The Oper! Awards have announced its 2025 awards. The ceremony which took place on Feb. 21, 2025, at La Monnaie / De Munt, which was awarded the Best Opera House prize. Corinne Winters was awarded the Best Female Singer of the Year award, while Klaus Florian Vogt won Best Male Singer. Pablo Heras-Casado won Best Conductor and Tobias {…}
(Credit: W.Hoesl) It was particularly notable to watch Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s opera, “Die Passagieren” in Munich, even all these years after World War II. To walk the same streets where once goose-stepping Nazi soldiers rallied round Hitler and to visit the elegant, rebuilt National Theater to see an opera about the tragedy of that very subject intensified the experience. “Die Passagieren” {…}
(Photo credit: © Enrico Nawrath) Nathalie Stutzman debuted at Bayreuth this season with the festival’s production of “Tannhäuser.” She emerged triumphantly from the mystical abyss of the Bayreuth orchestra pit, where the conductor and the orchestra are hidden from the public. This unique orchestra space was designed as per Wagner’s specifications, who had been striving to create an immersive experience {…}
Tobias Kratzer is set to be the next Intendant at the Hamburg Staatsoper. He will take over the position as of summer 2025, replacing Georges Delnon, who has held the position since 2015. “With Tobias Kratzer we can win one of the currently most exciting directors for the directorship of the Hamburg State Opera,” said Hamburg’s Senator for Culture Carsten {…}
(Photo: Monika Ritttershaus) The initial impressions of the Aix-en-Provence festival’s production of Rossini’s “Moïse et Pharaon” did not bode well. Hearsay reports spoke of a modern day reinterpretation in which the focus was on refugees, and their life in the camps and the perils they face when crossing the Mediterranean. Productions which seek to politicize an opera, beyond that which {…}
(Credit: Bill Cooper) Anticipation was already at fever pitch for this new production of “Fidelio” in London, even before Oliver Mears, Royal Opera Artistic Director, appeared on stage before curtain up, evidently the bearer of bad news. “Please don’t be alarmed,” he reassured: Tenor Jonas Kaufmann only had a cold, would indeed sing, and asked for our indulgence. “We’ve been {…}