The Mad Scene is set to present Verdi’s “Macbeth” starting on April 23, 2022. The production by the Singapore-based company will star Steve Ang in the title role alongside Tatiana Konovalova as Lady Macbeth, Jonathan Charles Tay as Macduff, and pianist Francesca Lee. Hawk Liu directs the famed opera. Ang is also the company’s Artistic Director and has taken on {…}
Toledo Opera is set to host “Sempre Libera: Finding Freedom and Feminism in ‘La Traviata’” on April 12, 2022. The panel discussion will be moderated by Dr. Angela Fitzpatrick, director of the Catherine S. Eberly Center for Women at The University of Toledo, with such panelists as Dr. Naomi André – Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, {…}
Nashville Opera is set to present “Rigoletto Noir” on April 7 and 9, 2022. The production, which was canceled twice because of the pandemic, will star Aleksey Bogdanov in the title role with Sarah Coburn as Gilda and Daniel Montenegro as the Duke. Rounding out the cast will be Kevin Thompson in the role of Sparafucile. Per the company’s official {…}
Toledo Opera is set to present “Get Into the Spirit of Opera” on March 24, 2022. The celebratory event aims to spotlight the upcoming opening of “La Traviata,” which is set to open on April 22, 2022. “Toledo Opera is excited to be producing a new opera after several months of hiatus following the postponement of ‘Blue’ in February. We are especially {…}
(Photo: R. Tinker) The ever-elusive Verdi baritone. A voice with a unique timbre, range, expressive quality, and psychological immersion that manages to let us into the lives of the composer’s most complex and complete characters. A lot of baritones aspire to this title, but it’s not in the cards for most of them. But it was for Todd Thomas. Just {…}
(Credit: Gerard Collett) Theater St. Gallen is set to showcase Verdi’s “La Traviata” starting on March 19, 2022. The showcase, which will be presented in the UMIBAU venue, will be directed by Nina Russi who has no intention of setting the opera in its original 19th-century milieu. Instead, she will present the opera in a newer time period noting in {…}
The night of Feb. 28 turned out to be a big night for the Metropolitan Opera on several fronts. Not only was it the reopening of the 2021-22 season after a month-long hiatus, but it was also the first-ever performance of the French version of Verdi’s “Don Carlos.” But, perhaps most importantly, this performance was the first to take place {…}
(Photo credit: Prudence Upton) Whose version of “Othello” is better – Shakespeare’s or Verdi’s? You could have a good argument with someone over this. In Verdi’s opera, Iago is more overtly a villain (he says so in Act two’s “Credo in Dio crudel”) and there are potentially more shades to Otello, whose long speeches in Shakespeare’s “Othello” can too easily {…}
The worlds of classical operatic and its temperamental present have a complex relationship when dealing with the upholding and rejection of entrenched classicism in operatic productions. It is a relationship that seems to neither effectively nor fully answer the question of “Who is opera for today?” It appears as if modern opera is stuck in a limbo, where directors valiantly {…}
(Credit: ROH / Catherine Ashmore) In this edition of the word search, we spotlight the interpreters of Verdi’s “Don Carlo.” Instructions: You are free to solve the word search directly on your mobile or desktop device; just click the first and last letter of each word for it to appear on the screen. For those using a mobile device, we {…}
With the Met Opera set to reopen this March with a historic production of “Don Carlos,” it’s time to get to the question of what exactly are the different versions of the opera. We’ve already spent some time on OperaWire exploring that question, but we thought it might be fun to go into some specifics in the quiz format. So {…}