The Kennedy Center has announced a revised 2020-21 season for the Washington National Opera. In a press release the WNO, led by Artistic Director Francesca Zambello and General Director Timothy O’Leary, announced plans for its season beginning fall 2020. The new 2020-21 will include an innovative mix of virtual performances and small-scale live performances, culminating in May and July with {…}
On Thursday, July 9, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced the continuation and expansion of long-term Social Impact initiatives leveraging the arts for non-arts outcomes. Under the leadership of Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and the Social Impact team, the Kennedy Center is harnassing the momentum it has built across {…}
“I am Khumn!” These were the first words ever spoken on stage by baritone Michael Hewitt. The phrase is one you might expect from the Narrator in “Akhnaten” but not in a fifth-grade educational history play about ancient Egypt. According to Hewitt, his entrance was dramatic and well-received. He recounted striding to center stage, dressed from head-to-toe in black and shrouded in dense fog. {…}
The Washington National Opera has released a virtual performance of “The Humming Chorus” from Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” The choral passage was performed by members of the Washington National Opera Orchestra and the Chorus and Cafritz Young Artists. The showcase is led by Evan Rogister, principal conductor of the Washington National Opera and depicts the “hopeful emotional state of Butterfly holding {…}
The recording of “Pepito,” a comedic opera in one act with music by Nicolas Lell Benavides and libretto by Marella Martin Koch, is set to release on May 1, 2020 and it is an amusing, quick-hit of delightful opera worth a listen. This compact, 20-minute chamber opera tells the story of Pepito, a shelter dog meeting a husband and wife who {…}
(Credit: Gerard Collett) On the eastern side of the Cape of Good Hope, at the very tip of South Africa, sits Port Elizabeth, a city with a population just shy of one million people. The population size matters because it makes soprano Vuvu Mpofu one in a million, a ratio perhaps not unlike the shot she had at making it {…}
The Washington National Opera has announced that the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program will be renamed Cafritz Young Artists of Washington National Opera. The company announced in a press statement that in light of AGMA’s recent finding, the company chose to rename the program. The company stated, “In 2002, while Placido Domingo was serving as Washington National Opera’s (WNO) artistic director, {…}
(Credit: © Greg Gorman/LA Opera) The Washington National Opera has issued a statement regarding the American Guild of Musical Artists’ findings in its investigation of allegations of sexual harassment against Plácido Domingo. The investigation found that the famed opera star had engaged in inappropriate activity, ranging from flirtation to sexual advances, in and outside of the workplace. “Washington National Opera {…}
(Credit: Washington National Opera) The Washington National Opera has announced its 2020–2021 season offering up some ambitious repertoire. The season with WNO’s new production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” Robert Spano makes his WNO debut conducting a cast that includes Elza van den Heever, Brandon Jovanovich, Brian Mulligan, Ryan Speedo Green, Joshua Blue, and Eric Owens. Performance Dates: Oct. 24–Nov. 9, 202o {…}
The Washington National Opera is set to present the D.C. premiere of Jeanine Tesori and Tazewell Thompson’s poignant new opera “Blue.” The work is inspired by contemporary events and black literature, including Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me” and James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time.” Blue centers on the hopes and fears of a young black couple in Harlem {…}
Washington National Opera has announced its eighth season of its acclaimed American Opera Initiative. This year, the initiative will present three world premieres on Jan. 10, 2020, in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. This season the three one-act operas featured will be by composer-librettist teams Michael Lanci and Kim Davies, Carlos Simon and Sandra Seaton, and Liliya Ugay and Sokunthary Svay. {…}