Opera Today
News
More Casting Changes at Bayreuth
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 9 May 2012]
Casting changes continue at the Bayreuth Festival, now only three months away. Tenor Lars Clevemann, who sang the title role of Tannhäuser last year, has withdrawn from the role this year. “This was at his own request” explains Festival spokesman Peter Emmerich. He will be replaced by Torsten Kerl.
LA Opera Names New CEO
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 26 April 2012]
Christopher Koelsch has been tapped Wednesday as the new president and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Opera. Koelsch, 41, was the opera’s chief financial officer and will take the new post September 15.
Teatro Real Replaces Miguel Muñiz
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 24 April 2012]
Ignacio Garcia-Belenguer, 45, has been named as the new general manager of Madrid’s opera, Teatro Real.
More Drama in Köln
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 24 April 2012]
The director of the Cologne Opera, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, has confirmed at the press conference this afternoon that he will leave his post at the end of the coming season. His contract runs until 2016.
No Brünnhilde by Angela Denoke
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 23 April 2012]
Soprano Angela Denoke announced on Wednesday that she would not be appearing as Brünnhilde, one of the critically important roles, at the 2013 Bayreuth Festival Ring Cycle.
Financial Crisis at Köln
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 18 April 2012]
On Tuesday evening, Cologne Opera’s director indicated he was planning to cancel the next season, 2012-2013. Intendant Uwe Eric Laufenberg, frustrated by the failure of the city to resolve financing issues, noted that would be the first time any German house cancelled it’s entire season since the darkest days of the Second World War. The announcement of the new season was planned for next Monday.
Xu Zhong Tapped by Teatro Massimo Bellini
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 17 April 2012]
The Chinese conductor and pianist Xu Zhong will be the new artistic director of an Italian opera house, the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania. He was well received when he conducted the theater’s orchestra a few weeks ago as part of their symphonic season and has regularly appeared on international stages.
Tenor Loses Steak, Saves the Concert.
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 17 April 2012]
Tenor Johan Botha had just started carving his steak when his phone rang. A director of Vienna’s Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde was on the line with an emergency request. On March 29, at the famed Musikvereinsaal, Zubin Mehta and the Munich Philharmonic were to set to begin the concert’s second half, the imposing Das Lied von der Erde of Gustav Mahler.
Met Opera on Demand
By Frank Cadenhead [2 April 2012]
The Metropolitan Opera now has a free App for iPads available on their site allowing easy access their range of operas available on HD video. An extension of their earlier Video on Demand system, it also provides access to some 250 audio recordings of operas from their library. They will have available the operas broadcast live during the current season but a few months after their appearance at the cinema. Costs range from $3.99 for a single opera to $149.00 for an entire year. Operas on video include historic like La Bohème with Pavarotti and Renata Scotto and a Rigoletto with Domingo and Contrubas from 1977. The audio recordings start with a 1936 Götterdämmerung with Lauritz Melchoir and Marjorie Lawrence.
ENO announces Mini Operas: A Worldwide Online Talent Search to Inspire People to Create Opera
ENO Press Release [27 March 2012]
ENO announces Mini Operas, a world-wide, online search for composers, writers and film makers that will seek out emerging opera talent of the future from across the world. Three competitions to find future stars of all the components of creating an opera will be launched online allowing everyone to submit entries for one or more categories…
[Note: Follow the ENO Mini Operas program at http://twitter.com/#!/minioperas]
Judges and Finalists Announced for the 2012 Lotte Lenya Competition
Kurt Weill Foundation [13 March 2012]
Twelve exceptionally talented young singer-actors have made it through two rounds of auditions for the 2012 Lotte Lenya Competition and will compete for top prizes of $15,000, $10,000 and $7,500 in the finals, to be held on April 21, 2012, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Three-time Tony Award nominee Rebecca Luker, Broadway and Encores! music director Rob Berman, and Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization President and American Theater Wing Chairman of the Board Theodore S. Chapin will serve as judges.
Finalists Named for Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
New York, NY (March 11, 2012) - The Metropolitan Opera today announced the names of nine finalists who will sing in the 2012 National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert on March 18 at 3:00 p.m. with the MET Orchestra conducted by Andrew Davis. The finalists are: Janai Brugger, soprano from Darien, IL; Anthony Clark Evans, baritone from Owensboro, KY; Matthew Grills, tenor from Newton, CT; Will Liverman, baritone from Virginia Beach, VA; Margaret Mezzacappa, mezzo-soprano from Euclid, OH; Andrey Nemzer, countertenor from Moscow, Russia; Kevin Ray, baritone from Cornwall, NY; Lauren Snouffer, soprano from Austin, TX; and Michael Sumuel, bass-baritone from Odessa, TX.
Barcelona Restores Cuts
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 29 February 2012]
Barcelona’s opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu , has reversed course and restored cuts in the current season made earlier this month. Earlier this month, In response to government cuts in subsidies, the director general Joan Francesco Marco announced closures of the house between March 20 and April 10 and between June 5 and July 8.
Don Pasquale on ARTE Live Web
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 17 February 2012]
February 17, 2012. Critics. Can you get along without us? It is possible to reflect on this when the production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale is shown on television tonight. Critics always show up on the first night but how different will the third performance be on the Europe-wide channel Arte “live” (well, with a few hours delay at 10:10 p.m. CET) from Paris’ Théâtre des Champs Elysées?
A Set Malfunction in Darmstadt
By Frank Cadenhead [Opera Today, 13 February 2012]
It might have reminded some in the audience of the finale of Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung.” Saturday evening, during the finale of that same composer’s “Das Rheingold” at the Staatstheater in the German city of Darmstadt when a large section of the scene fell and shattered on stage.
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Operas Based on French Literature
The current theme is operas based on French literature from Balzac, Hugo and beyond: