09 May 2008
In 2007 it was an experiment; now it’s a new summer festival firmly rooted in fertile Texas turf with a bright view of its second season and of the more distant future as well. »
09 May 2008
Operas do not often get a second chance. A new work is premiered and — if it’s a co-commission — it moves on to another company or two. »
21 Apr 2008
It is, you might say, the little opera that can. True, if it’s size of the budget, the price of tickets and the number of seats that concerns you, the Komische Oper is clearly the third of Berlin’s opera houses. »
17 Feb 2008
“Quand je vous aimerais? Ma fois, je ne sais pas?” are Carmen’s first words of seduction. »
13 Jan 2008
Oct. 25, 2007, Sala Cecilia MeirelesI met the young gaucho composer Dimitri Cervo at the 2003 Bienal of Contemporary Music, where his works for solo flute and strings, Pattapiana [named for Pattapio Silva, a great Brazilian flutist who died tragically
young at the beginning of the last century] made quite an impression. »
27 Dec 2007
There’s still a hint of jest in the comparison, but it’s not without reason that Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally are mentioned now and then in opera circles as “the Strauss and Hofmannsthal of the 21st century.” »
27 Dec 2007
Incoming general director of Santa Fe Opera, Charles MacKay, has made clear he is “in the tradition -- I will not be an agent for radical change,” at the celebrated New Mexico summer opera festival, MacKay says. »
26 Dec 2007
Composer Frederick Carrilho was born in 1971 in the state of Sao Paulo, and has studied guitar and composition, most recently at UNICAMP in Campinas. His music has been heard at the recent biennial festivals of contemporary music in Rio, with the Profusão V – Toccata making a strong impression at the Bienal of 2007. We spoke in Portuguese. »
28 Nov 2007
October 23, 2007, Sala Cecilia Meireles, Rio de Janeiro »
28 Nov 2007
What makes the first visit to Guanajuato’s Teatro Juárez breathtaking is the suddenness of the encounter.
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19 Nov 2007
Oct. 25, 2007, Rio de Janeiro. »
11 Nov 2007
José Orlando Alves is a young composer, originally from Minas Gerais, but who spent many years in Rio de Janeiro, where he has been active for a decade with the composers’ collaborative, Preludio XXI. »
02 Sep 2007
In the long ago, when the best source of music reproduction in the home was a handsome piece of furniture, fitted with hidden audio components, and usually called radio-phonographs, my family had one — from Avery Fisher I believe — that had among its controls a switch labeled ‘presence.’ »
28 Aug 2007
Uncut with Canada’s Mistress of the trouser-role: the multifaceted Kimberly Barber. »
27 Aug 2007
Glimmerglass Opera is in a watershed year. With the departure of Paul Kellogg, who had considerable success developing that annual festival, General and Artistic Director Michael Macleod has chosen to begin his tenure with a variation on the usual four-opera-season, namely a thematic collection
of pieces based on the “Orpheus” legend. “Don’t look
back” is the marketing catch phrase. »
27 Aug 2007
Almost thirty years ago a century old tradition ended with the last performance of I Maestri Cantatori. »
20 Aug 2007
Santa Fe Opera’s announcement August 10 that English-born impresario, Richard Gaddes, General Director of the company since 2001, will retire at the end of season 2008, took the local opera community by surprise. »
16 Aug 2007
The week just ended was certainly of historic moment in the world of North American opera companies. »
24 Jun 2007
Perhaps it is a sign that, at last, the countertenor voice has come of age in the hearts and minds of both audiences and the opera establishment. »
17 Jun 2007
Back in the early 1980’s two good ideas came to fruition: the much-needed new concert hall for Cardiff, capital city of Wales, and plans to hold within it the first “Singer of the World” competition. »
25 May 2007
Charleston, S.C. — For over 20 years it was two operas a season here at Spoleto USA, the all-arts
festival brought to this cultural capital of the Old South by Gian Carlo Menotti in 1977. »
20 May 2007
It is every young opera singer’s dream. »
10 May 2007
On May 9th, when Santa Fe Opera finally announced that Alan Gilbert had left his post as Music
Director of that company, a long-standing rumor was made official. »
25 Apr 2007
Robert Gierlach wishes he could rewrite “Anna Karenina,” the Tolstoi whopper turned into an opera by librettist Colin Graham and composer David Carlson. It’s not that Gierlach, who sings Vronsky in the world premiere of the work at Florida Grand Opera on April 28, has misgivings
about the author’s artistry; he simply wishes that the story could have a happy ending. »
09 Apr 2007
Here are two views of Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto (HWV 17), a drama in three acts, performed at The Met on 6 April. »
07 Apr 2007
Based on reading the New York Times’ account of Met opera soprano Ruth Ann Swenson’s distemper with her home company in New York, published Thursday 5 April over the byline of Daniel J. Wakin, it is hard to find either motivation or reasonable expectation of reward for any of the participants in this travesty – reporter, newspaper, opera manager Peter Gelb (who comes off best), or, least of all, the distraught diva. »
08 Mar 2007
To his work as music director of the Los Angeles Opera James Conlon brings two commitments that some in music would find incompatible. »
22 Feb 2007
Record number of singers auditioned
Three countries competing for first time
New sponsorship and increased prize money »
14 Feb 2007
Singing competitions are a mixed blessing. »
08 Feb 2007
Two Mozart operas — “Magic Flute” and “Abduction from the Serail” — head the list of works to be performed by the Houston Grand Opera in its 2007- 08 season that opens with Verdi’s “Masked Ball” on October 19. »
15 Nov 2006
The worldwide search is on for opera’s rising stars to compete for the coveted title BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2007 and a £15,000 prize. »
07 Nov 2006
The Academy of Vocal Arts, based in the hub of Philadelphia, has one of the richest traditions of training and nurturing operatic singers. »
16 Oct 2006
Curtis, America’s top fully funded conservatory, is on the move as one of the nation’s leading opera preparatory programs. »
08 Oct 2006
Mary-Lou Vetere-Borghoff interviews Soprano Jennifer O’Loughlin of the Vienna Volksoper »
08 Oct 2006
Introduction: Philip Gossett is one of those rarities in academia: a scholar of the first order and a consummate teacher. »
01 Oct 2006
The character configuration in Vivaldi’s Tito Manlio is unusual because of its musical pairing of the prima donna Servilia with the seconda donna Vitellia not just once, but twice in the second act of the opera. »
01 Oct 2006
Tito Manlio, Vivaldi’s second opera in Mantua for the 1718/19 season, is fraught with political and familial tensions.1 »
12 Sep 2006
What a difference a year makes. Music lovers who rely on their memories to find the right places to hear music in Paris could be for a surprise if they do not check beforehand what France has now to offer. »
01 Sep 2006
The curious phenomenon of British tenor manqué, Ian Bostridge, continues to astound, as his concert and even operatic dates, primarily in Europe, mount; his recordings increase, and his appeal to a certain section of the classical audience (they would likely call themselves, “cognoscenti”) endures. I have to wonder why? »
23 Jun 2006
Nestling artistically in a bowl, carefully arranged and lit to suit the camera early in the programme, the testicles seemed to glow softly with their hidden history, their inherent potential and, now, their very lack of future. »
08 May 2006
With its mismatched couples and absurd plot, Cosi Fan Tutte is thought of as Mozart's 'frivolous' opera. »
07 May 2006
The scene is an urban wasteland at night. A young man is having sex with a woman in the back of a car while his sidekick keeps watch. An older man appears, hell-bent on attacking his daughter’s seducer. »
20 Apr 2006
A new opera from the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. »
09 Apr 2006
She'll always have ParisSexual icon, dark temptress or a smutty comedienne? Helen of Troy has fascinated writers and composers for centuries. »
07 Apr 2006
The Royal Opera House is publicly funded - so why does it charge more than £100 per seat, asks Rosie Millard »
03 Apr 2006
I met with Iestyn Davies at 1330 hours precisely, on the steps of the Hippodrome theatre, Bristol, England, where he was singing the role of Hamor in Welsh National Opera’s riveting production of Handel’s “Jephtha”. »
20 Mar 2006
Ian Bostridge sings Benjamin Britten. »
20 Mar 2006
Rupert Christiansen laments the lost art of the castrato »
28 Feb 2006
He's a terrible old rogue - but to opera composers, he's irresistible. Tim Ashley on the deathless appeal of Falstaff »
16 Feb 2006
Conservatism is once more on the rise in the orchestral world but the starchy old Met, under new boss Peter Gelb, is trying to buck the trend. »
