27 Feb 2012
One of the main performing arts venues for opera, ballet and modern dance is
Le Palais Garnier in Paris. »
26 Feb 2012
New Orleans native Bryan Hymel is singing the role of The Prince in Antonin Dvořák's Rusalka at the Royal Opera House, London. »
21 Feb 2012
Last night’s French classical music awards show, the Victoires de la Musique Classique 2012, awarded the “Best Composer of the Year” honors to Philippe Manoury, 59, for his opera, “La Nuit de Gutenberg” (“The Night of Gutenberg”). »
21 Feb 2012
French soprano star Natalie Dessay has announced that she is taking a sabbatical from opera during 2015. She is unhappy with her current work at the Paris Opera, a production of Massenet’s opera “Manon,” and had conflicts with the stage director, French filmmaker Coline Serreau. »
20 Feb 2012
Inaugurated in 1995, the Veronica Dunne International Singing Competition is a triennial competition, held in the National Concert Hall in Dublin, which takes place over a week in January. »
17 Feb 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. »
15 Feb 2012
Carmela Remigio is a Mozart specialist, having created Donna Elvira, Donna Anna, The Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Susana, Ilia, Ellettra, Vitellia, Pamina and Fiordigli. She speaks to Mark Berry about her latest Donna Anna at the Royal Opera House. »
13 Feb 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. »
10 Feb 2012
Who says Italian opera is in the doldrums? Contrary to all the recent budget bad news from the country that invented the form, the dramatic new 150 million Euro ($200 million) opera house in Florence projects another view. »
09 Feb 2012
In today’s edition of the Viennese newspaper, “Die Presse” a reviewer gushes over Roberto Alagna’s recital yesterday evening at the Vienna State Opera.
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08 Feb 2012
February 8, 2012. Los Angeles born conductor Lawrence Foster, the music director of the orchestra and the Opéra National in the French city of Montpellier from September 2009 to the end of this season, has signed on for a similar post with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille starting September 1 of this year. »
07 Feb 2012
February 7, 2012. Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, the popular music director of the San Francisco Opera, has been appointed to the same position at the historic Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. »
04 Feb 2012
February 4, 2012. A few days before the opening of the production of Verdi’s “La Traviata” at the Houston Grand Opera, tenor David Lomeli, playing Alfredo, took ill. »
04 Feb 2012
February 4, 2012. With a budget of $71 million dollars, the San Francisco Opera announced a deficit for the FY 2011 year. But the numbers, in the Opera’s press release, contain some good news to offset the negative bottom line. »
03 Feb 2012
To the dismay of New York opera fans, the original Metropolitan Opera House,
located at Broadway and 39th Street, was to be torn down and replaced by a new hall
a mere 30 blocks away. »
02 Feb 2012
Confronting a financial shortfall, the Gran Theatro del Liceo in Barcelona has announced a reduction in performances this season with two scheduled operas
cancelled. »
02 Feb 2012
In an interview, Katharina Wagner, 33, granddaughter of the composer and co-director of the Richard Wagner Bayreuth Festival, spoke of the declining state of the legendary Festival House on the “Green Hill” at Bayreuth. »
01 Feb 2012
A Swiss soprano and an Australian baritone shared the 20,000 Euro Emmerich Smola Prize awarded on Monday. »
31 Jan 2012
The seventh annual Beverly Sills Artist Award, carrying with it a $50,000 prize, was awarded to American soprano Angela Meade. »
31 Jan 2012
Jan. 31, 2012. The recent announcement of the extension of the contract for
Dominique Meyer, the General Director of the Vienna State Opera was a firm
endorsement of his leadership by the Austrian government. Meyer, 57, the first
French person to hold the office, will continue now through August 31, 2020. »
25 Jan 2012
Lise Lindstrom, who made a notable splash in the opera world (debuts at La Scala and at the Met) with her portrayals of Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot, has recently undertaken the still more demanding role of Salome. »
30 Dec 2011
I spoke with Vivica Genaux in December 2011, when she stopped in New York at
the end of one of her concert tours. »
28 Dec 2011
When we think of the ‘English oratorio’, the composer whose name
most readily comes to mind is George Frideric Handel, the ‘adopted’
Englishman who in the first half of the eighteenth-century both anticipated and dictated English musical and theatrical taste. »
27 Nov 2011
Piotr Beczala, the Polish lyric tenor, stars in the current La Traviata at the Royal Opera House, London. »
12 Oct 2011
In just ten years, the Oxford Lieder Festival has become Britain’s most important Lieder festival, with an international following. »
05 Oct 2011
It is with great sadness to report that Wes Blomster has passed on. »
03 Oct 2011
The haughty beauties that are the ancient colleges of Cambridge were definitely feeling the heat this past weekend, and not even the cooling streams of the Cam and its tributaries could assuage the heat of an Indian summer in the Fens of Eastern England. »
12 Jul 2011
Remember when opera was all the rage? Remember when you could walk across to any town and experience a whole different opera scene, a different opera house, different orchestras and singers? »
12 Jul 2011
In Gounod’s Faust at the Royal Opera House in October 2011,
Zhengzhong Zhou is alternating with Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the part of
Valentin. Alternating, not covering or substituting. Since Zhou is very young,
it’s quite a challenge. »
30 Jun 2011
Luca Pisaroni is one of one the more exciting young bass-baritones of his
generation. In July 2011, he sings Argante in the first ever Handel Rinaldo at
the Glyndebourne Festival. »
27 Jun 2011
Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser’s Madama Butterfly is such a classic that it is being filmed for the second time at the Royal Opera House, London. »
22 Jun 2011
Will Crutchfield made his name as a writer and musicologist in the mid-1980s, becoming the youngest music critic in the history of The New York Times. »
17 Jun 2011
Divas make headlines, but character singers are fundamental to the British opera tradition. “Character singing,” says Jeremy White, one of the stalwarts of the Royal Opera House, “is much more than just voice.” »
16 Jun 2011
Since her first significant and highly acclaimed debut as a guest artist with the Netherlands Opera in 1992, in the taxing role of the Nurse in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, American mezzo-soprano Jane Henschel has triumphed in opera houses across the world, marvelling international audiences with her musical versatility, vocal strength and striking stage presence. »
14 Jun 2011
John Fulljames has been appointed Associate Director for Opera at the Royal Opera House. »
10 Jun 2011
There has been much eager anticipation for Luke Bedford’s opera Seven Angels. »
31 May 2011
“Germanico del sig. Hendl”. Since 1929 the printed catalogue of
the Conservatorio Cherubini in Florence (section “Opere teatrali”,
p. 143) has contained a Handel title not mentioned in any other sources. »
22 May 2011
Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska certainly knows how to make the most
of every opportunity. »
20 May 2011
Hildegard Behrens died in August of 2009. Considered one of the great
Wagnerian sopranos of her day, many tributes were pubished acclaiming her
virtues and accomplishments on and off stage. Previously unknown information,
however, has come to light concerning her personal life that spans from before the flowering of her career and thereafter. This is an informal account of events by Charles Pratt as told to Shirley Hessel. »
22 Apr 2011
To enter into David DiChiera’s space as he talks opera shop is to risk
being pulled into his world, rapt by a tractor beam emitting a constant flow of
music theater load. »
13 Apr 2011
The new brochure of the 2011-2012 season at Paris’ Opéra-Comique has
only arrived in the past few days and has already caused a stir in two
countries. »
10 Apr 2011
“A tale of corruption, passion and poisoning”, as the Royal Opera House, London, describes its first-ever production of Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tsar’s Bride, with Paata Burchuladze, highly experienced in this repertoire. »
01 Apr 2011
“All the world’s a stage” and for Morris Robinson the
translation was literal. From the football field to the grand opera he managed
to make few stage set changes along the way. »
20 Feb 2011
For geography buffs the Rappahannock is a river that flows from Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains to Chesapeake Bay. »
01 Feb 2011
In an episode of the series West Wing, political strategist Josh Lyman (played by Bradley Whitford) visits his friend and speech writer Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) in New York City before heading to New Hampshire for a promising candidate’s campaign speech. »
31 Jan 2011
Elizabeth Futral has established herself as one of the major coloratura sopranos in the world today. With her stunning vocalism and vast dramatic range, she has embraced a diverse repertoire that includes Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, Glass, and Previn. »
31 Jan 2011
British soprano, Elisabeth Meister, is a rare combination of pragmatism, serious intent, personal warmth and infectious energy. »
