Today's Opera News -- Metropolitan Opera Schedule -- AllAboutOpera.com

The memory was delicious: Women withholding sex to end a war. Surely, thought composer Mark Adamo, an opera lurked in that idea. Fresh from the success of Little Women, which Houston Grand Opera premiered in 1998, he was looking for new material. But when he returned to Lysistrata, the Aristophanes play that premiered in 414 B.C., he found his memory richer than reality.
— Read more at HoustonChronicle.com

You can take the farm boy out of Kansas, but you can't take Kansas out of the farm boy -- even when he's a principal soloist with the New York City Opera, based in Lincoln Center, with almost 1,500 performances of more than 100 different operatic parts to his credit since the 1980s. Under the veneer of sophistication and worldliness, David Corman remains a rural Kansan at heart.
— Read more at LJWorld.com

Scotland seems to specialise in musical groups in the smaller size category (and I am not thinking of Scottish Opera, which is currently shrinking before our eyes). The Scottish Chamber Orchestra has made a good name for itself and encouraging reports regularly come down from the North about the still smaller Scottish Ensemble, originally founded in 1969.
— Read more at FT.com

It took the hero 20 minutes to die Saturday night, but the audience loved it. After all, this premiere of Massenet's "Werther," was being performed in Vienna, a city sometimes described as being in love with death. As the last chords of the "Christmas Eve" music faded and the curtain rose on Werther's death bed, a guest in one of the good seats was overheard sotto voce: "Oh good! We're all going to cry now."
— Read more at ABC News

Conventional wisdom has it that Saint-Saens' "Samson et Dalila," originally planned as an oratorio, does not hold the stage well. In fact, "Samson" struggled to find a home in the opera house not because it lacks sizzle, but because of qualms about presenting Biblical tales within such unholy confines. With its spicy mix of religion, sex and song, glorious song, "Samson" abounds in the very things that most rile our species, and thus makes for a supremely riveting show.
— Read more at nynewsday.com [for riffs and extras on Samson visit vilaine fille]

The San Francisco Opera finished its most recent fiscal year in the black, closing the books on the 2003-04 season with a tiny surplus of $27,000 on an operating budget of $54.6 million.
— Read more at sfgate.com

At age 64, tenorissimo Placido Domingo is still in the top echelon -- as singer, conductor and opera administrator. But it's fun to recall the young Domingo who was already a formidable presence in the late 1960s and early '70s. Don't get me wrong: The guy who's coming here next Sunday ain't exactly chopped liver. But there's an extra bloom in Recondita armonia (Puccini's Tosca) from 1972 and, with Palm Beach Opera's late "Maestro," Anton Guadagno, in a 1970 recording of Dio, che nell'anima infondere (Verdi's Don Carlo).
— Read more at palmbeachpost.com

James Levine will open this summer's Boston Symphony Orchestra season at Tanglewood with an encore: a performance of Mahler's "Symphony of a Thousand." That's the same monumental work he chose for his inaugural program as BSO music director at Symphony Hall in October. The concert, set for July 8, is Levine's first appearance with the BSO at its summer home in the Berkshires since 1972.
— Read more at BostonHerald.com

Soprano Angela Brown and Milwaukee Symphony music director Andreas Delfs will make appearances at Milwaukee's Florentine Opera next season, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Brown, who made an acclaimed debut at the Metropolitan Opera in the title role of Aida this season, will sing the same part with the Florentine in 2005-06. According to the Journal-Sentinel, her contract with the smaller company was signed before her career-making moment in New York.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will mark its 90th anniversary season - which is also Yuri Temirkanov's seventh and last as music director - with two new series, a good deal of fresh repertoire, a decidedly promising lineup of guest artists and, for some subscribers, substantially reduced ticket prices.
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

John Adams is one of the most oft-performed and influential living American composers. One critic has described his music as "giving the impression... of an open door which lets in the fresh air in great gusts." In the second report in Intersections, a Morning Edition series on artists and their sources of inspiration, NPR's Ketzel Levine talks with Adams about the music he's found in the written word.
— Read more at NPR

Perfection always makes us a little suspicious. The politician with the perfect suit, the Bill Frist hair, the dimpled tie, the fluorescent smile, who greets everyone in the room, drawing names, as if by magic, out of the depths of the inner Rolodex -- don't trust him.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

No one can accuse conductor Riccardo Chailly of lacking bravado. After an absence of 20 years, he chose for his return to the New York Philharmonic Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 7 - and this with the orchestra of eminent Mahlerians Bruno Walter and Leonard Bernstein. Mahler, too, was the Philharmonic's music director from 1909 to 1911. What's more, the 7th is a recalcitrant work that guards its secrets jealously. While Chailly did not make a coherent whole of this sprawling symphony, Tuesday's Avery Fisher Hall audience rewarded him with a long, rapturous ovation.
— Read more at nynewsday.com [thanks vilaine fille]

The classical music blog world is a democratic place where established music critics blog alongside up-and-coming composers, instrumentalists and rank-and-file music lovers. Here are some of the more intriguing Web logs to follow: The Rest Is Noise (www.therestisnoise.com): New Yorker music critic Alex Ross is the best-known blogger in the classical field, a graceful and engaging writer, as well as the blogosphere's star-maker, conferring status on other bloggers with his kudos and links.
— Read more at MercuryNews.com

Soprano Tracy Dahl and baritone Theodore Baerg headline opera fundraiser

They are two of Canada's busiest singers, and their concert and opera gigs across North America have brought soprano Tracy Dahl and baritone Theodore Baerg together more than a few times to share a stage
— Read more at canada.com

Join the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center's Carl Westmoreland and Delores Walters to explore how Margaret Garner's story provides a prism of insight and understanding into the journey and struggles of the African American family.
When: Wednesday, February 23, 7:00 p.m.
Where: Mayerson Auditorium, HUC-UC Ethics Center, 3101 Clifton Avenue, Clifton
Admission: Free, though reservations are requested. Please call (513) 241-2742.
— Learn more at cincinnatiopera.org

For San Diego Opera conductor Karen Keltner, returning to the score of Mozart's opera "Cosi fan tutte" is like slipping on a pair of well-worn leather gloves. The music fits snugly with the vocal parts, and the luxurious feel of the piece improves with each wearing. Keltner, resident conductor and music administrator for San Diego Opera since 1982, has conducted "Cosi fan tutte" three or four times in the past, but never, she says, with such a fine cast as that assembled for the production opening Saturday.
— Read more at North County Times

Between raising two daughters and maintaining the busy career of a 21st century international operatic superstar, Renee Fleming didn't exactly need something to do with all her - ha-ha - spare time. But she wrote a book anyway, "The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer," which was published by Viking in November. "I've said all fall that it's like I've just added another complete job to my list," said the soprano.
— Read more at BostonHerald.com

The first time the Metropolitan Opera staged Richard Strauss's "Salome," ninety-seven years ago, J. P. Morgan's daughter blanched at the sight of a soprano making out with a severed head, and the production was shut down after one night. The ballerina who had performed the Dance of the Seven Veils on the Met stage decided to take her act to a vaudeville house, where she had a considerably warmer reception. America was soon in the grip of a Salome craze. In January, 1909, Strauss's opera reappeared in triumph at Oscar Hammerstein's Manhattan Opera House, with the bewitching Mary Garden in the title role. Not long afterward, a singing waiter at Jimmy Kellyâ??s, in Union Square, wrote a song entitled "Sadie Salome (Go Home)," which told of a nice Jewish girl who dismays her sweetheart, Mose, by playing Salome onstage. "Don't do that dance, I tell you, Sadie," Mose pleads. "That's not a business for a lady!" It wasn't much of a song, but it sold well enough to win its composer a job on Tin Pan Alley. A few years later, he wrote "Alexander's Ragtime Band."
— Read more at therestisnoise.com

They are the Ten Tenors from Australia - Brisbane, to be exact - who sing everything from Puccini to Queen. "It began with a group of mates, just having a bit of fun," says David Kidd, the oldest of the bunch. Starting in Australia in 1998, the tenors are now descending on the States, including tonight at the Aronoff Center.
— Read more at enquirer.com

Spinning On Air presents the radio premier of 1 Plum Sq., an 80-minute Opera/Musical-Theater piece with words and music by Amy Kohn. 1 Plum Sq. tells of construction versus destruction in architecture, in creativity, in relationships, and in the mind. It's written in a style composer Kohn accurately describes as "rhythmic, post-minimalist, baroque and jazz influenced." This special WNYC production features four singers, piano, bass, accordion, drums, and police-scanner.
— Read more at WNYC

Biography can be a distorting lens through which to view art. A case in point is Verdi's "Nabucco" (1842), his first great success, which followed the deaths of his children and wife between 1838 and 1840 and the humiliating failure of his second opera. In Verdi's accounts, those agonizing two years became two months. He claimed to have been stirred from despondency only when the "Nabucco" libretto, forced upon him by an impresario, opened by chance to the words of "Va, pensiero," the chorus of Jewish exiles that would seal Verdi's immortality.
— Read more at nynewsday.com [thanks vilaine fille]

Sooner or later, between Lyric Opera, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Ravinia Festival, the world's great classical musicians find their way to Chicago. Occasionally, a few keep coming back in wide-ranging repertoire, giving local audiences the pleasure of an in-depth look at multiple sides of their artistic personalities.
— Read more at suntimes.com

The Houston Grand Opera's 2005-06 season will not feature any of the company's signature new operas, the Houston Chronicle reports. The absence of world premieres is a sign, according to the Chronicle, of retrenchment due to declining ticket sales.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

A new opera company, to be called Mercury Opera Rochester, has been founded in Rochester, New York, the Democrat and Chronicle reports. The company, formed from a merger of Rochester Opera Factory, Opera Rochester, and Opera Theatre Guild, will debut next fall, with a season of three original productions. According to the paper, one will be a grand opera staged at Eastman Theatre and featuring the Rochester Philharmonic, and the other two will be smaller, community-style productions.
— Read more at PlaybillArtsplaybillarts.com

Prima la parola." There's an old argument about whether words or music come first in opera. Words certainly came first in the case of Handel's "Arianna in Creta," written in 1734; they were lifted, and adapted, from an earlier opera, Pariati's "Teseo in Creta." And as the opera is done by the Gotham Chamber Opera, which unveiled a new production on Thursday night at the Harry de Jur Playhouse, words are a focus: this "Arianna" is pure sung drama. The director, Christopher Alden, explores the aesthetics of ugliness, taking a hard look at exactly what it means to be confined in a difficult story for a long period of time, sticking lifelike characters together in shabby 1960's-vintage rooms with a few pieces of unattractive furniture, and having them deliver their recitative like spoken dialogue.
— Read more at The New York Times

Samuel Ramey scares people. Gifted with an ominously rumbling bass voice and famed in opera houses around the world for his prince-of-darkness portrayals -- Mephistopheles in Gounod's "Faust," the Devil in Berlioz's "La Damnation de Faust," the title role in Boito's "Mefistofele" -- the American singer casts an imposing, inky shadow.
— Read more at sfgate.com

The Milwaukee Symphony has played for the Florentine Opera for decades, but the MSO's music director has never conducted an opera for the Florentine. That puzzling gap between the two institutions will close next season, when the MSO's Andreas Delfs conducts Beethoven's "Fidelio" to open the Florentine's 2005-'06 season on Nov. 11.
— Read more at JS Online

Margaret Garner was a desperate mother, a slave who escaped across the Ohio River to Cincinnati and decided to kill her child rather than see her return to slavery. Cincinnati Opera, with Michigan Opera Theatre and Opera Company of Philadelphia, is commissioning Margaret Garner, a new opera based on the story that took place in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati in the 1850s.
— Read more at enquirer.com

There are many reasons to live in Houston. Avoiding the beautiful setting and cultural amenities of San Francisco is not among them. David Gockley, for three decades the director of Houston Grand Opera, is departing to become director of San Francisco Opera. His move is Houston's loss, but Gockley leaves a large legacy. Over the years he built a good regional company into one where a premiere of a new opera is an occasion for coverage in the national and international press. To a large degree, Houston Grand Opera is grand because Gockley made it so.
— Read more at HoustonChronicle.com

Few opera singers have dared to cross the boundary between classical music and jazz. Even those who have succeeded tend to bring an operatic style with them: their singing often lacks the edgy, improvisational sound of an authentic jazz vocalist. "We tread a fine line - those of us who perform one style of music and then want to also try another," opera diva Renee Fleming said during a rare live jazz performance on New York public radio station WNYC in December 2003. "It's dangerous." A self-described risk taker, Ms. Fleming will take that challenge head-on when she releases her first jazz and pop CD for Decca Records in May.
— Read more at csmonitor.com

Last week, we looked at young singers, particularly young American singers as a sign of hope for the future of opera. This week, we will examine another essential - repertoire - that seems to be thriving in spite of a serious shortage of money.
— Read more at RedLudwig.com

SCOTLAND'S star soprano, Lisa Milne, is sitting on the sofa in her Glasgow flat steadily working her way through a DVD of early Dallas episodes with the satisfaction of someone who is, at that precise moment in time, doing precisely what they want to do. It's a shame then, that the phone rings and shatters the idyll. But Milne is unfazed. "Hello! I'm just sitting here watching Dallas... yes... it's in the Jock Ewing period... No, Bobby's not dead yet."
— Read more at scotsman.com

The question for the future head of Houston Grand Opera: Is the 2005-06 season, announced today, a pause to refresh or a look at the future? Outgoing general director David Gockley said it took a "herculean job" to balance the budget and "still offer a good product that's typical of us."
— Read more at HoustonChronicle.com

The recent deaths of Renata Tebaldi and Victoria de los Angeles provided a bittersweet reminder of glory days when compelling soprano voices seemed so plentiful, so wonderfully warm, creamy, individualistic. And when the singers themselves exuded such extraordinary glamour. The presence of Renee Fleming on today's scene affirms that golden vocal artistry doesn't belong exclusively to the past. Same for the glamour.
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

SARASOTA -- Donita Volkwijn knows that she stands out on opera stages wherever she sings, and not always because of her voice. A child of apartheid South Africa who experienced more racism when her family moved to a rural North Carolina town, the soprano often experiences another racial divide on stage.
— Read more at heraldtribune.com

SCOTTISH Opera's biggest star has launched a scathing attack on the Executive's "pathetic" arts policy, contrasting lavish spending on the new parliament building with penny-pinching on the nationâ??s cultural life. Scottish Opera soprano Lisa Milne told Scotland on Sunday that the arts world was struggling to get proper support from government.
— Read more at scotsman.com

Where have all the oboes gone? More precisely, where have the principal oboists in the nation's leading symphony orchestras gone? The job - a critical one in any orchestra - is open, or about to be, at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the San Diego Symphony.
— Read more at The New York Times

The first night of the new production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito in London the other evening had a distinctly tartan hue. The director was Glasgow-born David McVicar, who trained at the Royal Scottish Academy and has done three productions for Scottish Opera. The bass, Neal Davies, has sung with the company, and two of the artistes who received especially warm receptions have high-profile bookings soon in Scotland: conductor Roland Boer is soon to make his debut with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly will be in Scottish Opera's revival of Der Rosenkavalier later this year. In the foyer, Philip Prowse (Glasgow Citz) and Sir John Drummond (former Festival boss) were very much in evidence. There was precious little clemency, however, for the hierarchy of Scottish Opera.
— Read more at Scotsman.com

Tenor Placido Domingo will make his first-ever appearance at the Royal Danish Opera on April 7, 2006, singing Siegmund in Wagner's Die Walkure, the company announced. The single performance will serve as a prelude to the Royal Opera's performances of the complete Ring cycle, to take place in April and May 2006 at the new Copenhagen Opera House.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

So intoxicating was the spell Ben Heppner cast Saturday evening that for the two hours of his concert it was easy to believe that he was not just the world's greatest dramatic tenor but the best singer of any kind. Period. The 49-year-old opera star is at the absolute peak of his powers, and he delivered a program filled with so many memorable moments that it was almost impossible to isolate highlights
— Read more at DenverPost.com

His arms wrapped around her in an eternal embrace, the two lovers lay motionless. At last they have put their demons to rest. The scene fades as the Narrator delivers his final aria lamenting the loss of Nathan and Sophie and all who perished in the Holocaust. The orchestra, under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, fades to silence.
— Read more at fullerton.edu

Bertolt Brecht is up to his old tricks on the stage at Southern Oregon University, defending the poor, confounding the establishment and writing his own rules for how society and the arts ought to interact. SOU's Department of Theatre Arts is presenting Brecht's "The Threepenny Opera," the second-longest running musical in New York theater history. At nearly three hours of Brechtian polemical excesses, it's long, all right.
— Read more at mailtribune.com

Join a discussion of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer-Prize winning novel Beloved -- a work inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner -- with Northern Kentucky University literature professor Dr. Kristine Yohe.
When: Thursday, February 10, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County-College Hill Branch Library, 1400 West North Bend Road, College Hill
Admission: Free, though reservations are requested. Please call (513) 241-2742.
— Learn more at cincinnatiopera.org

The Lyric Opera has effectively installed a turnstile backstage at the Civic Opera House to facilitate the comings and goings of the singers taking the principal roles of Floria Tosca and Mario Cavaradossi in its revival of the historic Franco Zeffirelli production. The weekend brought a sharply contrasted pair of performers in those roles, the American soprano Aprile Millo as the eponymous heroine and the Italian-Uruguayan tenor Carlo Ventre making his Lyric debut as her lover. To make matters more confusing, each was paired with a different singer, Millo with tenor Neil Shicoff, Ventre with soprano Doina Dimitriu. Pursuing all of them, but for very different reasons, was bass Samuel Ramey as the nefarious Baron Scarpia.
— Read more at Metromix

She has one of the richest and most powerful voices on the opera stage today; Deborah Voigt's performances at the world's leading opera houses in major roles by Wagner, Verdi and Strauss have been lavishly praised. The New York Times recently said of her appearance in the title role of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos at The Metropolitan Opera: "Ms. Voigt, clearly in her prime, is astonishing; her sound, at once earthen and gleaming. Thrillingly and with no discernible effort she sends Strauss's aching phrases soaring through the house."
— Read more at iClassics

Houston will lose its premier performing arts leader when Houston Grand Opera general director David Gockley becomes head of San Francisco Opera. "He's a star," said Peter C. Marzio, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "He's probably the most successful arts person in the history of Houston by any standard, certainly in terms of international fame."
— Read more at HoustonChronicle.com

Denyce Graves, the celebrated opera singer, and Navah Perlman, the acclaimed concert pianist, have two things in common - besides their musicality - that neither knew about the other. Both were derailed from their careers for several years because of debilitating illnesses, and - on a happier note - both are now mothers of infant girls, 7 and 8 months old, respectively.
— Read more at Newsday.com

A year ago the opera world was scandalized when the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, fired the acclaimed soprano Deborah Voigt. She was considered too big to fit into the black cocktail dress that a designer had created for a new production of Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos." The implication was that the fashion statement was more important than the voice.
— Read more at New York Daily News

Stephanie Blythe recalls exactly where she was 10 years ago when she fully grasped the power of great acting in opera. Then an apprentice artist at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, the mezzo-soprano was standing offstage about 25 feet from famed tenor Placido Domingo as he sang a love duet in "Die Walkure" with soprano Deborah Voigt.
— Read more at DenverPost.com

Soprano Renee Fleming is at work on an album of jazz ballads featuring pianist Fred Hersch and guitarist Bill Frisell, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The album, tentatively titled Haunted Heart, will be released by Decca in May.
— Read more at playbillarts.com

Sir Andre Previn has won the triennial $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize for outstanding contributions to music and its communication. In making the announcement yesterday at Roy Thomson Hall, Merle Kriss, president of the Glenn Gould Foundation, explained that "this award exemplifies the musical excellence of a rare few, and Maestro Previn's remarkable body of work and wide range of talents certainly make him a member of this exclusive club."
— Read more at TheStar.com

I'VE been thinking about stars lately, seeing a large swath of New York City Ballet repertory, noting young dancers being promoted up through the ranks, perusing the photo display of City Ballet history at the New York State Theater, reading Robert Gottlieb's and Terry Teachout's short biographies of Balanchine, even watching a rare screening of "The Red Shoes" at the "Dance on Camera" series last month at Lincoln Center.
— Read more at The New York Times

Seattle Opera kicks off its 2005-06 season on a modern note, with the West Coast premiere of Jake Heggie's "End of the Affair," an opera based on Graham Greene's novel about the breaking up of a love affair between a writer and his friend's wife in World War II London.
— Read more at nwsource.com

Opera North (formerly Opera Ebony/Philadelphia) will present "Black, Brown & Beige" in honor of Black History Month on Saturday, February 5, 2005 at 2 p.m. at Trinity Center for Urban Life, 22nd and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia.
— Read more at biz.yahoo.com

It figured that when the fearless Berkeley Opera turned to Puccini, they werenâ??t going to do one of the big three fan favorites. Its choice was Il Trittico (The Trilogy, 1918), a triple bill of one-acters, the less favored members, Il Tabarro (The Cloak), and Suor Angelica together with the more popular, comic, Gianni Schicchi. Saturdayâ??s audience at the Julia Morgan Theater was rewarded with uniformly strong singing, and exceptionally high musical values for a local opera company.
— Read more at Berkeley Daily Planet

Stale marzipan it may be, but given the appropriate set of protagonists, Charles Gounod's ponderous 1867 adaptation of Shakespeare's youthful tragedy still has the power to arouse the senses and engage, if not engulf, the soul. In Rolando VillazÃ³n and Anna Netrebko, the Los Angeles Opera has found doomed lovers who are as much star material as "star cross'd". Whatever else is lacking in the first west coast production of the opera here in 18 years, the Mexican tenor and Russian soprano radiate youthful ardour, stylistic sophistication and sheer theatrical magic.
— Read more at FT.com

Berlioz's partisanship kept the name of Gluck alive in the 19th century. But where is his champion today? Not at the Metropolitan Opera, which has not done a Gluck opera in 30 years. And with few exceptions, the Met is symptomatic of a chronic neglect of Gluck in the US. That is what made the revival of Alceste by Opera Boston in collaboration with Boston Baroque a must-see event, and fortunately the performance paid fitting tribute to this glorious work. Unfortunately, it was given only twice.
— Read more at FT.com

The Boston Conservatory Opera, under the direction of Sanford Sylvan, presents Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring Mar. 31 â?? Apr. 2, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. at The Boston Conservatory Theater, 31 Hemenway St., Boston. Conducted by Bruce Hangen. Directed by Kirsten Z. Cairns. Tickets are $12 general admission, and $5 for students and seniors. Box Office: 617-912-9222.
— Read more at top40-charts.com

The Royal Ballet can currently do no wrong: packed houses, rave reviews, and high internal morale are fuelling a run of triumphs that has put the company right back at the top of the international ratings. This is a phenomenon that occasionally strikes performing arts organisations (Nicholas Hytner's National Theatre has been doing pretty well lately, too) and, although it's to some extent a matter of divine luck, there are solid reasons for the success which are worth analysing.
— Read more at telegraph.co.uk

The sets had the dusty Baroque grandeur and ominous shadows suitable for a production of Puccini's "Tosca'' created decades ago by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli as a showcase for the legendary Maria Callas. The Lyric Opera revival of that production from London's Covent Garden bowed Monday night with the Tosca of Romanian soprano Doina Dimitriu, a fiery beauty with a penetrating voice. As her lover, the doomed patriot Cavaradossi, tenor Neil Shicoff nailed his high notes. And bass Samuel Ramey brought his usual sinister elegance to the role of the corrupt Baron Scarpia.
— Read more at suntimes.com

Not since the heyday of Monica Lewinsky has a cocktail dress ignited such a furor. Last week, American soprano Deborah Voigt -- a graduate of the San Francisco Opera's training program and a frequent favorite of opera audiences here and around the world -- dropped a miniature bombshell by revealing that she had been canned by London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for being too large.
— Read more at sfgate.com

By now, any classical music lover who does not know that Mozart's 250th birthday will be celebrated next year has probably been living inside a cello case. Carnegie Hall joined the celebratory chorus yesterday in announcing its 2005-6 season, which will include a Mozart festival among roughly 200 varied events at the main auditorium, Zankel Hall and Weill Recital Hall.
— Read more at The New York Times

Join a discussion of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer -- Prize winning novel Beloved - a work inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner -- with Northern Kentucky University literature professor Dr. Kristine Yohe.
When: Tuesday, February 8, 7:00 p.m.
Where: Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 2692 Madison Road, Hyde Park
Admission: Free, though reservations are requested. Please call (513) 241-2742.
— Learn more at cincinnatiopera.org

Politics in the past few months have generated feelings of exultation and horror but not much comedy. Even "Democracy," Scott Wheeler's new work for the Washington National Opera got most of its laughs on Saturday night through gritted teeth. Romulus Linney wrote the libretto based on his 30-year-old play, itself based on two Henry Adams novels from the 1880's.
— Read more at The New York Times

There's a dreamlike quality to Debussy's sole opera, "Pelleas et Melisande," from the very first scene, when Melisande is found inexplicably crying in a wood. The Symbolist poet Maurice Maeterlinck, who wrote the play on which the opera is closely based, shaped his words to catch as broad a range of meaning as possible, so that the action is pregnant with things not spoken. Debussy's music picks up on the unspoken and flows languidly, gorgeously, through the story.
— Read more at The New York Times

Tenor Ben Heppner received a hero's welcome Saturday at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, where he sang German operatic arias with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra conducted by venerable maestro Julius Rudel. Heppner -- a Metropolitan Opera favorite, known best for his gleaming sounds and sympathetic presence in the lead "Heldentenor" (heroic tenor) roles of Wagner -- measured up to the audience's enthusiasm with singing that was not only stentorian but subtle. In the past few years, Heppner has overcome problems with his vocal cords and renewed his technique to enter something of a purple patch. This fall, the 49-year-old British Columbia native assumed Placido Domingo's mantle as Verdi's Otello at the Met, and recent recordings of Italian and French repertoire attest to his lyrical versatility. At NJPAC, though, it was the dramatic terra firma of Weber and Wagner.
— Read more at nj.com

The touring opera companies that make annual trips to Tilles - and to countless other performing arts centers around the States - do an admirable job of presenting core opera repertory to a hungry audience with down-the-middle productions and always some singing that deserves attention. In the recent past, they have brought big bruiser operas such as "Aida," "Il Trovatore" and even "Boris Godunov," but Friday's performance of "Figaro" by the Mozart Festival Opera - another Bulgarian troupe (Bulgarians are to opera touring as Romanians are to gymnastics) - posed a special challenge.
— Read more at nynewsday.com

Tanglewood's 2005 season will feature a 75th birthday celebration for Stephen Sondheim; guest soloists Deborah Voigt, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and Yo-Yo Ma; and two concerts by James Taylor. Yet the big news is the arrival of James Levine in his first Tanglewood summer as Boston Symphony Orchestra music director.
— Read more at ctnow.com

Though he has reached the venerable age of 37 and maintains a killer concert schedule, former child prodigy violinist and perennial dreamboat Joshua Bell looks and sounds fresher than ever. His "Romance of the Violin," a Sony collection of rapturously melodic selections for violin and orchestra, was named Billboard's top-selling classical CD of 2004. It will be rereleased Feb. 8 as an audio-DVD DualDisc, along with highlights from Bell's January 2004 "Live From Lincoln Center" telecast.
— Read more at Newsday.com [thanks vilaine fille]

Description: Classical WGUC 90.9 FM's Classics for Kids host Naomi Lewin reads the timeless Grimm Brothers fairy tale, Little Red Riding Hood, and members of the Cincinnati Opera 2005 Resident Ensemble perform excerpts from the children's opera. Event Info:
Saturday, February 5 ~ 10:30 a.m.
Joseph-Beth Booksellers
Rookwood Pavilion
2692 Madison Road, Hyde Park
Tickets: Free, no reservations required.
— Learn more at cincinnatiopera.org