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Like a spaceship shifting to warp speed, Michigan Opera Theatre boldly whooshes off next season to a place where few opera companies dare to go -- way out on a limb.
Just two of its five productions in 2007-08, Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" and Verdi's "La traviata," are the sort of chestnuts guaranteed to ring up ticket sales.
— Read more at detnews.com

Join the MSU College of Music's Opera Theatre for the university premiere of Daniel Catán's magical opera, Florencia en el Amazonas. Filled with lush melodies, soaring vocal lines and rich orchestration, the opera tells the story of Florencia Grimaldi, a great diva who has returned to her native Amazon in search of her long-lost lover, a butterfly hunter. Florencia's journey down the Amazon serves as a catalyst for the forces of nature and humanity, ultimately leading to new love and rekindled love for her fellow passengers.

If you're unable to make it to East Lansing, log on to http://wmsu.org at 2 p.m., Sunday, April 1, for a live video webcast of the production. The webcast will feature interviews with the composer, director, conductor and cast, and the performance will be web cast in its entirety. The webcast is on WMSU.org. Interviews with the composer, conductor and director begin at 2 p.m., EDT; the opera begins at 3 p.m.

WHEN: Friday, March 30, 8 p.m.; Saturday, March 31, 8 p.m.; Sunday, April 1, 3 p.m. MSU Concert Auditorium, Farm Lane and Auditorium Road.
— Learn more at music.msu.edu

Mention "opera" and most people conjure up visions of a fat lady singing with a horned helmet on her head. However, like other forms of popular entertainment, the old genre has been going through some changes lately.
— Read more at Pasadena Weekly

The Metropolitan Opera has announced the names of 11 finalists who will sing in the 2007 National Council Auditions Grand Finals Concert. The event will be held this Sunday, April 1, at 3:00 p.m., with the Met Orchestra conducted by Marco Armiliato.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

Throughout the month of April, Opera on Tap presents Viva España! That means music by Spanish composers, music from operas set in Spain and, of course, some creative rationalizations from our performers to squeeze their favorite arias to fit the theme. Que guay! The Opera on Tap Orchestra will be in tow as will the sangria! Bring your passionate personalities and your Flamenco shoes! You may even go home with a tan!

Wednesday April 4th, 2007, 8pm
The Parkside Lounge
317 East Houston St. at Attorney St. / New York, NY 10002

Thursday April 12th, 2007, 9pm
Freddy's Bar and Backroom
485 Dean Street at 6th Ave / North Park Slope / Brooklyn, NY 11217
— Learn more at operaontap.com

The Chicago Opera Theater's 2008 spring season features a major coup for the company: the first fully staged production in the U.S. of John Adams's A Flowering Tree. The opera premiered last November in Vienna as part of the New Crowned Hope festival curated by Peter Sellars.
Adams will conduct the first two of five performances in May 2008, and Joana Carneiro, assistant conductor at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will conduct the last three. The cast currently includes soprano Natasha Jouhl as Kumudha (the young girl who is transformed into a flowering tree) and baritone Sanford Sylvan as the Storyteller.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

On a summer day in 2005, David DiChiera, general director of Michigan Opera Theatre, pulled up to the southern Indiana hideaway owned by his colleague Robert Driver of the Opera Company of Philadelphia. In the car was DiChiera's opera--in progress, "Cyrano."
Though he's a trained composer, DiChiera's career has been producing, not writing, operas and he wanted an unbiased opinion. He sat at Driver's piano, awkwardly pounding out the score like a Tin Pan Alley song plugger.
— Read more at freep.com

"U-Carmen" is a revelation of the most uplifting variety, not just a re-imagining of Georges Bizet's beloved 1875 opera (which has already been handled on film several times), but a veritable treatise on how new technologies can, if properly used, serve the oldest works of art. Newcomers to the story will discover an opera with teeth, grit ? and close-ups ? the antithesis to the carefully measured, big-budget visions of such recent musicals as " Chicago" and "Dreamgirls."
— Read more at The New York Sun

Edinburgh turns this year to a celebration of the exuberance of opera to mark the 60th anniversary of its international festival of the arts, founded in 1947 the dark days of austerity following World War Two.
The festival's new director, Australian Jonathan Mills, said in announcing the programme on Wednesday that he had been working "at breakneck speed" to put together an international offering since he took over last October from Brian McMaster, director of the festival for the previous 16 years.
— Read more at Reuters.com

When San Diego Opera presented "Samson and Delilah" last month, it was epic in scope - colossal sets, giant chorus numbers, big dance scenes and a huge star, Denyce Graves.
— Read more at North County Times

The New York City Opera - relatively poor and historically feisty - languishes forever in the shadow of the mighty Metropolitan. Now it finds itself contemplating a cultural crossroads.
The regime of Paul Kellogg, controversial general-director since 1996, lumbers to a somnolent close in June. His successor, who officially takes over in 2009, is none less than Gérard Mortier, the controversial iconoclast who has inspired blood, sweat and tears - also bravos - in Salzburg and Paris. Conservative New Yorkers may regard the Belgian impresario as a dangerous enfant terrible. Others may hail him as a deus ex machina.
— Read more at Martin Bernheimer - FT.com

There's a famous old superstition in the theater world that Shakespeare's Macbeth is such bad luck, and productions of it are so prone to mishaps, that one shouldn't even refer to it by name - it's called "the Scottish play."
Could Ariodante, Handel's "Scottish opera," be suffering similar misfortune?
— Read more at PlaybillArts

Deborah Voigt stars as Helen of Troy in Die ägyptische Helena. In his new production, director/designer David Fielding says the domestic drama underneath the mythological façade is the key to Strauss's lush and fanciful opera.
A Trojan War setting, scenes of shipwreck and suddenly conjured elves, a sweeping orchestral score, a vocally high-flying lead role ? Richard Strauss's Die ägyptische Helena would seem to demand the musical and technical mastery of the Met. So it may come as a surprise that David Fielding's new production made its debut on an English country lawn.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

"The singing, at its best, was simply spectacular, world-class on every level," writes Tim Page in The Washington Post. Mike Silverman of The Associated Press says that "this was as stirring a performance as you are likely to encounter anywhere."
They're enthusing about Washington National Opera's new production of Wagner's Die Walkure [The Ring], directed by Francesca Zambello, which opened Saturday night (March 24) at the Kennedy Center Opera House.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

The Japan Society continues its 2007-08 centennial celebration with the presentation of Benjamin Britten's Curlew River. This 20th century opera based on a noh theater classic is directed by Yoshi Oida with music direction by David Stern. An original production of the Rouen/Haute-Normandie Opera in France, the international performance features principal singers from the U.K., an ensemble from France and additional cast from New York. The production marks the second installment of Noh?Now!, the Spring/Summer Japan Society performing arts series presenting an array of works inspired by the classical art of noh. Curlew River will play Japan Society (333 East 47th Street - New York City) Thursday, April 12 / Friday, April 13 / Saturday, April 14 @ 7:30 PM.
— Learn more at japansociety.org

Bring a live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera to a neighborhood movie theater. Saturday afternoon, the Met beamed out its matinee of The Barber of Seville as a live, high-definition broadcast from New York City to more than 250 theaters around the world, including Regal Montrose Movies Stadium 12 in Copley Township.
— Read more at Beacon Journal

Cutting Edge Concerts' 2007 season at the Thalia Theatre, Symphony Space presents A MUSICAL TAPESTRY. Conceived and moderated by composer/conductor Victoria Bond, this three-concert series brings together, most likely for the first time, living composers and weavers. Music and weaving share common threads in their composition through texture, design, and color.
The weavers' artwork will be projected behind the Cutting Edge Ensemble onstage, giving the audience an opportunity to experience the music and the art simultaneously. An integral part of the concerts will be the onstage discussion between Bond and each composer and weaver.
April 9, 23, 30, 8:00 PM
The Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York City
— Learn more at www.symphonyspace.org

The Seattle Opera's first commissioned work in two decades, Daron Hagen's Amelia, will receive its premiere in May 2010, the company announced today.
Amelia, to be directed by Stephen Wadsworth, has a libretto by American poet and writer Gardner McFall, based on a story by Wadsworth that uses "the theme of flight as a motif for exploring the human condition." The Pilot's Daughter, a collection of poems by McFall, concerns such issues as the Vietnam War and loss.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

Of the 60 or so operas Gaetano Donizetti gave to the world, only a handful are produced today with any regularity. "Linda di Chamounix" is not one of them, but this has nothing to do with the value of the music.
Opera Circle proved as much over the weekend at the Alliance of Poles Auditorium in Cleveland with its intimate production of the 1842 work, possibly the first in local history.
— Read more at Plain Dealer

Midway through the Washington National Opera's four-part "Ring" cycle, it appears the company has run short of two items: money to complete the project, and ideas that would fulfill the promise of turning Wagner's epic into a uniquely "American Ring."
— Read more at wjla.com

Because mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer would be performing Hector Berlioz's songs in French, she encouraged Prelude audience members to look at the English text of "Les Nuits d'Et" in the program.
Even for those who didn't take advantage of the translations of the poems, the emotions of the pieces were evident as Mentzer performed the work during the Maryland Symphony Orchestra's MasterWorks IV performance Sunday afternoon.
— Read more at The Herald-Mail

AMERICAN OPERA PROJECTS (AOP) will present concert readings of two new operas THE WALLED-UP WIFE and THE SUMMER KING.
The Summer King and The Walled-Up Wife were both developed through AOP's innovative annual residency program for composers: Composers & the Voice.
WHEN: Friday, March 30th & Saturday, March 31st at 8:00pm.
South Oxford Space - 138 S Oxford St. - Brooklyn, New York
— Learn more at operaprojects.org

Not many singers today face the pressure that Ben Heppner must feel. His lean, burnished and powerful voice makes him the closest the opera world has right now to an ideal Wagnerian heldentenor. The Metropolitan Opera is not alone in counting on Mr. Heppner for "Tristan und Isolde" (which he will sing next season). And he is poised to portray the impossible-to-cast title role in "Siegfried."
— Read more at New York Times

[Zambello Is Right At Home Setting Wagner's 'Walkure' On These Shores]
Washington National Opera's new production of "Die Walkure" ("The Valkyrie"), the second installment of Wagner's four-opera epic "Ring des Nibelungen" ("The Ring of the Nibelung"), will run through April 17 at the Kennedy Center. Created by director Francesca Zambello, it features a cast with assured Wagnerian vocal chops. Tenor Placido Domingo (the opera company's director), sopranos Anja Kampe and Linda Watson and bass-baritone Alan Held return to the roles they filled in the company's heralded 2003 production of the opera at its temporary digs at DAR Constitution Hall.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

New York City Opera announced today that the company will revive its Harold Price production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide to replace the gap in its season created by the postponement of the previously announced new production of Ragtime.
The production of Candide, which will open on April 8, 2008, was last seen at New York City Opera in 2005. Bernstein's operetta will run for fourteen performances through April 20. The company plans to announce a cast at a later date.
— Read more at Opera News

The world premiere of composer Jake Heggie's "Rise and Fall" (libretto by Gene Scheer) will take place at UConn on Thursday, March 29, at von der Mehden Recital Hall.
The event, which begins at 8 p.m., is open to the public. Admission is free.
— Read more at UConn Advance

Even as Rossini's most famous opera is playing right next door at the Met, the enterprising New York City Opera is showing us the other side of the composer's work, demonstrating that he could produce more than brilliant light comedy.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

When composer John Adams deliberated over where the first fully staged U.S. version of "A Flowering Tree," his latest opera, would truly blossom, the usual prospects didn't arise.
Not Houston Grand Opera or San Francisco Opera, venues that had presented the prior American premieres of his operatic or choral works. Instead, he granted the premiere to what some might consider a surprising choice: Chicago Opera Theater.
— Read more at CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

Two opera companies angling for audiences and funds in the same midsized metropolitan area sounds like a perfect formula for a Hatfield-and-McCoy-style feud.
But leaders of the two Denver-based companies - Central City Opera and Opera Colorado - say the organizations actually get along quite well and even enjoy some staff crossover.
— Read more at DenverPost.com

Midway through the Washington National Opera's "Ring" cycle, it appears the company has run short of two items: money to complete the project, and ideas that would fulfill the promise of turning Wagner's four-part epic into a uniquely "American Ring."
— Read more at Examiner.com

The most prominent Romanian opera singer, soprano Angela Gheorghiu, showcased great operatic heroines at the Los Angeles Opera on March 17.
Often compared to Maria Callas, Gheorghiu is mostly known for her strong dramatic voice and the way she colors her voice's lower register. Her performance was expressive and with good voice projection. She sang beautifully throughout but excelled with Verdi and Puccini, her favorites. Accompanying Gheorghiu was the lively Los Angeles Opera Orchestra conducted by Eugene Kohn.
— Read more at The Epoch Times

In her Met debut last season, as Zerbinetta in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos - the acrobatic coloratura role that culls the mere canaries from the rest of the flock - Diana Damrau sang "Kam der neue Gott gegangen,/ Hingegeben war ich stumm!" (When a new god comes to woo me/ I'm helpless, struck dumb). At that closing line to Zerbinetta's aria, the audience was anything but struck dumb. The ovation Damrau was given, clocked by The Associated Press at seventy seconds, stopped the show. Prancing and coquettish, at once a worldly-wise flirt and a self-confessed slave of love, Damrau's "fickle Zerbinetta" tenders advice meant to alleviate the sorrows of the woebegone Ariadne. Whether Ariadne gets the message is debatable; what's certain is that by the night of Damrau's final performance, the applause for Zerbinetta's aria lasted a full two minutes.
— Read more at Opera News

RICHARD Strauss' Helen of Troy - a role that can launch a thousand slips - hasn't tempted many sopranos. Luckily, its dangers didn't discourage Deborah Voigt.
The commanding soprano, joined by a lustrous Diana Damrau, had a deserved triumph last week when "Die Agyptische Helena" ("The Egyptian Helen") returned to the Metropolitan Opera after 79 years, its rich orchestral textures lovingly displayed by conductor Fabio Luisi.
— Read more at New York Post

The WFMT Radio Network in Chicago has announced a new series of broadcast performances recorded live at four of America's great opera houses: Lyric Opera of Chicago, Los Angeles Opera, Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera.
The network's 30-week season aims to give public and commercial radio stations live performances to air during the hiatus between the Metropolitan Opera'a annual series of broadcasts, which run from December to May.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

Damon Albarn will launch the brand new Manchester International Festival with his opera Monkey: Journey To The West, it's just been confirmed.
The event is on from 28th June -15th July and will also feature exclusive performances from the likes of Smokey Robinson, Kanye West, Happy Mondays and PJ Harvey at venues around the city.
— Read more at volume10.com

Tonight James Levine begins the final installment of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's two-season, 10-program examination of works by Beethoven and Schoenberg . He'll conduct three concert performances of Beethoven's sole opera, "Fidelio," over the next five days.
— Read more at The Boston Globe

Although the Metropolitan Opera performs in New York's Lincoln Center, people worldwide have been tuning in the Met's Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts for 76 years.
Now, opera fans in central Ohio and other parts of the country can see and hear Met productions -- thanks to "The Met Goes to the Movies," an outreach effort instituted by new General Manager Peter Gelb.
— Read more at columbusdispatch.com

The British opera and theater worlds have learned over time to expect the unexpected from David Fielding, the London-based director/designer who makes his New York debut at the Metropolitan Opera in March with Die Ägyptische Helena, a Richard Strauss opera that itself couldn't be more rare. First heard in Dresden in 1928, Strauss's ninth opera wasn't performed in England until Fielding directed it in 1997 at Garsington Opera in Oxfordshire, the Italianate manor setting that, until now, had never spawned a production to receive further exposure outside Britain. But esoterica, Straussian or otherwise, suits this genuine directorial adventurer, for whom The Importance of Being Earnest and Otello are about as standard-issue as he gets.
— Read more at Opera News

Since British stage director Stephen Lawless conceived his production of Giuseppe Verdi's "Il trovatore" for LA Opera nine years ago, it's been met by critics worldwide with both raves and jeers.
— Read more at North County Times

[New opera productions are shaking up old ideas about what to stage and how. Will audiences accept them?]
The latest chatter magnet in the opera world is the Metropolitan Opera's chance-taking production of The Egyptian Helen, a major work by a major composer (Richard Strauss) but one so seldom seen, it might as well be a world premiere. If you love Strauss and soprano Deborah Voigt (who sings the title role), you could start applauding even before the curtain goes up.
— Read more at philly.com

New Zealand opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who refused to perform with an Australian singer because his female fans threw underwear at him, on Wednesday won a lawsuit against her for pulling out of the concert.
— Read more at Yahoo! News

It was tough enough in antiquity to be a sorceress, let alone the planet's most beautiful woman. In the postmodern world, you have to compete for attention with directors, too.
Richard Strauss' "Die Aegyptische Helena" ("The Egyptian Helen") returned last Thursday to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time since 1928 in a vocal triumph for sopranos Deborah Voigt and Diana Damrau. The surrealistic production by David Fielding, however, was too much to absorb in one sitting, filled with symbolism from start (Poseidon running across the stage with a suitcase) to finish (a Greek temple surrounded by a wedding band on the closing scrim).
— Read more at The Cincinnati Post

A CONTROVERSIAL chamber opera about the unseen activities of musicians is set to be performed in Edinburgh.
Dave Heath's An Everyday Occurrence questions whether it is talent or connections that really count in the music business, with the semi-autobiographical story set in the pit of an orchestra and bringing together satirical farce and romantic tragedy.
— Read more at Scotsman.com

A Utah man is slowly becoming famous as an accomplished opera singer. So far, however, he only plays to a very small and selective audience. His name is Luiz Meneghin, and as you can hear (audio at right), he's quite good.
Without producing an album or even a record deal, he already has fans that gush over him. "I think it's marvelous," remarks one fan. Another fan adds, "A voice like that comes along maybe once in a century." "I had tears coming down my cheeks the first time I heard him sing," another person adds.
— Read more at ksl.com

Due to illness, soprano Karita Mattila has cancelled her appearances this weekend as Leonore in the Boston Symphony's concert performances of Beethoven's Fidelio with music director James Levine. The role is one she has sung to great acclaim under Levine at the Metropolitan Opera several times since 2000.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

I recently had the honor of being invited to perform, along with my 5-year-old daughter, as a supernumerary in the final production of Virginia Opera's current season, Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry) / I Pagliacci. We appeared in a couple of shows in the climatic play-within-the-play crowd scene of Pagliacci, starring the lovely Cristina Nassif as Nedda and Gustavo Lopez Manzitti as Canio. I'd like to thank all of the folks at the Opera for a wonderful opportunity. Here are a few things I took away from the experience.
— Read more at portfolioweekly.com

[The soprano, who has taken heat for alleged bad behavior, shows off her best stuff in concert.]
Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu, who made her Los Angeles Opera concert debut Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, is the diva critics have lately loved to hate.
She's said to throw tantrums. She once walked out of a "Carmen" over a wig dispute. She withdrew recently from Verdi's "Don Carlo" at Covent Garden, supposedly in another huff. Insiders are said to call her "Draculette."
— Read more at calendarlive.com

For almost 80 years, Richard Strauss' "The Egyptian Helen" has lurked at the edge of the repertoire like orbiting space debris, unloved and out of mind since its American premiere in 1928. And yet it contains a heroic title role: Helen, whose charms triggered the Trojan War, who barely steps offstage to catch her breath and who opens the second act with one of those blissful, post-coital arias of which Strauss was the absolute master. Helen has just been waiting for the right soprano to come and resurrect her. Now Deborah Voigt has.
— Read more at Newsday.com

Ernst Haefliger, the Swiss opera singer renowned for his oratorio and lieder, has died, a Lucerne Festival spokeswoman said Sunday. He was 87.
— Read more at Yahoo! News

"The Ballad of Baby Doe," composer Douglas Moore's tale of love, betrayal and politics set against the rough and tumble landscape of a 19th century American mining town, is to be presented March 29-30, and Sunday, April 1, by The Opera Theatre at UNCG.
— Read more at uncg.edu

In the middle of the 1920s, Richard Strauss composed "The Egyptian Helen," along with Hugo von Hofmannsthal, his trusty librettist. In 1928, this work had a staging at the Metropolitan Opera, with the glamorous Maria Jeritza in the title role. She appeared on the cover of Time magazine. From 1928 till last Thursday night, the opera was not heard at the Met. And when it came back, we had Deborah Voigt singing Helen, in a production by the Englishman David Fielding.
— Read more at The New York Sun

If a concert pianist wants to champion an overlooked work, all he needs to do is to program it on a recital tour. But if a leading soprano wants to perform a challenging role in a little-known opera, she needs an entire opera company to mount the work, with all the money, time and risk such a commitment entails.
When that artist is the dramatic soprano Deborah Voigt, and the company is the Metropolitan Opera, which has hugely benefited from Ms. Voigt's services since her 1991 debut, it makes sense for the company to accommodate the prima donna.
— Read more at New York Times

Bay Area audiences got their first taste of Gerald Finley's vocal artistry in 2005, when he created the role of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the world premiere of John Adams' "Doctor Atomic" for San Francisco Opera. Singing the part of the brilliant, but tormented, father of the atomic bomb, the Canadian bass-baritone gave an unforgettable performance.
— Read more at ContraCostaTimes.com

[Their mountaintop house near Copper Hill is a welcome retreat for Opera Roanoke's director and his international opera star wife.]
To find the Roanoke Valley's first couple of opera, you probably need a map. And a compass.
Some darn good directions, too.
Steven White, general and artistic director of Opera Roanoke, and his wife, international opera star Elizabeth Futral, live in a mountaintop house near Copper Hill, with a breathtaking view of Franklin County. Their closest neighbors are bluebirds.
— Read more at Roanoke.com

Japanese music legend Seiji Ozawa has taken up his baton again in Tokyo with a production of Wagner's "Tannhauser," his first opera performance since poor health forced him to rest for more than a year.
— Read more at Yahoo! News

Mozart purists should not expect Berkeley Opera's new production, Seraglio, to have much resemblance to the renowned opera The Abduction from the Seraglio [in German]. Nothing in this rendition follows the original except the music.
— Read more at Berkeley Daily Planet

Beginning Friday, April 13, at 8 p.m., Dicapo Opera Theatre will present six performances of Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut, the composer's third opera and his first international success. This production continues Dicapo's Puccini Project, in which the company will present all of Puccini's major works by the end of 2008, the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. It features sopranos Irina Rindzuner and Olga Chernisheva as Manon; tenors Todd Geer and Arthur Shen as Manon?s true love des Grieux; baritone Mark Woman as Lescaut; Gary Giardina and Ricardo Lugo as Geronte and is conducted by Pacien Mazzagatti. Subsequent productions take place on April 14, 20, and 21 at 8 p.m. and two Sundays, April 15 and 22 at 4 p.m.
— Learn more at dicapo.com

Three years ago, intoxicated and frustrated in equal measure by the Covent Garden premiere of The Tempest, I wrote optimistically of a day when Thomas Adès would present a more polished and consistently brilliant version of his second opera. Where exquisite modern miniatures such as Richard Ayres's The Cricket Recovers have bloomed and withered in a few short weeks, heard only in the Aldeburgh and Almeida Festivals, The Tempest has thrived since its premiere, with revivals in Strasbourg and Copenhagen, and a new production in Sante Fe. Adès has therefore had ample opportunities to revise his score before its return to Covent Garden. But the changes I hoped for in 2004 have yet to be made.
— Read more at Independent Online

Ernst Haefliger, the Swiss opera singer renowned for his oratorio and Lieder, died Saturday in the southeastern town of Davos, a Lucerne Festival spokeswoman. He was 87.
— Read more at Yahoo! News

On the stage of Gano Hall at William Jewell College, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato was coaching voice student Katie Noel on a Schumann song.
"If you feel like you're working, that means something's not right," DiDonato said.
— Read more at KansasCity.com

Typically, when Rossini's Figaro, the title character of "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," first appears and sings his famous aria the "Largo al factotum," he is alone. Addressing the audience, he introduces himself. No mere barber, Figaro asserts that he is essential to the functioning of his town. Need a confidential note passed on? A scheme initiated? An eligible husband if you are a debutante; a new husband if you are a widow? Then I'm your man, Figaro says. Everyone needs him; everyone calls him.
— Read more at New York Times

I've been waiting patiently for a very, very long time in hopes of catching a live performance of Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach. And, given that this is Glass's birthday year, I've been keeping my eyes and ears peeled for news of a production somewhere, anywhere. No luck so far, but mere moments ago I received a press release that put a smile on my face: The Philip Glass Ensemble will perform excerpts from Einstein in a concert at Carnegie Hall on December 6 at 8pm. The booking is so fresh that the event hasn't been added to the Carnegie Hall website yet. Michael Riesman will conduct the performance, and Timothy Fain is the featured violinist.
— Read more at Steve Smith - Night After Night

The world premiere production of Georg Friedrich Haas' "Melancholia" and Anna Netrebko singing Giulietta in a revival of Bellini's "I Capuleti e i Montecchi" highlight the 2007-8 Paris Opera season.
There will be new stagings of Wagner's "Tannhaeuser" and "Parsifal," Dukas' "Ariane et Barbe-Bleue," Verdi's "Luisa Miller," Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress," Berg's "Wozzeck" and Dallapicolla's "Il Prigioniero," director Gerard Mortier said Thursday. It will be his next to last season is Paris before he becomes general manager and artistic director of the New York City Opera.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

Giuseppe Verdi's enduring opera "La traviata" is a favorite of Jill Anderson, co-founder and general director of the Pacific Repertory Opera company.
"It's the tear-jerker story of Camille, based on the Alexandre Dumas novel," Anderson said.
— Read more at San Luis Obispo Tribune

The competition between the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera remains as edgy as ever. Merely one season into Peter Gelb's successful transition as the Met's new general manager, City Opera revealed late last month that avant-gardist Gerard Mortier will soon take over its artistic director.
— Read more at AM New York

The University of Illinois School of Music has added another marquee name to its faculty roster ? baritone Nathan Gunn, recently described by The New York Times as opera's latest superstar.
Gunn, whose appointment becomes effective Aug. 16, will be a tenured professor of voice. His wife, Julie Gunn, who has a UI doctorate in accompaniment, was appointed associate professor in accompaniment, also effective Aug. 16.
— Read more at news-gazette.com

[The Met's HD movie venture kicks off in select theaters]
Reality clash. I had anticipated writing an enthusiastic review of the Metropolitan Opera's groundbreaking embrace of new technologies. After all, the country's most prestigious opera house, whose long-standing conservatism delayed adoption of supertitles (simultaneously-projected English translations) until long after they appeared in other major US houses, has countered the decline of opera on the airwaves with an unprecedented international outreach initiative. In December, the Met announced High-Definition TV and movie-theater airings of six star-studded productions from its current season.
— Read more at The Bay Area Reporter

[Opera to Feature Legendary Director Peter Sellars, Visual Artist Bill Viola and Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen]
What: Los Angeles Philharmonic's Esa-Pekka Salonen teams with dynamic director Peter Sellars and celebrated video artist Bill Viola for the Tristan Project, a multi-discipline arts experience at Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed around Richard Wagner's seminal opera, Tristan und Isolde. Presenting one semi-staged act per night along with works influenced by Tristan und Isolde, Salonen and the Philharmonic perform the complete opera twice. Each act includes video art exploring the underlying themes of the opera: betrayal, transformation, rebirth, memory, and time.
Who: The trio of Salonen, Sellars, and Viola plan to produce a Tristan stretching the boundaries of Wagnerian production in a setting (Walt Disney Concert Hall) that lends itself to exploration. "Tristan und Isolde is a tale of a love so overwhelming and intense it transcends mortal bounds. This project represents an exciting opportunity to collaborate with fellow artists Peter Sellars and Esa-Pekka Salonen, to explore and draw fresh inspiration from both the story and the great creative work of Richard Wagner, and to re-tell this medieval myth of timeless significance and universal relevance," Bill Viola says.
— Learn more at laphil.com

American Opera Projects (Aop) and The Manhattan School Of Music and Opera Index present staged concert readings of two new operas The Summer King and The Golden Gate Sunday, March 18th at 2:30pm. Greenfield Hall, Manhattan School of Music 120 Claremont Avenue - New York, New York.
WQXR's Midge Woolsey will host a post-performance discussion with the creators. The afternoon will also include a presentation of scenes from Encompass New Opera Theatre's The Theory of Everything. Tickets cost $20 at the door, $15 in advance and $10 for seniors and students. Reservations: 212-721-9828.
— Learn more at operaprojects.org

The Princeton Festival announces auditions for its professional chorus for the opera CARMEN (Perfs: June 23, June 29 & July 1) and for principal roles in our Young Stars Showcase production of MAN OF LA MANCHA (Perfs: June 28, June 30).
Auditions:
* March 17 - 22
* Please prepare 1 selection in French (art song or aria) and 1 musical theater piece.
* All roles for LA MANCHA will be cast from the ensemble of CARMEN.
* An accompanist will be provided.
— Learn more at www.princetonfestival.org

San Francisco Opera made its annual appearance at Lincoln Theater Sunday afternoon resulting once again in a production highly polished, musically professional and vocally engrossing.
The cast of young singers from the Adler Fellows training program presented Benjamin Britten's "The Turn of the Screw," an enigmatic opera based upon the Henry James thriller, and they could not have been better.
— Read more at napavalleyregister.com

Here is a new opera I had somehow missed this year, Benoît Mernier's first opera, Frühlings Erwachen (Awakening of Spring). Based on the play of the same name by Frank Wedekind (1890), it was premiered on March 9 at the Théâtre royal de la monnaie in Brussels. In her review ("Frühlings Erwachen", coup de maître, March 12) for La Libre Belgique, Martine D. Mergeay wrote that the piece was as dazzling as many had anticipated (my translation):...
— Read more at Charles T. Downey - ionarts

Lawrence Edelson, Producing Artistic Director of AMERICAN LYRIC THEATER (ALT), has announced the creation of the first full-time resident artist training program for emerging opera composers and librettists in the United States. Application information for The Composer Librettist Development Program can be found at www.altnyc.org. Applications will be accepted through May 1st,2007. Based on the quality of applicants, ALT will accept up to 4 composers and 4 librettists to participate in a full-time residency that will run from August through December 2007. ALT is actively seeking emerging artists from diverse ethnic backgrounds, and is committed to mentoring composers and librettists who are interested in developing opera in English or Spanish. All artists selected for participation in the program will be provided with a monthly living stipend so that they can fully dedicate themselves to their residency activities.
— Learn more at www.altnyc.org

Pittsburgh Opera's spring Brown Bag Opera Series presents it's last lunchtime concert on Wednesday, March 21st. The 30-minute concert begins at 12:15 p.m. in the 1st floor studio at 801 Penn Avenue. Competitively selected from over 500 applicants each year, the resident artists of Pittsburgh Opera are among the nation's most sought-after emerging opera singers. Through performance opportunities, community outreach, and coaching with the opera industry?s most distinguished professionals, graduates of the resident artists program perform on the world's greatest stages. Bring your lunch to our final Brown Bag Opera which is free and open to the public, with no reservations required. Hosted by Beth "Opera Lady" Parker and Mark Trawka, Director of Musical Studies, this event offers a casual, entertaining, and unique way to enjoy your lunch hour.
— Learn more at www.pittsburghopera.org

Cincinnati Opera presents an Opera Rap on Charles Gounod's 1859 grand opera Faust. Join Father Christopher Armstrong as he explores religious and spiritual themes?from deal-making with the Devil and lost innocence in the garden to Marguerite's ultimate salvation.
Thursday, March 22 at 7 p.m.
Holy Cross-Immaculata Church in Mt. Adams
30 Guido St. Cincinnati, OH 45202
Free. RSVP requested: call 241-2742.
— Learn more at www.cincinnatiopera.org

There was a time not so long ago when Chicago Opera Theater, the city's spirited second opera company, couldn't tell if each season might be its last.
And while it will never know the financial strength and security of the cross-Loop Lyric Opera of Chicago, COT's transformation under general director Brian Dickie and a small but heroic board of directors has reached the point where it can announce its full 2008 season before the curtain has even gone up on its first production of 2007.
— Read more at CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

It's rare for a new opera to cause a storm at London's Royal Opera. "Sophie's Choice" was 4-1/2 hours of doldrums; "1984" was becalmed to the point of inertia. Thomas Ades's "The Tempest" proved to be the hit that Covent Garden needed and was heaped with praise at its world premiere in 2004.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

"Imagine a Richard Strauss or Alban Berg setting the line 'Hey, toots! Get out of the bathroom!' (exact quote) for baritone and full orchestra and you'll have some idea of the problems ..."
That's how Washington Post critic Tim Page characterized the paradox of André Previn's operatic version of the Tennessee Williams play A Streetcar Named Desire, which premiered at San Francisco Opera in 1998 with Renée Fleming as Blanche. (Page was reviewing the 2004 production by Washington National Opera.)
— Read more at PlaybillArts

The old ones really may be the best. Britain's leading opera experts have judged that there is barely a soprano singing today who measures up to the great divas of the past.
Though the likes of the Romanian Angela Gheorghiu and the American Renée Fleming set pulses racing every time they appear at Covent Garden, neither makes it to a list of the top 20 sopranos of all time, chosen by the expert panel.
— Read more at telegraph.co.uk

For the first time in 25 years, the San Francisco Opera is returning to radio on a regular basis. Beginning April 1, live recordings of the company's 2005-06 and 2006-07 productions at the War Memorial Opera House will be broadcast one Sunday each month at 8 p.m. on KDFC-FM (102.1).
The first broadcast will be of Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" from last fall, with mezzo-soprano Karita Mattila.
— Read more at San Jose Mercury News

IT may well be a dog-eat-dog world - operatically speaking - when New York City Opera's freshly anointed and modish modernist new boss, Gerard Mortier, sits across Lincoln Center plaza from the Metropolitan Opera's equally committed populist, Peter Gelb. Fur could fly. Meanwhile, City Opera continues on its far from sluggish course, unveiling on Sunday its venerable but still remarkable staging of Puccini's "Madama Butterfly."
— Read more at New York Post

The Metropolitan Opera will open next season with its usual assortment of high notes - and a new high for ticket prices.
The Met is selling US$100,000 boxes for its opening-night presentation of "Lucia di Lammermoor" with soprano Natalie Dessay and tenor Marcello Giordani, the company said Tuesday.
— Read more at canada.com

The gaping hole is still there. It's just hidden beneath a platform, thrown up to cover the mess when the stage of Valencia's Palau de les Arts caved in last October.
It was on this temporary stage that Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" had its premiere in the Spanish city last weekend. It does not go up, down, or around, yet at least objects can be flown in from above or moved from left to right.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

"Madama Butterfly" is a lot of opera for 25 bucks. At the Salzburg Festival $25 would probably get you half the overture, at the Metropolitan Opera a little more. The New York City Opera's Opera-for-All series offered five of these all-for-one-low-price attractions last fall and came back with Puccini's weepy, ever-winning study in Japanese-American relations on Friday.
— Read more at New York Times

Edgar Baitzel, the chief operating officer of Los Angeles Opera, died yesterday after a brief struggle with cancer. He was 51 years old.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

New York City Opera has been forced to postpone its previously announced new production of Ragtime, originally slated as part of the company's planned 2007-08 season, owing to scheduling conflicts with director Frank Galati and choreographer Graciela Daniele, the company announced today.
The City Opera planned to mark the tenth anniversary of the musical's premiere by presenting a new staging on April 8 of next year. For that production, the company intended to employ the original Broadway team, which includes composer Stephen Flaherty; lyricist Lynn Ahrens; playwright Terrence McNally; and Galati and Daniele.
— Read more at Opera News

For the first time in 25 years, the San Francisco Opera is returning to radio on a regular basis. Beginning April 1, recordings of the company's 2005-06 and 2006-07 live productions at the War Memorial Opera House will be broadcast one Sunday each month at 8 p.m. on KDFC-FM (102.1).
The first broadcast will be of Puccini's "Manon Lescaut" from last fall, with mezzo-soprano Karita Mattila.
— Read more at ContraCostaTimes.com

The Washington University Opera, led by director Jolly Stewart, will present Kirke Mechem's highly acclaimed operatic setting of Molière's classic comedy Tartuffe at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 23 and 24.
Performances are presented by the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences and take place in the university's Edison Theatre, located in the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. Tickets are $18; $12 for seniors and Washington University faculty and staff; and $7 for students.
— Read more at news-info.wustl.edu

THE announcement late last month could not have been more stunning.
Gerard Mortier, the controversial Flemish-Belgian director of major European opera houses and music festivals, a passionate and intellectually voracious provocateur, will become the general manager and artistic director of the New York City Opera starting in 2009. Mr. Mortier? Running the "people's opera," as Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia affectionately dubbed the company at its inauguration in 1944?
Clearly New York's "other" opera company is poised to shake up the local scene. The news must have rattled Peter Gelb at the Metropolitan Opera, who in his short time as general manager has been recasting that hidebound institution as a hip and innovative house and given the international opera world a lesson in how to use the communications resources of the digital age to bring opera to new audiences. It appears that Mr. Gelb will be facing competition from a man with a proven record of grabbing attention.
— Read more at New York Times

WHO'S the fairest of them all? In ancient Greece every schoolboy knew that it was Helen of Troy. Two thousand years later her fame was intact. In Christopher Marlowe's immortal phrase from around 1590, hers was the face that launched a thousand ships.
In Richard Strauss's "Ägyptische Helena" ("Helen of Egypt") an Omniscient Seashell in the possession of the Egyptian sorceress Aithra sees Helen in the same rosy light. A man has raised his dagger against a woman who lies sleeping, the Seashell cries, describing the scene from afar. Against the most beautiful woman in the world.
— Read more at New York Times

Nashville Opera has a world premiere in store for patrons in the fall. Robert Aldridge's Elmer Gantry, scheduled for its first public performance Nov. 16-20 at TPAC's Polk Theater, is just one highlight of the company's just-announced 2007-08 season.
Over the past decade, Nashville Opera has developed a strong following with a colorful mix of productions that span continents and centuries. The forthcoming season will be no different, promising four very different works that tap the theatricality and excitement of the opera form.
— Read more at Tennessean.com

[Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian is as comfortable in Middle-earth as she is on world opera stages]
Though she won first prize in the 2000 Operalia competition (overseen by supertenor Placido Domingo), has sung in all the world's great opera houses (Covent Garden, La Scala, the Met) and has won multiple Juno Awards (Canada's equivalent of the Grammy), soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian might be best known to the world at large as a friend of Frodo.
— Read more at CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

The lament of opera's lower-range mezzo-sopranos is that in most of their roles they lose the guy - or they are the guy.
Their fates could be worse. In the roles on which she's stamped her famous name, mezzo star Denyce Graves gets the guy - and he kills her.
— Read more at Naples Daily News

A love triangle between a naïve child, a psychopath and the boy next door seems an unlikely paradigm for Bizet's 1875 opera "Carmen." But this take on the sultry classic worked well at opening night for Tacoma Opera: barring a few glitches and opening awkwardness, it was a production to be proud of.
— Read more at TheNewsTribune.com

Saying it has found the formula for artistic and financial success, the Napa Valley Opera House will be asking the public to wipe out the last of its construction debt.
The theater's board of trustees recently pledged $3.7 million, leaving $1.3 million to be raised from the community, board president Elsa Vare said Friday.
— Read more at Napa Valley Register

Vienna State Opera director Ioan Holender will double next year as artistic adviser to Sicily's Teatro Massimo Bellini, a newspaper reported Saturday.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

Skylight Opera Theatre, the Milwaukee troupe known for its eclectic mix of operettas, new and old operas in English-language translations, as well as classic and new musicals, is changing its name to The Skylight with the 2007-08 season.
— Read more at Playbill News

The real opening of the New York City Opera's spring season was its attention-grabbing announcement that the provocative director Gerard Mortier would take over the company's artistic leadership in 2009. And now that the City Opera of the future has everyone's attention, the City Opera of the present raised its curtain on "The Pirates of Penzance," its first production of the spring, on Wednesday evening.
— Read more at New York Times

A makeup artist presses a pencil into the delicate skin around Placido Domingo's left eye, drawing a dark line. A woman's hand applies a touch of spirit gum to the tenor's hairline, to keep an elaborate wig from slipping.
With a glance in his dressing room mirror, Domingo is ready for his latest role - that of a Chinese emperor, in a world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera.
— Read more at International Herald Tribune

Every time John Adams hits the news, and he does with surprising frequency, he gets called "America's greatest living composer," or even the world's "foremost classical composer." Perception has finally become reality for the East Coast/West Coast writer based in Berkeley, who turned 60 this month and is still riding high at the peak of an enormous 30-year career.
The recent US premiere of his latest collaboration with director Peter Sellars, A Flowering Tree, became the big event of the San Francisco Symphony season and the hottest ticket in town.
— Read more at The Bay Area Reporter

Technicians at the English National Opera are threatening to strike over chief executive Loretta Tomasi's announcement two weeks ago that 45 jobs, 10% of ENO's workforce, will be cut.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

New York Harbor and environs probably saw their share of pirates back in the day, but it's been a century or two. (Wall Street doesn't count.) This month, Gotham is getting a primer in pirattitude, as New York City Opera presents The Pirates of Penzance, or, The Slave of Duty. Following three preview performances last weekend, the company opened its spring 2007 season with the Gilbert and Sullivan favorite last night.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

[Music director James Conlon introduces the company's look at operas by composers the Nazis considered "degenerate" artists.]
For his first season as music director of Los Angeles Opera, James Conlon has conducted four productions, three of them new. But that has hardly been enough for him. He also initiated a special staging of Benjamin Britten's miracle play, "Noye's Fludde," at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. And Wednesday night he put together a special introduction to what he plans as the company's multi-year look at operas by composers the Nazis considered "degenerate" artists and wanted silenced. That project is called "Recovered Voices," and it is a passion for Conlon.
— Read more at calendarlive.com

TOMORROW night Opera Australia is making a small but significant step into classical music's technological future. For the first time, the national company is relaying a performance direct from the Sydney Opera House on to screens on the forecourt outside. About 4000 people are expected in Sydney (tickets are free but had to be reserved), and another 600 at Federation Square in Melbourne.
The reason for this new activity, of course, is that dreaded artspeak word, access: ensuring that a subsidy-hungry art form remains elite but not exclusive.
— Read more at The Australian

[Will unleashed Mortier nip at ankles of Peter Gelb's Met?]
Toward the end of the 2000 Salzburg Festival, Gérard Mortier, the Belgian impresario whom the New York City Opera has just named to take over the company's fortunes in 2009, delivered a memorable operatic rant that Wagner would have applauded. For a decade, Mr. Mortier had run the festival less like the world?s most exalted gathering of classical musicians that it had been under his predecessor, Herbert von Karajan, and more like a summer camp for juvenile delinquents.
— Read more at observer.com

It's never been easy for opera to sell itself beyond the elderly and well-heeled. In the age of streetcars, it attracted A-list crowds. Today, most Americans prefer to get their classical music from beef commercials.
— Read more at clevescene.com

Pascal Dusapin's new opera Faustus, the Last Night will receive its American premiere at the Spoleto Festival. In January, Dusapin oversaw a new production of his earlier opera Médée (Brussels, 1991). New works have been commissioned from him by the Berlin Philharmonic, planned for this summer, and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in 2008. Since February 1, he has been lecturing at the Collège de France, the first composer to be invited to do so since Pierre Boulez (in 1976, when the young Dusapin heard him lecture).
— Read more at Charles T. Downey - ionarts

[OPERA REVIEW: Little-known composer's works shine in program]
The rich and velvety voice of soprano Renée Fleming attracted a large audience to Bass Performance Hall on Tuesday night for the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra's "Gala 2007." Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and his band of instrumentalists added pleasant orchestral sounds to the mix.
— Read more at Dallas Morning News

Natalie Dessay's new DVD, Le miracle d'une voix, was awarded DVD of the Year at last month's Victoires de la musique classique. Annick Cojean published an article (Natalie Dessay : la gouaille de la diva, March 1) in Le Monde, with some interesting perspectives (my translation):...
— Read more at Charles T. Downey - ionarts

Pittsburgh Opera's spring Brown Bag Opera Series presents two more free Wednesday lunchtime concerts from Wednesday, March 14th and March 21st. The 30-minute concerts begin at 12:15 p.m. in the 1st floor studio at 801 Penn Avenue. Competitively selected from over 500 applicants each year, these young artists are among the nation's most sought-after emerging opera singers. Through performance opportunities, community outreach, and coaching with the opera industry's most distinguished professionals, graduates of Pittsburgh Opera's resident artist program perform on the world's greatest stages. Bring your lunch to our Brown Bag Operas which are free and open to the public, with no reservations required.
— Learn more at pittsburghopera.org

John Adams achieves exultation with ease. By simply relying on his rhythmic sense and his facility for colorfully manipulating an orchestra or voices, he can easily light up a black sky with fireworks. But optimism is not the natural state of his music. It is something he has to shop for.
Adams' opera "A Flowering Tree," which was given its North American premiere semi-staged by the San Francisco Symphony on Thursday night, is joy purchased. Adams' latest collaboration with director and co-librettist Peter Sellars proposes a world that overcomes tragedy. And that requires a miracle.
— Read more at Los Angeles Times

Stephen Paulson is still wondering how he found himself in charge of Marin's newest opera company, the Grove Street Opera.
"It popped into my wife's head ... 'Hey, let's put on an opera,'" he says. "I said, 'Honey, you're crazy.'"
— Read more at Marin Independent Journal

THERE IS opera as usual, and there is opera by John Adams.
The difference was thrillingly apparent at Davies Symphony Hall, as the composer's latest evening-length work, "A Flowering Tree," made its U.S. premiere in a San Francisco Symphony performance last week.
The opera represents something of a departure for Adams, whose previous operatic works, including the 2005 "Doctor Atomic," have all been drawn from 20th-century historic events.
— Read more at Inside Bay Area

Due to the overwhelming response by guests to the "Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD" presentations, opera fans will now be able to enjoy encore presentations of Tan Dun's The First Emperor and Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at select Cineplex Entertainment theatres throughout Canada.
— Read more at biz.yahoo.com

Sex and violence. They've been the dramatic lifeblood of opera since the very beginning, and it?s a rare opera that doesn't have one or the other - or both, inescapably intertwined. Think "Don Giovanni," think "Peter Grimes." So why should the violence in Bizet's "Carmen," the crowd-pleaser that Tacoma Opera is putting on for the first time in 14 years this month, be any different?
— Read more at TheNewsTribune.com

Audiences at London conservatoire opera productions, now essential diary dates, tend to divide into friends and family and talent-spotting agents and opera professionals.
The Royal Academy of Music's double-bill will have given pleasure to each, with nimble productions by Orpha Phelan and no shortage of youthful promise from all over the world, notably Scandinavia and the Far East, supportively conducted by Steuart Bedford.
— Read more at thisislondon.co.uk

"A Flowering Tree," which had its American premiere in Davies Hall this weekend, has some of John Adams' best work - in fact, it's a two-hour treasure house of beautiful music. Obviously a (or the) leading opera composer of our time, Adams has never given us such emotional, just plain gorgeous sound as in "Flowering Tree."
— Read more at Examiner.com

Indiana University Opera and Ballet Theater, which has staged a number of world premiere performances in recent years, will add to its list of firsts during its 2007-2008 season, announced today.
The upcoming season at the IU Jacobs School of Music features the nation's first collegiate performance (Feb. 1-2, 8-9) of the opera A Wedding by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Bolcom, who has commissioned IU Opera Theater for two previous collegiate premieres. IU Opera Theater delivered critically acclaimed productions of McTeague and A View from the Bridge in 1996 and 2005, respectively.
— Read more at newsinfo.iu.edu

Passion, lust, love and tragedy unite in one of the most popular operas of all time, George Bizet's "Carmen," which debuted with Opera Pacific at the Orange County Performing Arts Center Wednesday night. Despite its slight diversion from traditional approaches to the opera, the production is still memorable, carried by the talent of mezzo soprano star Milena Kitec as Carmen.
— Read more at dailytrojan.com

Last week at a press conference announcing the Metropolitan Opera's 2007?08 season, James Levine took pains to counterbalance the buzz about the new looks of productions in the Peter Gelb regime by stressing that the new general manager is equally devoted to musical values. The return last Thursday of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" after an absence of three seasons suggests Mr. Levine knows whereof he speaks.
Otto Schenk's 1993 production is not without points in its favor, but glorious singing and superb playing from Mr. Levine's orchestra were at the heart of the evening's success.
— Read more at The New York Sun

THERE IS OPERA as usual, and there is opera by John Adams. The difference was thrillingly apparent Thursday evening at Davies Symphony Hall, as the composer's latest evening-length work, "A Flowering Tree," made its U.S. premiere in a San Francisco Symphony performance.
The opera represents something of a departure for Adams, whose previous operatic works, including the 2005 "Doctor Atomic," have all been drawn from 20th-century historic events. With its faraway setting and magical elements, "A Flowering Tree" is based on a 2,000-year old South Indian folk tale. But it has all the characteristics of the Berkeley-based composer's best work. Luminous, moving and endlessly listenable, it is further evidence that Adams, often called the world's greatest living composer, is once again at the top of his game.
— Read more at ContraCostaTimes.com

What do Richard Bradshaw and Robert M. Heuer have in common? The smile of someone who has seen his dream come true.
Both men fought long hard years to rescue their opera companies from inadequate accommodations ? Bradshaw from Toronto's Hummingbird Centre and Heuer from Miami's Dade County Auditorium.
— Read more at TheStar.com

If you were curious about the Next Big Thing in opera, you might reach for the latest issue of Opera News or surf the Web sites of leading companies and up-and-coming stars.
Or you might line up in the rain outside your local multiplex on a Saturday morning.
— Read more at oregonlive.com

[BRIAN KELLOW sings the praises of soprano Emily Pulley, whose impressive work in American opera continues this month with Jake Heggie's The End of the Affair at Lyric Opera of Kansas City.]
Lach fall, Wexford Festival Opera presents three seldom-performed operas, bringing an avalanche of international visitors to this otherwise sedate town on the southeast Irish coast. Each year, one singer makes a particularly bold impression and emerges as the star of that year's festival. 2005 was Emily Pulley's year. Although she was further along in her career than most of the emerging artists Wexford presents, Pulley was all but unknown to many in the audience, so her performance in the title role of Carlisle Floyd's Susannah was an intoxicating discovery. Pulley was in superb voice, exhibiting a seamlessly connected top, middle and bottom, and her solid, "speaking" middle beautifully served the part of Floyd's simple country belle. Her performance was instrumental in Susannah's receiving an Irish Times Award for the year's Best Opera Production. She also received the Best Visitor prize from the Guinness Wexford Singing & Swinging Pubs Competition - the townies' event that runs concurrent with the opera festival. As part of the team representing the pub Simon's Place, Pulley offered "Vilja" and persuaded the pub patrons to be her backup chorus. "They don't need much encouragement to sing along," she laughs. "I can still hear them singing, 'Vilja, oh Vilja, you've stolen me heart.'"
— Read more at Opera News

Gerard Mortier was named general manager and artistic director of the New York City Opera, the company announced yesterday afternoon.
The Belgian maverick, 63, currently runs the Opera de Paris, which includes the opera and dance companies appearing at the Bastille and Palais Garnier.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

Composers love transformation as a dramatic theme, and it isn't hard to understand why. Music has the unique ability to change its shape and character through time, making the act of metamorphosis a natural subject.
Transformation, both physical and spiritual, is at the heart of John Adams' tender new operatic fantasy, "A Flowering Tree," which had its U.S. premiere in Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday night, with the composer leading the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus. And Adams -- one of the leading living masters of what Wagner famously called the "art of transition" -- has crafted a score with all the dreamlike sweetness and shadow of a fairy tale.
— Read more at sfgate.com

The New York City Opera's announcement this week that it had landed Gerard Mortier, director of the Paris National Opera, as its new leader was hailed as the beginning of a new era for the company. But it was also the end of a saga of operatic proportions, as Mr. Mortier declared that after nearly a decade of searching for its own home, City Opera would stay put at Lincoln Center and make the best of the New York State Theater, which it shares with the New York City Ballet.
— Read more at New York Times

Massenet's "Manon," as performed here Saturday, should have been called "Anna."
Netrebko, that is.
Her voice? Childlike when called for, as a 16-year-old on her way to a convent until love catches up with her. Tender, as she says farewell to her true love to throw herself into the fast lane. Passionate, as she realizes the folly of her ways and begs for forgiveness. And effortless, in pitch, phrasing and expression.
— Read more at heraldtribune.com

If Opera Theatre of the Rockies' new production of "Hansel and Gretel" is any indication, opera has a future in Colorado Springs.
On Friday morning, I was one of a handful of adults who joined 1,000-plus elementary schoolchildren for a performance of a two-hour opera in German, with English supertitles - and aside from a couple of anxious moments, the kids were amazingly attentive and appreciative. (The two public performances are at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. today.)
— Read more at Gazette.com

Popcorn and Puccini. It was one of those ideas, like Post-it notes, waiting to be plucked like ripe fruit off a tree.
The Metropolitan Opera's live, high-definition broadcasts into movie multiplexes have been rampant successes not just in Kansas City but around the United States and worldwide.
— Read more at Kansas City Star

Like a beloved friend who faithfully comes to visit every few years, Wagner's "Die Meistersinger" has returned to the Metropolitan Opera, as welcome as ever even if beginning to show the effects of age.
Wagner's melodious comedy won a prolonged ovation Thursday night from the near-capacity audience, which happily bathed in the warm glow from orchestra and stage during the nearly six-hour performance.
— Read more at International Herald Tribune

John Adams, who turned 60 last month, is a baby-boomer composer to the hilt. For all its new-millennium modernity, his music carries the 1960s inside it: the open sense of possibility, of joy and sunlight breaking through, and a good deal of the anxiety, too. And for his baby-boomer listeners, there's no other classical composer whose every work generates such a white heat of anticipation, much the way Beatles albums did a long time ago.
— Read more at MercuryNews.com

Most Opera companies are content to just have opera in their name. Kentucky Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Virginia Opera, even the Metropolitan Opera. Sometime in the development of the opera program at the University of Kentucky, the word "theatre" was put in the name of the school's performing company.
— Read more at Kentucky.com

Bertolt Brecht, the great politicizer of art, thought that opera was too laden with tradition to deliver shocks to the social order. As far as he was concerned, "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny," his 1930 collaboration with Kurt Weill, fell into the category of "culinary opera" - a medium of transient pleasure, even if it managed to leave a delectably bitter taste in the mouths of the middle classes. Weill, though, believed that opera could comprehensively synthesize art, entertainment, and critique, and "Mahagonny," which progresses implacably from the vinegar pop of the "Alabama Song" to the Mahlerian hammer blows of the final scene, crystallized his vision. Indeed, Brecht spoke slightingly of the project in large part because Weill made it his own; it's less a piece of up-to-date agitprop than a timeless morality tale, describing an Everyman's downfall in an unusually diverting hell on earth. For a long time, it was fashionable to dismiss Weill as the lesser of the two collaborators, because he gave up leftist composition in favor of a comfortable Broadway career; yet his conception of musical theatre as an art-pop hybrid has proved to be one of the twentieth century's enduring legacies, reverently cited every time an ambitious young composer tries to shake up the routines of risk-averse Broadway theatres or opera houses.
— Read more at Alex Ross - The New Yorker

MARCH BRINGS a full calendar of classical concerts, but the month's big event comes right at the top. Tonight at Davies Hall, San Francisco Symphony presents the U.S. premiere of John Adams' new opera, "A Flowering Tree."
The work finds Adams taking his inspiration from an unusual source: a 2,000-year old South Indian folk tale by A.K. Ramanujan, one in which a young woman has the magical ability to turn herself into a flowering tree. After the dark, apocalyptic vision of Adams' last opera, "Doctor Atomic," the work represents an intriguing change of focus for the Berkeley-based composer.
— Read more at ContraCostaTimes.com

New York City Opera's choice of Gérard Mortier as its next general manager and artistic director means that New Yorkers will soon have the opportunity to see two dynamic - and very different - leaders in the opera field test out their ideas for the future of the art form just across Lincoln Center Plaza from each other.
When Mr. Mortier, now the director of the Opéra National de Paris, takes over his new post in 2009, the two major opera companies in New York, City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, will both be under new leadership. The short tenure of Peter Gelb, who became the Met's general manager last summer, has already produced substantial excitement and an uptick at the box office. City Opera, which has experienced deficits and declining ticket sales, is hoping that Mr. Mortier's appointment will have a similar effect.
— Read more at The New York Sun

Gerard Mortier noted a coincidence when he was being courted to become boss of the New York City Opera.
"It was a little bit nostalgic," he said Wednesday. "The City Opera was created in '43. That's the same year I was born."
One day after City Opera announced his appointment as general manager and artistic director, effective for the 2009-10 season, Mortier discussed his vision for the company during a telephone interview from Paris. He told City Opera board members that his presentations in New York will be different from those he oversaw in Europe, where he headed Austria's Salzburg Festival for a decade and now runs the Paris Opera.
— Read more at backstage.com

Chiseled young men and lithe young women frolic in a beautifully choreographed ballet of lasciviousness. Dressed in red satin, they couple up - and triple up - stripping down to red corsets, panties and hosiery or simply nude thongs, simulating sexual acts on revolving stages. This titillating scene opens LA Opera's company premiere of "Tannhäuser" - Richard Wagner's popular 1845 masterpiece about the sin of lust, spiritual love and redemption - directed by Ian Judge, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
— Read more at Pasadena Weekly

There probably will never be agreement about the precise moment opera was born, but there's no dispute about the date of the genre's first masterpiece: February 24, 1607, when Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo had its premiere at the court of the Duke of Mantua. Honoring its 400th anniversary (along with the 60th birthday of its star, early-music master Rene Jacobs), Harmonia Mundi has released a DVD of a Jacobs-led live performance of the work from the Theatre de la Monnaie on May 21, 1998.
— Read more at The Bay Area Reporter

In these pages James Jorden has accurately described the "Jenufa" revival around Karita Mattila as one of the high points of the season so far; there seems little critical disagreement on its merits, and this time around the company did a pretty good job getting images of the popular and striking Mattila up around town.
— Read more at gaycitynews.com

On the heels of the company's first box office improvement in six seasons, Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb announced details of the company's 2007-08 season today, which will feature an increase in the number of new productions offered, as well as an expansion of the Met's new audience development initiatives, including its high-definition transmission of operas into movie theaters.
"So far, this season has proven that with a recipe of dynamic new productions, great singers, and a more direct approach to the public, it is possible to reach a wider and younger audience, while still serving our loyal audience," Gelb is quoted as saying. "However, our efforts to sustain and re-energize the art form have only just begun."
— Read more at Opera News

[Flowering after doomsday: the latest Adams-Sellars collaboration]
The opera world has never been quite the same since director Peter Sellars teamed up in 1985 with composer John Adams to premiere Nixon in China. The production, which was unveiled in 1987 at the Houston Grand Opera, marked the start of one of the most brilliant artistic partnerships of our time. While controversy is perennially present in Sellars and Adams's stage collaborations, few would deny what the pair has achieved is nothing short of revolutionary.
— Read more at San Francisco Bay Guardian

Opera singer Efrain Solis, a senior at Saddleback High, recently won $10,000 after placing first in the Cerritos Music Center Competition.
Solis is also a finalist in the Orange County Performing Arts Center's Stars at the Center competition, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Dorothy Chandler Music Awards.
— Read more at ocregister.com

Riverdance sells out every show, and we can't sell out just one performance," laments David Sckolnik, head of public relations for this year's Opera Theatre of the Rockies production of Hansel and Gretel.
— Read more at CSIndy

Florida Grand Opera has scaled back its 2007-08 season to five operas from six and dropped plans to stage David DiChiera's new work Cyrano, which were announced last month.
The Miami Herald reports that ticket sales have been lower and operating costs higher than expected at the new Carnival Center, where the FGO opened this season at the Ziff Ballet Opera House with a sold-out run of Aida. The three operas FGO has presented since have sold far fewer tickets: 60% capacity for Abduction from the Seraglio and 75% for Manon Lescaut.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

For the past few years, the New York City Opera has been looking beyond Lincoln Center, wondering where it will make its home. Now it knows. The City Opera has named a new general manager and artistic director, Gerard Mortier - currently director of the Paris National Opera - who has convinced the board that the opera should stay put.
This heralds the opening of a dynamic era for opera at Lincoln Center, a head-to-head competition between two vigorous, creative personalities: Peter Gelb, the general manager at the Metropolitan Opera, and Mr. Mortier next door at City Opera.
— Read more at New York Times