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

Gerard Mortier, fresh from a sudden split with the New York City Opera that left the company in turmoil, will become artistic director of the Teatro Real opera house in Madrid, the company said on Wednesday.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Spanish media Thursday hailed the appointment of Belgian Gerard Mortier as the artistic director of Madrid's Teatro Real opera, expecting him to raise its profile. Mortier, 65, who currently heads the Paris National Opera, will occupy the post in Madrid from January 2010 for five years.
— Read more at
— Read more at earthtimes.org

[Kennedy Center program exposes youths to classics]
Many things fill the heads of 8- and 9-year-olds, from pop jingles to parental admonitions against talking to strangers. But opera?
— Read more at Washington Times

In February of 2009, in honor of the bicentennial of Joseph Haydn's death, Gotham Chamber Opera will present the New York City stage premiere of L'isola disabitata (Desert Island) in a new production staged by Mark Morris at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College.
L'isola disabitata is Mark Morris's first collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera. The work, with a libretto by Metastasio, calls for four singers and a typical early classical orchestra, but neither chorus nor dancers. L'isola disabitata features sopranos Takesha Meshé Kizart and Valerie Ogbonnaya, tenor Vale Rideout, and bass-baritone Tom Corbeil, and is conducted by Neal Goren, artistic director of Gotham Chamber Opera. Set design is by Allen Moyer, costume design is by Liz Kurtzman and lighting design is by Michael Chybowski.
— Learn more at gothamchamberopera.org

Spain's Teatro Real opera house said Wednesday that Belgian musician Gerard Mortier will take over as its artistic director in just over a year.
Mortier, who currently runs the Paris Opera, will assume his new post in Madrid in January 2010, Teatro Real said.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

Sopranos Natalie Dessay, Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu and Deborah Voigt are among the stars who will perform at the Metropolitan Opera's 125th anniversary gala on March 15.
— Read more at startribune.com

The opera world paid tribute on Tuesday to British conductor Richard Hickox, the musical director of Opera Australia, who died of a heart attack on Sunday at the age of 60 in a hotel room in Wales.
— Read more at Yahoo! News

[Rupert Christiansen on a superb return to form for tenor Rolando Villazón in a gloriously enjoyable revival of John Schlesinger's 1980 production]
It's nearly five years now since a young Mexican tenor called Rolando Villazón made his sensational debut at Covent Garden playing the title role in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann.
— Read more at Telegraph

There is an honorable tradition in opera of singers relying on a prompter to provide cues for words or entrances. But during rehearsals for the Metropolitan Opera's production of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," which opens on Friday night, the German tenor singing Tristan, Peter Seiffert, has been using a personal electronic prompter: an earpiece through which he can hear the cues directly.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The Chattanooga Symphony & Opera Board of Directors voted today to suspend opera productions for the 2009-2010, citing losses of more than $1.1 million on 11 opera productions over the last six years, according to a news release.
— Read more at Chattanooga Times Free Press

We've added a new section to our site. It contains links to many of your favorite opera scores, libretti and guides. Check it out!
— Read more at AllAboutOpera.com

Stars of the Metropolitan Opera in New York will recreate classic productions and give a foretaste of future shows at the 125th-anniversary gala planned for March 15.
Canadian tenor Ben Heppner will appear with Deborah Voigt in the final scene of Wagner's Siegfried, looking forward to a future performance.
— Read more at cbc.ca

About two-thirds of the way through Rossini's "Petite Messe Solennelle," there is a "Preludio religioso" that stops the action with a long, gentle meditation for solo organ. Onstage Friday night at the Kennedy Center Opera House, where the Washington National Opera performed the work, it seemed a long hiatus indeed: Plácido Domingo was not conducting; Andrea Bocelli and the other soloists were not singing; and the whole chorus and orchestra sat in suspended animation while this simple little tune wafted over them.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

Two years ago, Douglas McLennan wrote in the Los Angeles Times that, by broadcasting operas live to cinema screens in high definition video, the New York Metropolitan Opera had created a new art form. Having viewed my first high definition Met broadcast - of Robert Lepage's new staging of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust - I'm reluctant to accept McLennan's assertion. Although I share his enthusiasm - at least at the moment - it's the delivery method that's startlingly different, rather than the art form itself.
— Read more at guardian.co.uk

The Connecticut Lyric Opera appeared out of nowhere, or so it seemed, less than five years ago to stage its first production in the sanctuary of the First Congregational Church. Sunday evening's production of Tchaikovsky's "Evgeni Onegin" at the Garde Arts Center ? uptown, or at least uphill, from that venue - marked a rite of passage.
— Read more at TheDay.com

The Metropolitan Opera will open a newly-designed retail store in the lobby of the Opera House on Tuesday, November 25 at 10:00 am.
— Read more at broadwayworld.com

She's been a leading diva at the Met. She's sung most of the soprano roles in the coloratura repertory. So it's notable to find Ruth Ann Swenson at the Baltimore Opera singing not the lead role in Bellini's "Norma," but the second female role of Adalgisa, usually sung by a mezzo-soprano.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

This week Boston Symphony Orchestra music director laureate Seiji Ozawa returns to the podium at Symphony Hall for the first time since leaving his post in 2002 to lead the Vienna State Opera.
— Read more at The Boston Globe

Before fantasy films made it commonplace to find human and animal characters mingling freely, there was a curious, endearing opera from 1924 by Leos Janacek. Best known in English as The Cunning Little Vixen, it's getting a rare local staging by Peabody Opera Theatre under a more literal translation of the Czech title: The Adventures of Sharp-Ears the Vixen.
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

Sigmund Romberg's The Student Prince is not holiday-themed fare. With Thanksgiving fast approaching, though, Nashville Opera's revival is certainly a sweet treat to start the holiday season.
— Read more at The Tennessean

Every year since 1975, Buffalo's Opera Sacra mounts one or more theatrical works based on religious themes. With its most recent program it has selected "Suor Angelica," a score by Giacomo Puccini that was first performed in 1918 and that Opera Sacra has staged twice before, in 1977 and 1993.
— Read more at The Buffalo News

Richard Hickox, the musical director of Opera Australia, died last night of a suspected heart attack, his press agent said today.
The 60-year-old U.K. musician was scheduled to conduct a new production of Vaughan Williams's opera "Riders to the Sea," opening Nov. 27 at the English National Opera in London. The company has not yet found a replacement.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

Plácido Domingo is a phenomenon. As singer, conductor, and arts administrator, he has stretched the boundaries of what an artist can accomplish, on stage and behind the scenes. And now he has even been immortalized on canvas. Commissioned by the Met, acclaimed painter Julian Schnabel has created a portrait of Domingo that was unveiled recently as part of an onstage celebration honoring the tenor on the occasion of his 40th anniversary with the company. The painting is now on display on the Grand Tier level of the opera house.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

As the Baltimore Opera Company rehearsed last month for the production of Bellini's Norma, it faced a serious problem: Its available cash had dried up. With rumors spreading about the company folding, a board member ensured that the show would open - by making a personal guarantee to cover the cast's salaries.
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

The return of Tchaikovsky's "Queen of Spades" to the Metropolitan Opera on Friday night was not an occasion for great singing. The tenor Ben Heppner, in the daunting role of Ghermann, a Russian army officer with a gambling obsession, audibly struggled with a cold. The soprano Maria Guleghina, as Lisa, who loves Ghermann despite her fears over his stability, was unrelentingly loud. And the baritone Vladimir Stoyanov brought a warm, attractive voice but scant dramatic energy to the role of the earnest Prince Yeletsky.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Italian tenor Marcello Giordani has pulled off the rare feat of singing two major roles in a single day at New York's Metropolitan Opera.
— Read more at The Associated Press

Daniel Barenboim is taking New York by Sturm und Drang. Unbelievably, he's only now making his Metropolitan Opera debut on November 28 with Tristan und Isolde, an opera he has conducted many times before.
— Read more at Gramophone

11/13 The Metropolitan Opera, which has already taken measures to cut costs in its administration, said on Thursday that it was now examining ways to save money on what goes on the stage. "We're trying to evaluate where there might be cost savings by switching repertory around," Peter Gelb, the general manager, said.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The new "Metropolitan Opera HD" series is so wild it makes Feb Club seem like Sunday school. In its first installment, a frenzied teenager made love to the severed head of John the Baptist. In the second, a brilliant but conflicted scientist quoted John Donne, Charles Baudelaire, and even Hindu Scripture while he created atomic weaponry that had the power to destroy human civilization.
— Read more at Virginia Law Weekly

Eugene Onegin's Rhoslyn Jones didn't take a direct route into opera; now she?s starring on her hometown stage
Rhoslyn Jones can barely recall the first opera production she ever saw. It was a high-school-band field trip to Vancouver Opera's Don Giovanni in 1994, and "the only thing I remember about it was talking to my friend the whole time about this boy that she liked," she admits. Far from inspiring her, the experience left her cold.
— Read more at Straight.com

The economic meltdown has the Virginia Opera singing the blues.
The Norfolk-based organization says it will reduce its budget and cut performances to accommodate decreases in donations and soft revenue from statewide ticket sales.
— Read more at dailypress.com

Even before the full board of New York City Opera learned that its proposed savior, Gerard Mortier, was saying goodbye, its chairwoman had turned to a man known in the arts as a turnaround specialist: Michael M. Kaiser, the president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The future of the Baltimore Opera Company may be cloudy - it has a severe cash-flow problem, uncertain prospects for long-term fundraising, recent administrative changes - but the present sure sounds great. The production of Bellini's Norma that opened last weekend is one of the most musically satisfying ventures I've heard from the company yet (theatrically speaking, it's another story entirely).
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

Acclaimed conductor Daniel Barenboim is thinking about death -- and his upcoming debut at the head of New York's Metropolitan Opera.
On November 28 the Berlin State Opera conductor and renowned pianist takes the reins at the Met for Wagner's master opus "Tristan and Isolde."
— Read more at Yahoo! News

Glimmerglass Opera has appointed David Angus as the company's Music Director. Angus's appointment comes after a two-year search period following Stewart Robertson's departure as Glimmerglass Opera Music Director in 2006.
Angus made his U.S. conducting debut with Glimmerglass Opera's 2006 production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville and returned to Glimmerglass this past summer to conduct Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi. He will conduct Glimmerglass Opera's 2009 production of Menotti's The Consul.
— Read more at glimmerglass.org

[A student opera singer had a lucky break when he telephoned for a last-minute concert ticket and was instead offered a part in the production. ]
Adriano Graziani, who is switching from a career in banking to become a full-time singer, was asked if he would stand in for the tenor who had fallen ill with a cold.
Graziani, 32, had called up for tickets to a gala concert last month by the Welsh National Opera (WNO). He had less than two hours to remind himself of the scores and make his way to the Millennium Centre in Cardiff for a last-minute rehearsal before the evening show.
— Read more at Telegraph

GRAND OPERA doesn't get much grander than it did in the San Francisco Opera's 214th main-stage performance of Puccini's "La Boheme" at the War Memorial Opera House last Sunday afternoon. It was like one of the world's most beautiful buildings: Every element was wrought into a perfectly balanced, luminous whole.
— Read more at Inside Bay Area

A new era is about to begin at San Francisco Opera. After decades of opera productions defined by their directors, SFO Music Director designate Nicola Luisotti's magnificent conducting in Puccini's La Boheme has given notice that the next decade of opera in San Francisco will most likely be remembered as the Luisotti/Gockley era
— Read more at The Bay Area Reporter

Gerard Mortier's highly anticipated arrival at New York City Opera as its new artistic director and general manager was supposed to revitalise the struggling company. Instead, the opera house is now even more troubled than ever, as a dispute over money has propelled the controversial Mortier into leaving NYCO altogether, even before he fully assumed the reins.
— Read more at Gramophone

General Director David Gockley acknowledged the obvious truth in a brief address to the audience before Sunday's opening performance of "La Bohème": The financial picture at the San Francisco Opera isn't pretty.
— Read more at sfgate.com

London's Royal Opera House, which seeks to open a branch in Manchester that would cost 60 million pounds to 80 million pounds ($90 million to $120 million), said the project would be dropped if it failed to receive state money.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

For opera lovers who balk at paying 180 pounds ($270) for a seat in the stalls, or anyone seeking a night out at the movies with a difference, opera houses are increasingly looking to film to boost audiences.
New York's Metropolitan Opera led the way with live broadcasts in movie theaters two years ago, and its "Live in HD" series reached 920,000 people in the 2007-08 season, more than the number who saw performances in the opera house itself.
— Read more at Yahoo! News

Listen to George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" and you hear America singing.
So, what took Lyric Opera of Chicago so long to get around to this classic?
Since its premiere in New York in 1935, this dramatically powerful slice of African-American life in Charleston's Catfish Row has beguiled audiences around the world. Its hit parade of imperishably popular songs includes "Summertime," "I Got Plenty of Nuttin'," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" and other treasures. But astonishingly, when Lyric presents "Porgy and Bess," beginning Tuesday night at the Civic Opera House, it will be the first time in the company's 54-year history that it will have mounted the work; it also will be the first "Porgy" to play the Opera House since 1952.
— Read more at chicagotribune.com

Alberto Vilar, once a pillar of philanthropy for opera and cultural institutions worldwide, was convicted on fraud charges Wednesday for swindling investors including the mother of actress Phoebe Cates out of millions of dollars.
— Read more at The Associated Press

When enthusiastic former Carnegie Mellon student Ricky Ian Gordon came to speak here two weeks ago, he described his fear when commissioned to compose an opera based on John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
— Read more at The Tartan Online

The general director of Milan's La Scala opera house says he will stay on through 2013.
French-born Stephane Lissner said in a statement Monday that he has extended his contract at the theater where he was appointed in 2005. His contract was due to expire in November 2009, and he was being courted by other European opera houses.
— Read more at The Associated Press

Awards events are a dime a dozen. In most cases -- and that includes the Oscars and the Tonys -- they are largely about publicity to give a product (movies, plays) an aura of excitement and glamour. It is amazing that the public, year after year, can be drawn into the tension of Who Will Win as if it really matters.
— Read more at NY Daily News

Some successful works in the operatic canon are handed down with a built-in caveat, and for Prokofiev's "Love for Three Oranges," it would seem to be this: the music comes in second to the message. Prokofiev based his opera on Carlo Gozzi's 18th-century commedia dell'arte parody in order to skewer the standards of 19th-century opera as represented by Wagner and Verdi.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

For all its efforts to connect with Hollywood, Los Angeles Opera revived a 4-year-old production of "Carmen" on Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion that no self-respecting film studio honcho would greenlight. Where's the sex?
— Read more at Los Angeles Times

Step into Bohemian National Hall in Sokol Greater Cleveland's Czech Cultural Center and you think you've been transported to a 19th-century European opera house. The proscenium stage is flanked by two boxes. The stage curtain shows a painted scene of long-ago Prague.
— Read more at cleveland.com

Audiences adore "La Bohème," and the San Francisco Opera's latest revival makes it easy to see why.
In last Sunday's opening at the War Memorial Opera House, all the best attributes of Puccini's beloved masterpiece ? glorious singing, gripping music and a touching love story set among the young Bohemians of 19th-century Paris - were on brilliant display once again.
— Read more at San Jose Mercury News

The Minnesota Opera will commit $5.5 million over seven years to contemporary repertoire under a new program just announced. Minnesota OperaWorks envisions three commissions, three revivals of American works and an international co-production.
— Read more at startribune.com

[The Minnesota Opera is announcing a new multi-million dollar program called Minnesota OperaWorks that will make it a national leader in contemporary opera. And due to good luck, or good planning they've already raised more than half the funds. ]
The idea, as Minnesota Opera President and CEO Kevin Smith describes it, is quite simple.
"Minnesota OperaWorks is a multi-year, seven year, program to highlight contemporary opera as part of American opera repertoire," Smith said.
— Read more at MPR

A young, talented cast was in the spotlight as the Dallas Opera opened its season Friday with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at Music Hall at Fair Park. But two experienced artists should share equally in the accolades that will follow this sparkling, fast-paced production, which will repeat three times through Saturday.
— Read more at star-telegram.com

252Catfish Row comes alive here starting Tuesday, when Lyric Opera of Chicago presents "Porgy and Bess." Here's some lesser-known "Porgy" lore, gleaned from Howard Pollack's 2006 George Gershwin biography and Hollis Alpert's 1990 history of "Porgy and Bess."
— Read more at chicagotribune.com

Operetta is by definition lighter, in music and subject matter, than opera. But that doesn't mean that operetta can't convey complex emotions, says John Hoomes, artistic director of Nashville Opera.
As an example, he cites The Student Prince, the popular operetta written by American composer Sigmund Romberg. Hoomes' company is staging a production of the work in James K. Polk Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center this week.
— Read more at The Tennessean

Kentucky Opera, always looking for new ways to do business, has hit upon the idea of presenting a Brown Theatre showcase devoted to Baroque repertory. It's by no means a typical way of performing. In fact, for this company, it counts as a significant departure.
— Read more at The Courier-Journal

Looking for a great holiday gift? Take a look at our selection of CDs, DVDs and Opera Scores.

What I do: Behind the Luciano Pavarottis or Leontyne Prices on every opera stage are dozens of singers in the chorus, many with aspirations of stardom and most with day jobs.
It's Walter Huff's job to train, blend and encourage those voices at the Atlanta Opera, where he is the chorus master. From a core group of 50 to 60 regular singers, he holds auditions and selects anywhere from 15 to 50 members of the chorus, depending on musical needs and the budget, for each opera. He's always listening for new voices, he added.
— Read more at ajc.com

Opera-star paranoia has long been warranted at Philadelphia Orchestra concerts. Is it the air, water, or local bad attitude that prompted the cancellations of Renée Fleming, Matthias Goerne, Jennifer Larmore and Susan Graham in recent seasons?
The latest is Wagnerian bass James Morris, who was to sing excerpts from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg Thursday but was felled by a cold only 10 hours before curtain. He also canceled performances last night and tonight.
— Read more at Philadelphia Inquirer

On November 29, the Metropolitan Opera Radio Saturday Matinee Broadcasts launches its 78th season of world-class opera heard over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network with the network premiere of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust, starring opera luminaries Susan Graham as Marguerite and Marcello Giordani in the title role, and conducted by Met Music Director James Levine.
— Read more at broadwayworld.com

Los Angeles Opera's revival of Bizet's "Carmen," which opened Saturday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, is a classy affair. Maybe a little too classy. The campy vamping is kept to a minimum and the singing is accomplished and articulate. But a certain amount of heat, and a greater amount of grit, seems missing. One keeps waiting for this "Carmen" to come to a boil, but it merely simmers instead.
— Read more at Timothy Mangan - OCRegister.com

Daniel Barenboim Makes his Met Debut conducting 'Tristan und Isolde' on November 28.
Katarina Dalayman and Peter Seiffert sing the title roles for the first time at the Met, and René Pape reprises his acclaimed portrayal of King Marke.
— Read more at broadwayworld.com

The Metropolitan Opera is giving up "The Ghosts."
Cutting costs in the wake of the economic downturn, the Met is dropping next season's highly anticipated revival of John Corigliano's "The Ghosts of Versailles" that was to feature the company debut of Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth.
— Read more at The Associated Press

[Following the news of Gerard Mortier's departure as General Manager-Designate, New York City Opera has issued a statement addressing the situation as well as the current and upcoming season.]
Chairman Susan L. Baker released the following via the New York City Opera website:
"Last week New York City Opera and General Manager-Designate Gerard Mortier reached a decision to part ways. The economic climate in which we find ourselves today has caused us both to reconsider proceeding with our plans."...
— Read more at PlaybillArts

There were two places you could still find Gerard Mortier at last night's New York City Opera gala: on the program and on the lips of almost every attendee at Manhattan's Prince George Ballroom.
The Belgian Mortier, who was meant to take over the company next season, removed himself from the position so suddenly last Friday that he was still listed on the program as ``general manager-designate.''
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

Kennedy Center head Michael Kaiser will assist the New York City Opera in finding a new leader and scheduling a 2009-10 season following the departure of Gerard Mortier.
Mortier, hired in February 2007 as general manager and artistic director starting in 2009-10, quit Friday because the company didn't have enough money to finance his plans.
— Read more at The Associated Press

When it was new, Bizet's Carmen generated little enthusiasm among the operatic intelligentsia. Typical of the reaction was this from The New York Times, after the opera's first U.S. performance in 1878: "As a work of art, it is naught." Even its tunefulness was called into question: "Of melody, as the term is generally understood, there is but little" said the Boston Gazette.
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

Dresses attend opera galas.
Their wearers are merely swept along.
Saturday marks the beginning of the 68th season of the Florida Grand Opera.
Once again, the gowns in attendance at the Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House will take center stage -- and not just those with ticket-holders in tow. This is the second year the opera is holding a silent auction of five dresses created by local designers and inspired by upcoming productions.
— Read more at MiamiHerald.com

The diva arrived for rehearsal like the anti-diva she says she is: leather jacket, jeans, running shoes. One hand clutched an accessory -- white paper bag stamped with a red Chick-fil-A logo.
...
Jennifer Larmore was home. The international opera star from Marietta was preparing for her first performance ever with the Atlanta Opera, in the title role of Rossini's "Cinderella."
— Read more at ajc.com

The Vancouver Opera has extended the contract of its acclaimed music director, Jonathan Darlington, to 2012.
Darlington has been VO's music director since May 2005. He was first appointed to the VO music staff as Principal Conductor in 2002.
— Read more at canada.com

Out of the darkness comes the sound of a lone bassoon; then, barely discernible in the gloom, the floor of the stage seems to come alive. The people of Russia, downtrodden, Tsar-less, drag themselves out of the mud and raise their voices in a plea for deliverance. They sing to order, of course - the Boyars look on - but they sing with blazing conviction.
— Read more at The Independent

Robert Lepage came to the Met on Friday and brought along a big bag of technological tricks. The object of his potential illumination: Berlioz's Damnation de Faust, an ecstatic yet static légende dramatique that hardly requires special effects.
— Read more at Martin Bernheimer - FT.com

The Washington National Opera has indefinitely postponed its full production of all four operas of Wagner's "Ring" cycle, citing budget considerations and the economy.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Angela Meade is not a rising star. She is there. Her impersonation of the doomed title character of Gaetano Donizetti's vibrantly violent Anna Bolena stood out in a superb cast of AVA students. Meade is in her final year there, but she clearly already has one foot firmly planted on major opera stages (she was the cover for Renee Fleming at the opening of the Met this year).
— Read more at Philadelphia City Paper

Gaetano Donizetti wrote 65 operas. The average operagoer might be able to name five or 10 of them. They are not performed often; some of them, hardly ever. They are creations of a specific place and time, written to show off star singers and please audiences. They are also extremely difficult to sing. But in Washington last weekend, you could see two of them -- "Lucrezia Borgia" at the Washington National Opera on Friday, with the soprano Sondra Radvanovsky making a triumphant company debut in the title role, and "Maria Padilla" at the Washington Concert Opera's single performance on Sunday.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

The Metropolitan Opera has never been known for its pluralism of ideas. Only the occasional rogue production (like The Egyptian Helen) has interrupted the deluxe Franco Zeffirelli conservatism at the core of its identity. So the mere fact that Robert Lepage - whose credits include directing Cirque de Soleil and Peter Gabriel concerts, and a role in the film Jesus of Montreal - was cheered for his production of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust had rich significance.
— Read more at Philadelphia Inquirer

The complete schedule for the Metropolitan Opera's series of HD broadcasts is now available at AllAboutOpera.com.
— Learn more at AllAboutOpera.com

The most talked-about element of the director Robert Lepage's new production of Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust" for the Metropolitan Opera, which opened on Friday night, is sure to be its stunning use of video imagery. Working with the interactive video designer Holger Förterer, Mr. Lepage has created a staging in which eerily detailed video depictions of everything from a grassy field to a fiery hell shift and morph in response to the movements and singing of the cast and chorus.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

It's interesting to imagine what it would be like if a professional theater company staged "Hamlet" the way most professional opera companies stage "Carmen."
"Carmen," which Washington National Opera opened Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, has become a veritable symbol of opera.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

Oh what trouble a little cocktail dress can cause! For Monica Lewinsky it was in navy blue; for acclaimed American dramatic soprano Deborah Voigt, the dress was black.
In the spring of 2004, Voigt's weight became international news when she was fired from the title role in London's Royal Opera House production of Strauss's ''Ariadne auf Naxos'' because she could not fit into the sleek black dress that the director felt crucial to his staging concept.
— Read more at themorningcall.com

This has been quite the season for fallen women onstage at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and none of them falls more terribly than the archetypal femme fatale of "Lulu." Alban Berg's decadent swan song charts Lulu's steady decline from unfaithful wife to mistress to murderess to fugitive to hooker. She wears her amorality like a pair of fishnet hose.
— Read more at chicagotribune.com

Much has been made, throughout Elektra's history, of its relationship to Freudian theory. Written during the emergence of the psychoanalytic movement, Strauss's opera reflects both its methodology and preoccupations by probing successive layers of disorder within the minds of its characters. Unlike Freud, however, Strauss and his librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal refuse to see the process as therapeutic. The work's true horror lies in its tacit assertion that there is no escape from one's own, unchanging self; such is the nature of the human condition.
— Read more at The Guardian

In a season heavily weighted toward the lesser-known and rarely produced, Lyric Opera of Chicago already has scored its second tremendous success, and this time it has done so with a musical masterwork as well as a top-flight cast, superb orchestra and brilliant production.
— Read more at CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

The concert the New York City Opera is scheduled to present on Sunday afternoon at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx has the optimistic title "Looking Forward." George Manahan, the company's steadfast music director, is to conduct a roster of City Opera singers, choristers and orchestra players in a program of 20th-century works, part of a series intended to build enthusiasm for the bold artistic vision that the company's new director, the Belgian-born impresario Gerard Mortier, was to have brought to his inaugural season next fall.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

After promising to revolutionize the opera scene in New York, Gerard Mortier has announced to New York City Opera that he can no longer run the company in the current economic climate. He had been guaranteed $60 million for his first season of productions, set to begin next fall. But funding has fallen substantially short, and just over half that sum is all the company's board can now offer.
— Read more at Los Angeles Times

Boston Lyric Opera is opening its season with a production of Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann," but much of the news at the city's largest opera company has been playing out behind the scenes. Esther Nelson, BLO's new general and artistic director, has arrived to succeed Janice Mancini Del Sesto, who steps down at the end of this season after 17 years with the company.
— Read more at The Boston Globe

Moravian College vocal students will have the privilege of working alongside a class act, Metropolitan Opera soprano Deborah Voigt, when she conducts a master class Thursday as part of the college's Great Artist Series.
Local audiences will have an opportunity to hear the renowned artist when she performs "An American Songbook" of Broadway favorites 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Foy Hall on the Bethlehem campus.
— Read more at lehighvalleylive.com

The Dallas Opera's 2008-09 season, which opens Friday with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, will look both forward and back. Twenty total performances will celebrate 52 seasons at the Music Hall at Fair Park and anticipate the company's long-awaited move into the new Winspear Opera House in downtown Dallas in October.
— Read more at Star-Telegram.com

[Cheaper tickets, top-quality sound, a relaxed vibe: cinema screenings of operas have become a big hit. Rupert Christiansen reports]
If you're even a moderate opera fan and haven't yet experienced one of the new spate of filmed opera productions currently being screened in cinemas, you're missing out.
— Read more at Telegraph.co.uk

During the past decade, Joyce DiDonato has steadily developed into one of the opera world's most celebrated young stars.
Houston Grand Opera fans are lucky. They've heard her talent blossom, from her early work in the world premieres Little Women and Resurrection to such signature roles as Rosina in The Barber of Seville and the title role in La Cenerentola.
— Read more at Houston Chronicle

In February 2007 New York City Opera staked its future on the vision of Gerard Mortier, a European impresario known for provocative productions and a penchant for shaking things up. On Friday the company and Mr. Mortier said they were parting ways.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The conductor of the Santa Fe Opera is stepping down. Edo de Waart, who has been chief conductor at the opera since last year, cited family and health reasons.
— Read more at The Associated Press

Developing operas based on 'Brokeback Mountain' and the life of Walt Disney are suddenly homeless with the departure from City Opera of a.d. and general manager Gerard Mortier.
Mortier was appointed to the dual posts in early 2007, and his first season of programming was skedded for the 2009-10 season. That slate, ambitiously designed to shake things up for the company, has been scrapped.
— Read more at Variety.com

When Charles Edwards' 2003 production of Elektra opened at the Royal Opera House, it was to mixed reviews, and it is the director's vision that remains the most problematic element in its latest outing, whose musical standards are of the highest quality.
This revival's principal asset comes in the fearsomely well sung and acted Elektra of Susan Bullock and it was a proud moment to see a British singer triumph so unequivocally in a title role at Covent Garden.
— Read more at MusicalCriticism.com

For a country of less than 1.5 million people, Estonia's contribution to the world of music over the last 100 years is remarkable. Contemporary composers like Arvo Pärt and Erkki-Sven Tüür are known around the world, as are composers from earlier in the last century, Eduard Tubin and Lepo Sumera.
— Read more at canada.com

Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia wears a mask at her first entrance, which the soprano singing the role at the opera's 1833 premiere, Henriette Méric-Lalande, did under protest: She was worried her fans might not recognize her.
On Saturday night, Renée Fleming proved that this is indeed a hazard. She made her first appearance at the Washington National Opera swathed in the delicate cloud of a light green cloak (courtesy of John Pascoe, the production's director and designer) with a gold mask covering her face. In the dim lighting, it was hard to tell at first if it was Fleming or a body double. Then she came downstage, removed the mask and left herself exposed.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

To prepare for his Metropolitan Opera debut, Robert Lepage went to Las Vegas.
The Canadian director perfected "the toys," as he called his technological gadgets, while preparing Cirque du Soleil's "KA" at the MGM Grand four years ago. The audience was not exactly the jewel - and tuxedo-wearing crowd he'll see under the Met's starburst Lobmeyer chandeliers.
— Read more at The Associated Press

Renée Fleming received jeers from the gallery when she sang Lucrezia Borgia at La Scala 10 years ago - as much a badge of honour, it would seem, as an instance of valid criticism. Unbowed, she sang Lucrezia in concert in New York two years later, and is now back in a staging at the Washington National Opera. Lucrezia is a wonderful role for anyone not squeamish about the Borgia's proclivity for violence. It finds Donizetti squarely on the road to Verdi, with Rossini fast receding in the rearview mirror.
— Read more at FT.com

"Everyone abhors me," sings one of history's most notoriously cruel women early on in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, "and yet I wasn't born for such a sad fate."
That may not be enough to make her a totally sympathetic character, especially since she does a whole lot of poisoning in the last scene. But Renee Fleming offers a valiant, persuasive portrayal of the conflicted Lucrezia in Washington National Opera's new production of this rarely staged work, a production that yielded dynamic musical and visual results on opening night at the Kennedy Center. baltimoresun.com

Opera is expensive, folks. We aren't talking about tickets to it here (though those can be expensive too), but putting it on. No one makes a profit doing it. After paying for singers, orchestras, sets, costumes, directors, lighting, etc., and not to mention renting the hall, an opera company is lucky to recoup half its costs through ticket sales, even when the box office take is healthy. It's a nonprofit art form, which is to say that every opera is, in a way, a loss.
— Read more at OCRegister.com

After being bailed out repeatedly over the years by a small corps of big donors, Opera Pacific, Orange County's professional opera company, appears to have sung its swan song -- barring a fairy-tale rescue.
If it succumbs, the company, founded in 1986 as part of the burst of arts energy in the county surrounding the opening of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, will be a casualty of this year's crisis on Wall Street. A limited circle of patrons has been unable to swing the $4 million to $5 million in donations needed to fund a typical season's budget of about $7 million to $8 million.
— Read more at Los Angeles Times

True to its mission of introducing rising young opera singers to its audience, Annapolis Opera opened its 36th season with its first concert at Maryland Hall on Sunday.
Noting before the concert that "more expensive fundraisers began and ended our past seasons," president Gregory A. Stiverson said, "This season will open and close with these new, less-expensive opera concerts to bring more great music in more operatic arias sung by rising young singers."
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

Now how exciting would it have been if the Metropolitan Opera had staged, on the double-huge occasion of its 125th anniversary season and its first premiere, on Monday, Oct. 13, of a John Adams opera in its history, the Peter Sellars-directed version of "Doctor Atomic" that already had its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera on Oct. 1, 2005?
That was followed by stagings by the opera's co-producers at Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam and Lyric Opera of Chicago.
— Read more at The Oneida Daily Dispatch

[The rareified world of the Royal Opera House has never seen anything quite like this. Some of the institution's star performers have stripped naked for a racy charity calendar. ]
The male and female artists, along with an assortment of backstage staff, posed entirely naked for the project to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.
They include Royal Ballet dancer Sian Murphy, 30, photographed in one of the boxes at Covent Garden wearing nothing but diamonds. Miss Murphy dedicated her appearance to her father, who was diagnosed with cancer but survived.
— Read more at telegraph.co.uk

WHY IT'S COOL: Opera is a dazzling spectacle, but between language issues and sheer length, it can be a daunting experience for newbies. Enter the San Francisco Opera and a certain love potion. The opera has transposed its "Elixir of Love," Gaetano Donizetti's fun-loving opera, into a pair of two-hour matinees styled especially for families. They're in English for one thing, with supertitles for those of you who like to read along. The tickets are specially priced. Plus, love potions, football players and quacks - what's not to like? ContraCostaTimes.com

The loss of musical chief Richard Bradshaw along with a record box office take marked a season of both tragic lows and celebratory highs for the Canadian Opera Company, officials said Tuesday.
At its annual general meeting Tuesday, the Toronto-based company reviewed the 2007-08 season and also announced a surplus of $41,000.
— Read more at cbc.ca

Acclaimed soprano Renee Fleming made her long-awaited Washington National Opera debut Saturday in the company's compelling new production of Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia" at the Kennedy Center Opera House.
The wonderfully traditional yet slightly post-punk sets, design and costuming were created by stage director John Pascoe, and the WNO orchestra was helmed with sensitivity and precision by the company's general director, Placido Domingo.
— Read more at Washington Times

The French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) announced the upcoming U. S. premiere of Kurt Weill's Marie Galante, in a production showcasing the fully-restored orchestral score and reconstruction of the original play by Jacques Deval, and produced by the Opéra Français de New York (OFNY). Marie Galante will be performed Thursday and Saturday, November 13 and 15 at 8pm and Sunday, November 16 at 3pm at FIAF's Florence Gould Hall. Starring the internationally acclaimed soprano and featured Metropolitan Opera performer Isabel Bayrakdarian in the title role; conducted by Yves Abel; and directed by the team of Jean-Philippe Clarac and Olivier Del?uil.
— Read more at fiaf.org

Justice Antonin Scalia has a reputation as an intimidating jurist who poses withering questions during arguments before the Supreme Court. But on Friday afternoon, when the soprano Leontyne Price entered the West Conference Room at the Court to attend an honorary luncheon hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts, Justice Scalia, an avid opera fan, visibly melted.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Three days after its final performance of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville," Santa Ana-based Opera Pacific, the county's only major opera company, announced Tuesday that it will cancel the remainder of its 2008-2009 season and will likely close down operations for good.
— Read more at OCRegister.com

Wichita Grand Opera's seventh season opened on a welcome light note Saturday with a lively production of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta "H.M.S. Pinafore" or "The Lass Who Loved a Sailor."
There were only a few empty seats in Mary Jane Teall Theater and the audience warmed quickly to the story of the love between Ralph, a rank-and-file British sailor, and his captain's beautiful daughter Josephine. Set in the 19th century, "H.M.S. Pinafore" reflects with satire the prevailing British attitudes of class and manners, the military and position. Thus, it would appear that this romance is not to be.
— Read more at Kansas.com

The Brooklyn Music School will be holding an Opera Workshop this month for the 2008-09 semester. All trained voices 14 years old-adult are encouraged to audition. This class will culminate in the Spring production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "Trial by Jury". Note, if admitted to the Workshop, tuition will be $200 for major parts; $75 for chorus. Previous Workshops have resulted in production of "Cosi Fan Tutte", "La Cenerentola", "La Traviata", "Giulio Cesare", and more. Director/Instructor has more than 20 years teaching experience, 35 years professional. Workshop includes ensemble, small group and individual coaching. Audition required.

— Please contact Alburtt Rhodes, Voice Department Chair, at 718) 638-5660 Ext 17.

This month marks the presentation of the fourth annual OPERA NEWS Awards. On November 16 at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, we will salute the distinguished achievements of John Adams, Natalie Dessay, Renée Fleming, Marilyn Horne and Sherrill Milnes - five artists whose accomplishments in the world of opera are individually and collectively beyond measure. It is our privilege to honor these artists and to acknowledge the affectionate debt that opera-lovers everywhere owe to them.
— Read more at Opera News

This incident has entered operatic lore: Ten years ago the soprano Renée Fleming was lustily booed by an audience at La Scala in Milan for her performance in the title role of Donizetti's "Lucrezia Borgia." It's a juicy story. But it's not quite true.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, has enthusiastically welcomed a proposal to establish a Manchester base for the Royal Opera House. If the proposal is given the go-ahead, Royal Opera House Manchester could be up and running by 2013.
— Read more at The Guardian

Standing in the vast performance hall in the former Saints Peter and Paul School, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, it is hard to imagine how aroom so big can fit inside the school building and leave room for anything else.
There are good reasons for that: There actually isn't much room for anything else, because when the building opened in 1898, it was not as a school but as a community center, called McCaddin Memorial Hall, with the performance space as its centerpiece.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Baritone Jason Stearns has sung his way around the world many, many times.
Have voice, will travel has been his mantra for decades, ever since, as he said recently, "My voice just popped out," at age 15.
Stearns has sung in the White House for presidents Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, not to mention their distinguished guests.
— Read more at toledoblade.com

JONATHAN MANN, director of the Arts Exchange at the Westchester Arts Council in White Plains, is very much at home with artists, especially successful ones. A son of Theodore Mann, co-founder and artistic director of Circle in the Square Theater in Manhattan, and the late Patricia Brooks, a noted soprano with the New York City Opera, Jonathan, 47, recently helped his father produce "Patricia Brooks in Recital," a CD of his mother's 1971 New York recital debut. The recording is distributed by VAI Audio of Pleasantville.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Step inside the home and life of Bill Campbell. Incredibly moving music from "The Damnation of Faust" by Hector Berlioz resounds within Campbell's living room. No television. Instead, thousands of opera tapes, CDs, LPs and 78s dominate his home. To paraphrase English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, opera, opera everywhere with neither rock nor roll in sight.
— Read more at TriCities.com

Tenor Roberto Alagna's life was torn apart when his young wife was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumour. But even while she was ill he found the strength to sing and eventually he would find a new partner to share the passion of the opera.
— Read more at Independent.ie

When Peter Gelb started sweeping his new broom through the halls of the Metropolitan Opera after taking over as general manager in 2006, one change he announced was that opening night at the Met would no longer feature a big-name singer in random acts from a bunch of different operas. But last month the Met opened its 2008-09 season with Renée Fleming, America's sweetheart soprano, appearing in -- well, random acts from a bunch of different operas. Fleming is probably the biggest American opera star today; she was already under contract, and she was going to get her gala.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

It was billed as opera's Academy Awards, it was hosted in the nation's capital and it gathered, if not the whole flower, at least many of the most lustrous petals of American opera at the Shakespeare Theatre's Harman Center last night. But what everyone who attended the inaugural NEA Opera Awards ceremony -- including Sherrill Milnes and Kathleen Battle -- will remember about the evening is that Leontyne Price sang.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

HOWEVER you wish to label Berlioz's "Damnation de Faust" - a dramatic cantata, scenes from Goethe's "Faust," an opera of the mind, a futuristic musical fantasy or (as Berlioz called it) a "légende dramatique" - the chorus arguably plays the leading role. Through some two hours of music, the chorus appears in many guises: merrymaking townsfolk, drunken students, soldiers marching to war, an Easter congregation in prayer, seductive choirs of airy sylphs and will-o'-the-wisps, foul fiends from hell and angels of heaven. If a stage production were to take it all literally, the comings and goings, let alone the costume changes, would be a director's nightmare.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

IT is a rare performer who can endow mundane acts like ironing clothes or washing dishes with a tension that borders on the unbearable. The soprano Dawn Upshaw showed how it is done during her performances of "Kafka Fragments," a demanding vocal work by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, at Zankel Hall in January 2005.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Hector Berlioz described Beatrice and Benedict as "a caprice written with the point of a needle."
Houston Grand Opera's first production of the composer's final work (its first staging of any of his operas, in fact) has the light, deft touch in its musical and theatrical values to make this flighty, battle-of-the-sexes romantic romp play.
— Read more at Houston Chronicle

So where were all the opera goers Friday? Out trick-or-treating with their children? Crying over their 401(k)s?
Whatever the reason, opening night of Opera Cleveland's entrancing production of Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" at the State Theatre drew only a sparse audience. And this, even though the company offered last-minute $15 tickets for the Halloween evening performance.
— Read more at cleveland.com