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

She's back. Anna Netrebko, the world's most hyped soprano, has given birth to one of the world's best publicised babies, completed an extended maternity leave, survived a troubled try-out at the Mariinsky and returned to New York. Her lofty vehicle: Lucia di Lammermoor.
— Read more at Martin Bernheimer - FT.com

Things may be tough all over, but thanks to careful budgeting and planning, Lyric Opera of Chicago will present a six-month, eight-opera season in 2009-10 with only minimum scheduling trims and adjustments.
— Read more at CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced the eight productions for its 2009-2010 season, beginning on September 26 with Puccini's Tosca starring Deborah Voigt, Vladimir Galouzine, and James Morris.
— Read more at TheaterMania.com

The Los Angeles Opera announced Tuesday that it had laid off 17 employees, representing 17 percent of its staff, The Los Angeles Times reported. The company said it was imposing pay cuts of around 6 percent for its remaining staff, though some higher-paid employees received an 8 percent cut.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Anna Netrebko returned from maternity leave on Monday to take on "Lucia di Lammermoor" for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera. She reunited with Rolando Villazón, who hadn't sung at the Met for two years and who took off several months for what he described to one interviewer as a "physical and vocal collapse."
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

With one eye on the troubled economy and another on commitment to artistic excellence, the San Francisco Opera has announced a scaled-back package of nine opera productions for its 2009-10 season, the first under Italian-born incoming music director Nicola Luisotti, a widely acknowledged rising star in the opera world.
— Read more at San Jose Mercury News

Soprano Deborah Voigt, who is famed for her German roles, will turn Italian to portray her first local Puccini heroine when Lyric Opera of Chicago opens its 2009-10 season Sept. 26 with an opening night performance of "Tosca."
Lyric announced Wednesday that Voigt will be joined by Russian tenor Vladimir Galouzine (gahl-oo-ZINE') as Mario Cavaradossi. American bass James Morris will portray the villainous Baron Scarpia.
— Read more at chicagotribune.com

If there's one thing "The Barber of Seville" has to have, it's speed. The story's fun and the music's thrills depend on singers with agile vocal cords.
It's the source of Rossini's magic. As a young nobleman serenades the woman he loves, his feelings well up in a cascade of melody and filigree. When Figaro comes along to aid in the wooing, his music moves at the velocity of his scheming mind. The object of the count's affection, Rosina, uses vocal pyrotechnics to tell us she won't let anyone keep her from what she wants.
— Read more at CharlotteObserver.com

Opera Manhattan will present Die Fledermaus on March 5-8th, 2009. It's in English with an updated script by Shawn E. Milnes (Sherrill Milnes son). Set in 1966 at Truman Capote's Black & White Ball.
— Learn more at OperaManhattan.com

A few years ago the soprano Anna Netrebko and the tenor Rolando Villazón were fast becoming opera's most successful duo franchise in works like Verdi's "Traviata," the sensation of the 2005 Salzburg Festival, and Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette." So there was great anticipation for their joint return to the Metropolitan Opera on Monday night in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor." The run of four performances has long been sold out.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

It should have been the most glamorous of nights at the opera: the return of Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko, reunited with her longtime stage partner, tenor Rolando Villazon.
Instead, their joint appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" on Monday night proved nearly as ill-starred as the fate of their characters in this tale of love, betrayal, madness and murder.
— Read more at Seattle Times

Werner Herzog is best known as the director of cinema masterpieces such as Aguirre Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, and Grizzly Man. Artist Sam Taylor-Wood is famous for her elegant photographs and short films, while Dougal Wilson has made pop videos for Coldplay, Goldfrapp and Bat for Lashes.
They are, in short, an unlikely trio to have been commissioned by the English National Opera (ENO) but each has made a short film accompanying a different operatic aria to be shown on television next month.
— Read more at The Guardian

The next executive director of Piedmont Opera has no experience leading an opera company or even a nonprofit.
But officials at Piedmont Opera say that Frank Dickerson's management skills make him the right man to lead the organization in these financially uncertain times.
— Read more at journalnow.com

What's the world of opera coming to?
How about one based on an underground comic book?
What might be one of the most unusual opera productions to have ever come out of Oberlin College (or anywhere else) is a work by the live hero of "American Splendor" comics ? Northeast Ohio native Harvey Pekar.
— Read more at Morning Journal

This spring, the Metropolitan Opera will present The Audition, a documentary film about the intense challenges and pressures young opera singers face as they try to become opera stars. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke, The Audition will be shown on 400 screens across the country on April 19 at 3pm EST (and in Canada on June 6 at 1pm EST) as part of the Metropolitan Opera's series of high definition presentations in movie theaters and performing arts centers.
— Read more at broadwayworld.com

With Plàcido Domingo serving as General Director, Washington and Los Angeles have become inspiring stages for operatic performances along the years.
Their respective 2009-10 seasons include interesting artistic projects, such as a new production of Thomas' Hamlet with Diana Damrau, Samuel Ramey and Carlos Alvarez; and the USA premiere of Franz Schreker's The Stigmatized (LA Opera), this latter described by the New Yorker as a work that 'vacillates between melodies of Mediterranean grace and textures of otherworldy complexity'.
— Read more at MusicalCriticism.com

At the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday night, the Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti threw himself into the role of the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's "Rigoletto" like a singer with something to prove. In early December, just 24 hours before he was scheduled to sing the title role in Verdi's "Don Carlo" at La Scala in Milan, a season-opening production that was being broadcast worldwide, Mr. Filianoti was replaced against his will by the American tenor Stuart Neill.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The image of the classical concert hall as a playground for the rich is planted deep in the cultural psyche. When Hollywood filmmakers set a scene at the symphony, twits in evening wear fill the frame, their jaws tight and their noses held high.
— Read more at Alex Ross - The New Yorker

Tchaikovsky's romantic masterpiece Eugene Onegin, based on the Pushkin poem, returns to the Met on Friday, January 30, with a superb international cast. American baritone Thomas Hampson returns to the role of Onegin, the haughty aristocrat who acknowledges love too late, opposite the Finnish soprano Karita Mattila making her Met role debut as Tatiana, who grows from a love-struck young girl to an aristocratic woman.
— Read more at broadwayworld.com

With one eye on the troubled economy and another on commitment to artistic excellence, the San Francisco Opera on Monday announced a scaled-back package of nine opera productions for its 2009-10 season, the first under Italian-born incoming music director Nicola Luisotti, a widely acknowledged rising star in the opera world.
— Read more at ContraCostaTimes.com

The San Francisco Opera's 2009-10 season will inaugurate the tenure of Music Director Nicola Luisotti just at the moment when financial pressures have prompted General Director David Gockley to cut back on the scope and variety of the company's offerings.
— Read more at sfgate.com

Vancouver's love affair with Georges Bizet's Carmen continues ? the exception that proves the rule about our town's otherwise tepid enthusiasm for French opera.
On Saturday night Vancouver Opera's latest Carmen opened a six-evening run of a conspicuously traditional staging and a consistently satisfying show. Whether this is your first or fiftieth production, this is a Carmen to sit back and enjoy.
— Read more at vancouversun.com

The American tenor Jon Villars walked off stage during a public dress rehearsal of the Beethoven opera "Fidelio" at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto on Wednesday, The Globe and Mail reported.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The Minnesota Opera will showcase the work of Minnesota composer Dominick Argento during its 2009-2010 season, and present one of its biggest recent discoveries.
The season announced today includes Argento's "Casanova's Homecoming," which was presented by the Minnesota Opera in its first season in 1985.
— Read more at MPR

Some performers just seem to have it all. So it was when mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato took the stage Wednesday night at the Folly Theater with famed French chamber orchestra Les Talens Lyriques.
— Read more at Kansas City Star

In its English offering this week of Mozart's "The Magic Flute," Opera AACC calls upon the talents of Anne Arundel Community College faculty members, Maryland-based singers and 15 students from county elementary, middle and high schools. The shows, including today's at 3 p.m., will be presented at AACC's Pascal Center for the Performing Arts.
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

The Orlando Opera laid off four staffers Thursday -- 25 percent of its full-time work force.
The layoffs will save the company about $135,000 to $140,000 a year, including benefits, said Jim Ireland, the opera's president and CEO.
— Read more at OrlandoSentinel.com

Gerard Mortier, formerly the designated general manager and artistic director of New York City Opera, who departed that post in November before his first season, said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde that he had "no regrets" about the circumstances that preceded his departure.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

I lived in Dallas in the 1980s and still keep up with the local news.
So the drama surrounding the departure of George Steel from the Dallas Opera to the New York City Opera naturally piqued my interest.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

On Jan. 15, the New York City Opera presented an opera. This made a pleasant change from what it's been doing for the past six months: sowing dismay as it lurched its way through the failed appointment of a general manager, a dark season, and the exposure of its dire economic straits. (If you came in late, two years ago City Opera named the Paris Opera impresario Gerard Mortier as its leader, beginning in 2009-10, with a first season of all 20th-century works and a much-inflated budget.
— Read more at WSJ.com

Some performers just seem to have it all.
So it was when mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato took the stage at the Folly Theater Wednesday night with famed French chamber orchestra Les Talens Lyrique. Simply put, the concert, presented by the Harriman-Jewell series, was THE musical event of the season.
— Read more at Kansas City Star

When Eva Vidavska Kumar heard there was an opera organization in Charleston, she was eager to learn more.
Kumar, a native of Poland and professional opera singer, will debut in her first Charleston Light Opera Guild production Friday when she takes the role of Josephine in the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, "HMS Pinafore."
— Read more at Charleston Daily Mail

Nevada Opera Association officials announced this week that the company is on precarious financial ground, mirroring the situation the 41-year-old agency faced in 2003.
General Director Michael Borowitz and board Chairman Hal Lenox said the organization is canceling February performances of "The Circus Princess" and calling a Jan. 29 town hall meeting to develop a plan for the future.
— Read more at Reno Gazette-Journal

OPERA Australia yesterday promised a transparent and consultative search for its new artistic leadership team following the death of music director Richard Hickox in November.
The reassurance follows months of trauma and scuttlebutt that have rocked Australia's largest performing arts company and prompted an internal review of its operation.
— Read more at The Australian

The Atlanta Opera reached its $10.9 million goal early for its "Capacity Campaign," the organization said Wednesday.
The $10.9 million includes more than 3,600 gifts from more than 1,500 donors, with 28 percent coming from The Atlanta Opera Board, 16 percent from foundations and government, 13 percent from corporations and 22 percent from individuals.
— Read more at Atlanta Business Chronicle

Fascination with royal loves didn't exactly begin with Prince Charles and Diana Spencer. Or even with King Edward VIII and Wallis Warfield Simpson.
Real or imagined, the loves of Queen Elizabeth I have figured in novels, plays, movies and even operas. And that's despite (or because of ) the never-married monarch's claim that she would go to her grave both queen and virgin.
— Read more at Dallas Morning News

You could experience a momentary double-take walking into the Royal Opera's Linbury Studio Theatre and thinking you've taken a wrong turn into the main house.
A cross-section of the ornate balconies and familiar red curtains of the latter confronts you as you enter, but the crest at the base of the curtains is of Charles III not Elizabeth II ? a timely reminder that, in its original incarnation, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was so successful that it literally laid the foundations for the theatre on Bow Street that is now The Royal Opera House.
— Read more at The Independent

Opera and ballet lovers are to be offered major productions from some of the world's leading companies as pay-per-view internet broadcasts.
Eleven shows from the new season at the Metropolitan Opera in New York will be among those streamed by Classical TV.
— Read more at BBC NEWS

Kristin Chenoweth may be the most conspicuous overachiever in show business.
Smart, gifted and Midwest-nice, the Tulsa-area native and self-described Type A personality is a star on Broadway, on TV and in movies, and she is very much at home in opera.
— Read more at NewsOK.com

The mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne was once asked what she would have done had she been forced to choose a career as either an opera singer or a song recitalist. She answered that she would definitely have chosen a recital career. She could always have sneaked favorite arias onto her programs, she said, but could never have been happy without "my songs."
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Chicago Opera Vanguard - a new company based out of the Windy City - will launch its inaugural "Season Ø" Jan. 29 with the Chicago premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon's Orpheus and Euridice. Rising Chicago fashion star Steven Rosengard ("Project Runway") contributes costume design.
Directed by Artistic Director Eric Reda, this marks the company's first fully-staged production. The ensemble has gathered a host of dancing musicians and singing actors, along with top visual artists from across Chicago's creative community, to tell the powerful story of enduring love.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

Opera on the James has received a $1 million donation.
David Neumeyer, president of the board of directors, said they received word about the anonymous donation in December and announced it during a fundraiser on Saturday.
— Read more at Lynchburg News Advance

That perennial favorite of most opera houses, Mozart's The Magic Flute, is getting a gorgeous production at the Los Angeles Opera. Though it was last performed here in 1993, this production, staged by Stanley M. Garner and based on Peter Hall's original production, seems fresh, as light as one of Papageno's feathers, and very welcome in these trying times. We will get plenty of the heavy stuff when the LA Opera begins its first Ring Cycle later in the season. For now this opera, which celebrates hope, love, responsibility, and imagination, seems in tune with the festivities of President Barack Obama's inauguration.
— Read more at blogcritics.org

In a recent interview, George Steel, the newly appointed head of the New York City Opera, said of the opera, "New York is unthinkable without it." And yet it was a very close call.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Gods sing better than mortals. So anyone would expect. And therefore all is right with the world in the InSeries production of Offenbach's classic operetta "Orpheus in the Underworld," which opened on Saturday and runs through next weekend at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.
— Read more at washingtonpost.com

The Los Angeles Opera has postponed the world premiere of Daniel Catan's "Il Postino."
The Spanish-language opera, based on the 1994 movie, was to have starred Placido Domingo. The project, announced in July 2005, had been scheduled to open the 2009-10 season.
— Read more at KWQC-TV6

Not an opera, not a musical: librettist Armando Iannucci (scriptwriter for Alan Partridge and The Thick of It) and composer David Sawer insist that Skin Deep, their new collaboration for Opera North, is an operetta ? in other words, a basically light-hearted affair, with discrete numbers and episodes of dialogue, along the lines of Die Fledermaus and The Mikado. Only I and S prove very different from G and S.
— Read more at telegraph.co.uk

The suicide of weapons expert Dr David Kelly is the unlikely subject of a new short opera.
Death of a Scientist is one of five 15-minute performances being staged by Scottish Opera as a way of bringing in new audiences. BBC Scotland's arts correspondent, Pauline McLean, was at the first rehearsals in Glasgow on Monday.
— Read more at BBC NEWS

Verdi's popular masterpiece Rigoletto returns to the repertory on January 24 with baritone Roberto Frontali making his Met role debut as the hunchback jester and conductor Riccardo Frizza in his company debut. They are joined by Aleksandra Kurzak as Gilda and Giuseppe Filianoti as the Duke of Mantua, both of whom are also singing their roles for the first time at the Met.
— Read more at broadwayworld.com

WE are all born with a little song, a wise philosopher once observed, but only a few of us ever get to sing a big aria. The American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne definitely did, and during a long and varied operatic career she favored the world with some very big arias indeed, her most famous being the demanding mezzo-coloratura showpieces by Rossini.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Long Beach Opera is low budget opera. These days, that's looking pretty smart. With opera companies around the country in trouble (Orange County's Opera Pacific went under in November), Long Beach Opera just keeps on ticking. You can't go under if there was never any money in the first place.
— Read more at Timothy Mangan - OCRegister.com

Nobody dies and at the end the characters simply return to their previous lives?can this be a Puccini opera? It is: This story of a woman who escapes from her golden cage to search for true love doesn't need tragedy and pathos. It is in the lightness of this neglected masterpiece, "La Rondine" ("The Swallow") wherein its grace lies.
— Read more at Epoch Times

She is the opera singer who shuns the limelight, hardly ever makes recordings and disdains PR with a wave of the hand. Her voice is unclassifiable, neither true soprano nor authentic mezzo, and her range of roles wildly contrasting. Yet somehow Anna Caterina Antonacci would be one of those artists who has both inspired a fake MySpace page (mostly affectionate, though it does mischievously describe the fortysomething singer as a "23-year-old swinger") and has made no attempt to shut it down.
— Read more at Times Online

New York's Metropolitan Opera has cancelled major productions and must find further cuts to avoid financial crisis, its general manager has warned.
Peter Gelb told the New York Times the value of Met funds had dropped from $300m (£200.8m) to $100m (£66.9m).
— Read more at BBC NEWS

He's here! George Steel's official start date as general manager and artistic director of New York City Opera may be February 1, but he's not wasting any time in Dallas. Steel was scheduled to meet with company artists and staff at 11 a.m. today at the David H. Koch Theater, according to a letter sent yesterday to company members by board chairwoman Susan L. Baker and company president Mark Newhouse.
— Read more at New York Magazine

Just as it was riding high in the opera world, the Metropolitan Opera has been bludgeoned by the recession and now faces a "disaster scenario" unless the company finds major cost cuts, including concessions from its powerful unions, the Met's general manager, Peter Gelb, said on Thursday.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The first big event in London's music calendar is the UK premiere of Die tote Stadt, Korngold's 1920 work that finally brought opera into the real world...
Not that long ago, in the crush bar of any opera house, you could have heard one of the interval bores deliver a categorical statement that opera came to an end in 1924 with the death of Puccini. Full stop.
— Read more at thisislondon.co.uk

NJN's State of the Arts program "The Making Of . . ." will feature a segment on two New Jersey artists, composer Mark Zukerman and poet David Sten Herrstom. The pair, both longtime Roosevelt residents, collaborated on an opera, "The Outlaw and the King," based on the Old Testament story of Jonathan, David and Saul.
— Read more at NJ.com

Florida Grand Opera will eliminate one production from its 2009-2010 season, presenting just four operas for the first time in decades. The cost-cutting move is in response to the deepening recession, and subsequent downturn in ticket sales and the loss of large donor gifts, factors that are affecting major arts organizations in South Florida and across the country.
— Read more at South Florida Classical Review

She was 72, and the cause of death was complications resulting from liver failure.
The Bronxville, NY, native started studying voice at the age of 11. She would go on to sing at the Metropolitan Opera and play choice musical theatre heroines such as Fanny and Guenevere on Broadway and in London.
— Read more at Yahoo! News

As long anticipated, Los Angeles Opera's 2009-10 season, announced today, will be dominated by the company's ?- and the city's ?- first production of the "Ring" cycle, which is by far the largest undertaking within the standard repertory for any performing arts institution.

— Read more at Los Angeles Times

The tottering New York City Opera said on Wednesday that it had found a savior after two years of financial and leadership turmoil, appointing the impresario and conductor George R. Steel as its general manager and artistic director.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

At a rehearsal for the 1910 premiere of his opera "Elektra," Richard Strauss stopped the titanic duel between the soprano and the orchestra, one of the largest ever assembled at that time, by shouting at the conductor: "Louder! Louder! I can still hear her!" After leading the first rehearsal himself, Strauss had concluded that he lacked the stamina to supervise the 100-minute-long musical siege himself, and surrendered the baton to Ernst von Schuch. Strauss wrote "Elektra" with the avowed intention of topping the sensation created by his previous opera, the scandalous "Salome," by pushing "the outermost limits of harmony, psychological polyphony, and the receptivity of modern ears."
— Read more at WSJ.com

It's official, Harvey Pekar is a renaissance man.
He's known for his real-life comic books, he's known for his David Letterman appearances, he's known for "American Splendor," the movie about his life. But one thing he's not known for is opera.
— Read more at Cleveland.com

The state of Berlin appointed Peter Raddatz as director of the city's opera foundation, an umbrella organization overseeing three opera companies, a ballet ensemble and a set- and costume-design company.
Raddatz, 55, is currently the executive director of Cologne's theater, opera and dance organization, Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said in a statement today. He takes over from interim director Stefan Rosinski, who has been in the post since February 2007, the statement said. His contract begins Sept. 1 and runs through 2014.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

There was a time when young singers being eased onto the roster of the Metropolitan Opera would never have been encouraged to perform daunting, atonal contemporary works for voice and chamber ensemble. But during his long association with the Met, James Levine has been changing this attitude, especially during the last 10 years, when willing young singers have taken on some bracing modern scores in concerts with the Met Chamber Ensemble.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Florida Grand Opera's Superstar Concert Series debuted Saturday night at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts with the requisite vocal firepower, courtesy of Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
The new, modestly titled series is helmed by Judy Drucker, FGO's artistic advisor and founder and former impresaria of the Concert Association of Florida, under whose aegis the Siberian baritone was a perennial visitor.
— Read more at MiamiHerald.com

Opera legend Marilyn Horne will be celebrated at Carnegie Hall at 2pm on Sunday, January 18 with a concert in honor of her 75th birthday and the 15th anniversary of the Marilyn Horne Foundation.
— Read more at TheaterMania.com

Like an old and comfy easy chair in New York's cultural salon, the Amato Opera has served up homemade productions for 60 years in basement theaters, always under the loving care of Anthony Amato and, until her death in 2000, his wife, Sally.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Acclaimed Metropolitan Opera singer and Hoosier native, Angela Brown, will be visiting Indianapolis in between her debuts at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and The Atlanta Opera, and has agreed to perform her original show, "Opera from a Sistah's Point of View" for an audience of Pike High School students.
— Read more at The Indianapolis Star

More than ever, after witnessing the first night of "The Pearl Fishers" at the Seattle Opera, I am convinced that this product of Bizet's 20s is every bit as wonderful an opera as the one ? "Carmen" ? that everyone tells us is his masterpiece.
— Read more at Seattle Times

WHEN Samuel Barber's "Antony and Cleopatra" inaugurated the new Metropolitan Opera House on Sept. 16, 1966, it promptly entered theatrical lore as one of the great operatic disasters of all time. That is the legend at least, and periodic attempts to salvage something worthwhile from the wreckage have never appreciably altered the picture.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

There are certain nights in operatic history that enter the ranks of legend - and that far more people later claim to have attended than is mathematically possible: Joan Sutherland's first "Lucia" at Covent Garden in 1959; Leontyne Price's farewell "Aida" at the Metropolitan Opera in 1985.
— Read more at Seattle Times Newspaper

Rising soprano Kelly Kaduce is a known quantity in St. Louis; she's sung leading roles, including the title role in last season's "Madame Butterfly," with Opera Theatre of St. Louis, to critical and popular acclaim.
— Read more at STLtoday.com

Although dyed-in-the-Rhine types will still feel terribly disappointed that Washington National Opera had to shelve a complete production of Wagner's Ring next season due to fiscal constraints, there are considerable attractions on the company's 2009-2010 lineup. (That Ring has not been canceled outright, company officials hasten to reiterate, but merely postponed.)
— Read more at baltimoresun.com

A first-class cast of principals making their Los Angeles Opera debut transformed the company's revival of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Saturday into a welcome delight.
— Read more at Los Angeles Times

"La Rondine," Puccini's enchanting late opera, returned to the Metropolitan Opera on New Year's Eve, the 1917 work's first appearance there since 1936. This bittersweet piece requires a light touch, but its leading lady, soprano Angela Gheorghiu, who seemed to be channeling "The Real Housewives of Orange County," substituted a heavy hand instead.
— Read more at WSJ.com

The Boston Conservatory Opera Program, under the direction of Sally Stunkel, presents Jules Massenet's Cendrillon, based on the fairy tale Cinderella, Feb. 5?7, at 8 p.m. and Feb. 8 at 2 p.m. at The Boston Conservatory Theater, 31 Hemenway St., Boston. Press night is Feb. 5. Bruce Hangen conducts. Kirsten Z. Cairns directs. Sung in English. Tickets are $22 general admission, $12 for seniors and $7 for students. Box Office: 617-912-9222.
— Learn more at bostonconservatory.edu

With each performance the American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe gives, it becomes increasingly apparent that a once-in-a-generation opera singer has arrived. Ms. Blythe's latest triumph came on Friday night at the Metropolitan Opera: a vocally commanding and deeply poignant portrayal of Orfeo in a revival of Mark Morris's 2007 production of Gluck's sublime masterpiece "Orfeo ed Euridice." This was Ms. Blythe's first performance of Orfeo, a touchstone trouser role for many mezzo-sopranos, and she already owns it.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

It's the fourth time around for Los Angeles Opera's production of the Gerald Scarfe-designed "Magic Flute" and it remains sweet to the eye. The British satirical cartoonist created a vividly colored, exuberantly distorted and loopy array of costumes and sets for Mozart's fairy tale opera with Masonic themes that certainly pleased the first night audience on Saturday. But one begins to see some flaws in his scheme.
— Read more at OCRegister.com

A new opera magazine has launched in the Netherlands: Place de l'Opera, named after the famous Parisian square. The web magazine intends to provide Dutch opera fans with news and background articles. It also wants to create a platform for discussion about genre in the twenty-first century.
— Read more at operamagazine.nl

Giacomo Puccini's "La Rondine" shares a perch with his "La Fanciulla del West" as a neglected masterpiece of 20th-century Italian opera. The Metropolitan Opera's new production, unveiled on New Year's Eve, makes a strong case for letting "La Rondine" take wing at last.
— Read more at The Advocate

Over the years opera has developed a reputation for telling stories that are too often silly, risible or incomprehensible, and sometimes all three at once. As we settle into the twenty-first century most managers of opera companies have faced up to this problem, and to the fact that it makes selling their product very difficult indeed.
— Read more at La Scena Musicale

After 60 years the Amato Opera will close its doors after this season. Anthony Amato, the company's 88-year-old founder, gave the news to his company before Saturday night's performance of "The Merry Widow."
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The Canadian Opera Company took another major step forward yesterday, naming 34-year-old Johannes Debus as the company's new music director. A native of Germany, Debus is best known to Toronto audiences as the conductor of the COC's acclaimed 2008 production of Prokofiev's War and Peace.
— Read more at Toronto Sun

In preparation for its upcoming concert performances of Antony and Cleopatra, New York City Opera will present a symposium Jan. 10 at the Miller Theatre. The 5-hour program will include lectures, discussions and a special concert by soprano Elizabeth Futral.
— Read more at PlaybillArts

The economic downturn has not dampened Vancouver's appetite for opera. Vancouver Opera announced yesterday that its forthcoming production of Carmen has proved the fastest-selling in the company's history, with 57 per cent sold despite two more weeks before opening night.
— Read more at globeandmail.com

Kids and opera go together like chocolate and peanut butter. The dramatics, the over the top display of emotions, the florid costumes and elaborate sets, the loud loud singing.
Still, very few companies have catered to children. The Met Opera set out to change that last year when it introduced the Opera Explorer Series. We want to their first efforts and gave it a big seal of approval for being very Family friendly and fun for us too.
— Read more at examiner.com

Canadian baritone Gerald Finley began his operatic career as a birdcatcher in Mozart's "Magic Flute." He's graduated to bombmaker -- atomic ones.
Finley, 48, is the lead in "Doctor Atomic," the opera by American composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars about J. Robert Oppenheimer who, as scientific director of the Manhattan Project, is known as "the father of the atomic bomb."
— Read more at reuters.com

Throughout its history, the Jacksonville Symphony Chorus has been a part of many landmark occasions with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, most notably, the incredible feat of an annual fully staged grand opera. In February, the orchestra and chorus will celebrate seven years of opera collaboration when they perform Puccini's Turandot.
— Read more at Jacksonville.com

Sky Arts is screening the pioneering 'simulcast' to show how the English National Opera (ENO) production at the London Coliseum is put together.
John Berry, ENO's artistic director, said: "It's about all of that furious paddling under the water that you don't normally see."
— Read more at telegraph.co.uk

Coming to Toronto for the first time this past fall, Germany's Johannes Debus found himself conducting "War and Peace" for the Canadian Opera Company - a piece he had never done in a language he didn't speak.
— Read more at The Canadian Press

For a decade the director has complained that no one wanted him in London. Now Jonathan Miller is back at ENO ? with a radical new production of La Bohème inspired by Brassaï...
Almost before I am inside his front door, Jonathan Miller is telling me that next month's La Bohème at English National Opera will be the last opera he ever directs and that he should have stuck to practising medicine. "I was very good at it," he reports, prescribing me a large glass of malt whisky.
— Read more at thisislondon.co.uk

Director-choreographer Mark Morris's much-lauded 2007 production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice returns to the repertoire, with Stephanie Blythe taking on one of the pinnacles of the mezzo-soprano repertory, the role of Orfeo, for the first time in her career. Soprano Danielle De Niese, an acclaimed singer of eighteenth-century music and a graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, sings Euridice for the first time at the Met. Heidi Grant Murphy returns as Amor, which she performed at the production's premiere in 2007.
— Read more at broadwayworld.com

Soprano Deborah Voigt's Tuesday-evening Schubert Club recital, a master class on communicating with an audience, explored several seldom-visited pockets of the art-song repertory. There were songs in Italian by Giuseppe Verdi (which, alas, lent credence to the view that great opera composers are never great song composers) and by Ottorino Respighi (who, too long represented by his noisy orchestral music, is ripe for rediscovery).
— Read more at startribune.com

At 38, Nathan Gunn has established himself as a sought-after baritone, an intelligent actor with a luscious voice. Part of a generation of singers determined to banish the "park and bark" style of operatic performance, he likes to push the edges of storytelling, especially by exploring new works.
Thanks to a well-chiseled body and rugged good looks, Gunn is something else as well: a favorite on the pop-culture circuit. Last year, People magazine named him one of its "Sexiest Men Alive," and Stephen Colbert dubbed him a "super-sexy opera star."
— Read more at Los Angeles Times

Not seen at the Met since 1936, Puccini's "La Rondine" makes a welcome return bolstered by the star power of its real-life husband-and-wife leads Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. Nicolas Joel's well-traveled production -- it has already been seen in Toulouse, London, and San Francisco -- muddles the characters' motivation with an ill-considered change of era, but Puccini's genius, as usual, wins out.
— Read more at variety.com

Angela Meade could be forgiven for being a bundle of nerves. But the thirty-one-year-old soprano, whose professional stage debut arrived unexpectedly at the Met last March while she was covering the role of Ernani's Elvira, comes across as a model of imperturbability.
— Read more at Opera News

Some 70 years have passed since Puccini's "La Rondine" last appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, and I suspect most of us will be dead by the time another new production creaks to the stage here in Manhattan.
So enjoy the show while it's around featuring two spectacular singers: diva Angela Gheorghiu and her button-cute husband, Roberto Alagna, the only star tenor slim enough for pleated pants.
— Read more at Bloomberg.com

On a cold winter evening in London, Dmitri Hvorostovsky -- billed as the "Elvis of opera" by Elle and "opera's reigning hunk" in W -- is at home with his second wife and children, taking the Russian view of things, namely that life is tough, and let's take care of business.
The acclaimed baritone, who will launch Florida Grand Opera's new Superstar Concert Series Saturday at the Adrienne Arsht Performing Arts Center, is not sweating a host of questions about classical music's having crossed the line, of violinist Lara St. John posing topless for her album covers and all that.
— Read more at MiamiHerald.com

Three classics by Giuseppe Verdi ? and one world premiere by American composer Daron Aric Hagen.
That's the unusual lineup for Seattle Opera's 2009-2010 season, which will be preceded by three full cycles of Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen" in August.
— Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com

Best not to search for logic behind the Metropolitan Opera's opening of a new production on New Year's Eve, or why the opera in question was Puccini's little-known La Rondine, and why its notoriously temperamental stars, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna, are being such good sports about working over the holidays.
— Read more at Philadelphia Inquirer

As Gregory Kunde, an opera singer who makes his home in Rochester, sips a large caffeinated beverage at Spot Coffee late in December he ruminates on the state of the business. That is, the opera business.
"If you've got no melody, don't write an opera," he says about Hollywood composer Howard Shore's attempt at opera, The Fly. Kunde - recently back from a round of performances in Japan, Scotland, London and Toronto - saw it in Paris last year. "I was really disappointed," he remembers.
— Read more at Democrat and Chronicle

For the past several years, Don Marquis has made an annual pilgrimage to New York City to see a production by the Metropolitan Opera. Now, he doesn?t have to travel so far.
— Read more at LJWorld.com

IN just over nine months the New York City Opera is supposed to open its 2009-10 season. Exactly how that will happen is hard to imagine. The scrappy 65-year-old company has seldom faced such a dire crisis.
First off, there is a $15 million deficit to manage, made more onerous by the board's inexplicable and costly decision to forgo staged productions in the current season while the David H. Koch Theater (formerly the New York State Theater) is being renovated.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

Given the glut of Handel compilation discs already available, cynics might dismiss Joyce DiDonato's latest recording of Handel's mad scenes, titled Furore , as an opportunistic marketing gimmick. This American mezzo-soprano has been rightly admired for her rich, well-rounded voice and bel canto flouncing on the opera stage, but how could anyone sustain interest through a whole programme of tempers and tantrums?
— Read more at FT.com

A REMARKABLE crop of gifted and glamorous young sopranos has emerged in recent years. But the lyric soprano Danielle de Niese is probably the only one who can sing coloratura arias while dancing Bollywood-inspired choreography, as she did in David McVicar's production of Handel's "Giulio Cesare."
— Read more at NYTimes.com

If you're among the multitude of opera fans who have yet to see a major production of Jules Massenet's "Thais," you have only two more chances this season -- and maybe for a long time to come. If it were not for the wishes of Renee Fleming, the reigning diva at the Metropolitan Opera, it's unlikely this musically pleasant, but dramatically hokey opus would be in this season's repertoire.
— Read more at NewsTimes.com

At Apache Mexican Cuisine on The Strand, the last remnants of disaster are slowly being scraped away.
"The first floor was completely under water. We're just trying to get it back to where they can open again," said Stephen Showers, who has been working on
— Read more at KHOU.com

I have long been convinced that this season at the Metropolitan Opera is full of odds and ends, by comparison to which next season, general manager Peter Gelb's first in complete control, will seem momentous. The company's new production of Puccini's "La Rondine" heightened my conviction.
— Read more at NY Daily News

Sometimes, fairly or not, an artistic work gets saddled with a reputation it just can't shake. A prime example is Puccini's opera "La Rondine," which arrived at the Metropolitan Opera for a New Year's Eve gala performance on Wednesday night in a beguiling new production by Nicolas Joël and starring the singing world's much-touted love couple, the soprano Angela Gheorghiu and the tenor Roberto Alagna. Amazingly, this is the first Met production since 1936.
— Read more at NYTimes.com

The part of Seattle Opera's 2009-10 season not already known was announced Wednesday.
In addition to the revival of its acclaimed production of Wagner's "Ring" cycle in August and the world premiere of Daron Aric Hagen's "Amelia" in May 2010, the company will present what amounts to a small Verdi festival the rest of the season -- "La traviata," "Il trovatore" and "Falstaff."
— Read more at nwsource.com

[Glyndebourne's 75th Anniversary, modern political opera Doctor Atomic, Garsington's 20th Anniversary and a summer of superstars from the Royal Opera. ]
Glyndebourne's 75th Anniversary
For this celebratory season, the daddy of all country-house opera festivals offers a dazzling programme.
— Read more at telegraph.co.uk

When Mila Gibson began teaching atAmarillo College, all 50 of her voice students claimed to despise opera. The music instructor knew she had work to do.
"There was such vocal talent here," Gibson said. "As an educator, I saw an opportunity to nurture and provide an outlet for that talent, and the opera came from that desire."
Gibson, 65, founded Amarillo Opera in 1988. The company now is one of 114 professional opera companies in the U.S.
— Read more at Amarillo.com

At the end of Giacomo Puccini's "La Rondine," an enamored woman jilts her ardent but poor lover, saying she can't give up her old life as a rich man's mistress.
And, she says, she doesn't want to financially ruin her soulmate.
But on New Year's Eve, after the Metropolitan Opera's gold curtain fell, there was a second ending: The two lovers went off together into the Manhattan night.
— Read more at The Associated Press

Along with funny hats, champagne toasts, and football games, the new year brings the announcement of the Ohio Light Opera's summer slate of shows.
Based at the College of Wooster, the OLO will be celebrating its 31st season. Over the years, it has presented more than 100 different operettas and Broadway musicals, including the complete works of Gilbert and Sullivan several times over.
— Read more at toledoblade.com

Renée Fleming is currently starring as the Egyptian courtesan Thaïs. This new production by John Cox marks the first time Massenet's work has been seen at the Met in three decades. Here, Fleming shares her thoughts on the role with Matt Dobkin.
"You're known as one of the great interpreters of Thaïs. What draws you to this character?"...
— Read more at PlaybillArts

This is a special winter for the Juneau Lyric Opera as the group prepares for the 20th anniversary of their Mid-Winter Vocal Festival.
The festival will take place Jan. 2-9 at the Chapel by the Lake. It is open to singers of all skill levels and consists of a combination of workshops, master classes, private lessons and a group chorus.
— Read more at CapitalCityWeekly.com

As the grip of economic recession takes hold all around you, you need something to bring you some comfort. If you are on your way to the sales as we speak, you do not really get it. Running up bills on the credit card is not going to do you any good in the long run. You need something more durable, more profound. Now is the perfect time to engage with some culture.
Cultural activity is ideal for banishing thoughts of economic meltdown. By reminding us that there are eternal verities that survive the grimmest of times, we are transported away from interest rate movements and a slump in the value of sterling. Like religion, culture tells us that there are bigger things in the world; unlike religion, it makes no pesky demands on our moral behaviour.
— Read more at FT.com