Waterperry Opera Festival Announces 2022 Season

The Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe has announced its 2022-23 season featuring six premieres and several revivals. Wagner’s “Der fliegende Holländer” with Georg Fritzsch conducting and Ludger Engels directing. Premiere Date: Dec. 10, 2022. Yura Yang conducts Bizet’s “Carmen” in a new production by Immo Karaman....

The Welsh National Opera Youth Opera has announced its cast for its 2022 productions. First up will be Judith Weir’s “The Black Spider.”. The work will star Tomo Jones and Mica Smith as Count Heinrich; Ffion Morgan Short and Rhianna Hogg as Christina; Euan McEvoy as Carl; and Owen Parson and Toben Durrant sharing the role of Casper. Dan Perkin will conduct with Rhian Hutchings directing.

The Royal Opera has announced a cast change for its concert performance of Verdi’s “Attila.”. The company noted that Maria José Siri will sing the role of Odabella replacing Sondra Radvanovsky. Siri took to social media to announce that it will be her debut at the London...

(Credit: Monika Ritterhaus) A lot of modern opera is based on original and new stories. But it wasn’t always like that. For hundreds of years, operas in the standard repertory, regardless of their style (baroque, classical, romantic, impressionistic) were based on some other story or event. So in honor...

Boston Lyric Opera (BLO) has announced the conclusion of its initiative, “The Butterfly Process,” and will close out the project with a public town hall, film series, and a new production of “Madama Butterfly,” slated for the company’s 2023-24 season. The scheduled events round out...

Greenwood, South Carolina’s Glow Lyric Theatre, has announced the Southern premiere of Frances Pollock and Tia Price’s new opera, “Stinney: An American Execution,” at the Fred Collins Performing Arts Stage in Greenville, South Carolina’s Kroc Center from July 22 to 31, 2022. The opera relates...

The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) is joining forces with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) in a new partnership. The goal is for the two unions to work together to strengthen their partnership; the two organizations first partnered in 2020 when they worked on the Expert Medical Advisory Panel for the AGMA/SDC Return to Stage and Performing Arts Playbook.

The Bayerische Staatsoper has announced a cast change for its production of Verdi’s “Otello.”. The company noted that Rachel Willis-Sorensen will replace Anja Harteros in the role of Desdemona. Willis-Sorensen has performed at the Royal Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden, Wiener Staatsoper, Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera,...

On May 21, 2022, Washington Irving High School will present “Tribute to Kurt Weill.”. This one-night only concert comes as part of People’s Symphony Concerts, and will feature soprano Katherine Riddle and bass Zachary James, accompanied by Laura Bergquist. Both prior winners of the Lotte Lenya Competition through...

(Credit: Jan Verseweyveld) Germany’s Ruhrtriennale has named Ivo van Hove its Artistic Director from 2024 to 2026. The Belgian theatre director and artistic director of the International Theater Amsterdam will succeed the current artistic director Barbara Frey on Nov. 1, 2023. The state’s Minister for Culture, Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen, introduced...

On April 21, soprano Renate Holm died at the age of 90. Born in Berlin on August 10, 1931, the soprano decided to become an opera singer at age 12, when she saw a film version of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” with Maria Cebotari. In 1943, women with...

The Curtis Institute has appointed four composers to its faculty. The composers include Nick DiBerardino, Amy Beth Kirsten, Jonathan Bailey Holland, and Steven Mackey. They will begin their respective tenures during the 2022-23 school year. The quartet will all work with Curtis students and current faculty member Richard Danielpour to...

The Boston Lyric Opera has canceled a performance of “Champion” due to COVID-19. The company announced that “due to a series of COVID cases, Boston Lyric Opera will cancel the Wed., May 18 performance of ‘Champion: An Opera in Jazz. The company plans to mount the Fri., May 20 @ 7:30 PM performance and the 3 PM performance on Sun., May 22 as planned at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater.”

Jonas Kaufmann has expressed concern for the future of the opera world. The tenor, who is one of the biggest box office draws in the world, told the Age in an interview while performing “Lohengrin” at Opera Australia, “the pandemic has been an ‘existential’ crisis” for opera.”

Over the next month baritone, Igor Golaventko will perform at the Bolshoi Theatre. The baritone, who is set to return to the Metropolitan Opera over the next few seasons, will perform productions of “La Bohème,” “Boris Godunov,” “The Queen of Spades,” and “Iolanta.”

Tenor Nicky Spence is one of two patrons of the An Tobar and Mull Theatre. Per an official press statement, “The An Tobar and Mull Theatre is a multi-artform creative hub on the Hebridean island of Mull. It is a place for joining in, with a welcoming and joyous heart. It tells stories that matter and it aspires to be an island voice on a national stage in an international conversation. It supports art of all kinds for people of all kinds. Its aim is for its audiences to leave feeling nourished, connected, and understood. It values fun, openness, bravery, and generosity and aims for innovation in a sustainable way. The art it makes is a beacon; a shining light guiding the way back to Mull.”

Over the past few days, the Asian Opera Alliance has released the results of its look into diversity of casting at major American Opera companies for the 2022-23. The study takes a look at casting for such companies as the Metropolitan Opera, LA Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Portland Opera, Seattle Opera, Tulsa Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, The Dallas Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and the Richard Tucker Foundation.

Allan Clayton, Brenda Rae, Rod Gilfy & Cast Shine, Shakespeare Does Not. (Credit: Karen Almond / Met Opera) Back in 2017, The Guardian meditated on why, despite being one of the world’s greatest plays, “Hamlet” had no great corresponding operatic adaptation. The article notes that despite there being about 40 actual operatic adaptations, none have stood the test of time or held the stage.

The very first year Chopard was present at the Cannes Film Festival, visitors remembered an unusual creation of the house: its chocolates. “We had put out some branded treats at the Majestic hotel [where we were based] but also at the Martinez. A few people told me, ‘Ah, you’re the girl who makes the chocolates’, so I had to explain Chopard actually makes watches and jewelry,” artistic director and copresident Caroline Scheufele said, recalling how their three-person team operated out of a safe in her hotel room.