Opera and Music News |
Alberto W. Vilar , a Cuban-born billionaire and art patron, is giving the Kennedy Center $50 million, the largest donation ever to the 30-year-old performing arts center. |
Alberto W. Vilar |
"I am passionate about the classical performing arts. And within the world of opera I like lyric or Verdian-type opera, Wagnerian and Russian Opera", he said. This donation of American businessman establishes him as one of the most generous patrons of the performing arts in modern history. The Washington Post Jacqueline Trescott 14 February 2001 |
"I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battles or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit" John F. Kennedy |
The Kennedy Center |
Returning to Dark Ages |
After decades of carrying the Metropolitan Opera's Saturday afternoon live broadcasts, WGMS is dropping the beloved entertainment. WGMS will no longer be broadcasting opera on Saturday. ... for opera lovers it could mark the local end of a hallowed tradition that has brought the best of this country's mightiest opera house into America living rooms since the 1930s. "I'm really surprise by this", says Washington Opera Executive Director Walter Arnheim. The Met's broadcasts, sponsored by Texaco since 1940, have introduced generations of listeners to the art form. WGMS, which has the fourth-highest listeners in the Wasington area, have been moving away from opera and vocal music in general. |
End of an Aria: WGMS cancels Met Opera by Philip Kennicott Washington Post May 2, 2001 |
The historic Malibran Theatre in Venice has reopened--two decades its closure for restoration. Italy's President attended a gala concert of works by Verdi, Bolini, Wagner, attended by some 900 people, including politicians, cultural figures and Italian celebrities. The Malibran will house the Venice Opera Company, which has been without a home since La Fenice was destroyed by fire in 1996. La Fenice wiil be rebuild in 2003. 24 May, 2001 |
Premiere Performance of new opera "Moses" during visit of Pope John Paul II to Ukraine. |
Lviv Opera and Ballet Theater in the name of Sofia Krushelnytska |
The Lviv Theater celebrated its centennial in the fall of 2000. The Theater is a majestic, classical building decorated in a lavish style with detailed interior, which rises to a stunning hand, painted ceiling and an elaborate chandelier. The beautiful building. whose constaction began in 1896, dominates the Lviv central square. It is truly a marvellous work of architecture in which to have the world premiere of "Moses". |
Polish News 20 June 2001 |
Sofia Krushelnytska |
The fall 2001 seasons of the opera companies in San Francisco and Los Angeles opened their productions. The Wall Street Journal wrote:"There are many opera fans for whom beautiful singing is enough; I prefer good singers who can act. I enjoed the fine voices of Placido Domingo, Galina Gorchakova, Vladimir Chernov and Sergey Leiferkus in "The Queen of Spades" by Tchaikovsky, but as I might have at a concert performance. My pleasure would have been far greater if they had been better able to get inside Pushkin/Tchaikovsky's fascinating characters and persuaded me that they cared about one another. Sergey Larin and--especially--Olga Borodina (where would opera in America be today without the Russians?) sang the roles of Samson and Dalila very handsomely indeed... Baritone Timothy Noble, as the Philistine High Prist, and chorus sang with geater emotional conviction than anyone else on stage. Tchaikovsky's aging Countess and Wagner's evil Ortrud are frequently taken on by sopranos past their prime: The parts are so juicy they hard to destroy. Even with broad wobbles, ugly sounds and off-target notes, both singers ....... managed to incarnate these two monstres sacrees with genuene gueso. At the other extreme, I found almost nothing to fault musically in the Los Angeles "Lohengrin". Kent Nagano (conducting his first onstage Wagner) and the orchestra were sublime, the chorus all one could hope for. Gosta Winbergh was the finest Wagnerian tenor I've heard in 20 years. by David Littlejohn "The Wall Street Journal" October 9, 2001 |
The New York City Opera's production of Hendel's "Agrippina" |
"Sly" and "Agrippina" |
With more than 100 roles in his repertoire, Placido Domingo didn't need to add the additional, rather sparse scalp of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's "Sly" (1927) to his belt. The Metropolitan Opera imported the production, staged not coincidentally by the star tenor's wife Marta, from Washington Opera. This warmed-over, uneasy marrige of comedy and verismo falls short on both counts, and its music is neither dramatic nor alluring. Marco Armiliato was the competent conductor. Mrs.Domingo's obvious, visually dark production (sets and costumes by Michael Scott) remained clunky, generalized and amateurish, the caliber of the directing epitomized by the group of men in long duster coats who leaped up and down in unison during the tavern scene. Compare this thoroughgoing mediocrity to Handel's ...."Agrippina" (1709). It's kind of Feydeau farce set in imperial Rome, but in its move from Glimmerglass to the New York City Opera, the Lillian Groag (director) and John Conklin (set design) production has pushed the comedy into vulgarity. In Mr. Conklin's familiar style, classical statues and architectural elements coexist with a modern lawn chair and cocktail shaker, and Jess Goldstein's eye-caching costumes are contemporary luxe, but it all looked thrown together. The show was substantially recast for New York. One improvement was Brenda Harris, whose rich dramatic soprano gave weight to the nasty, conniving Agrippina. Also impressive was Gregory Reinhart, making his company debut. The orchestra, buttressed by a period instrument continuo ensemble and conducted by Jane Glover, was elegant. "Sly" and Imperial Rome by Heidi Waleson The Wall Street Journal 17 April, 2002 |
Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly" hadn't been seen at the Royal Opera Covent Garden in 10 years. You can see it April 2, 5, 7, 10, 2003 |
A Salute to Franco Corelli |
The Metropoliten Opera Guild's 68th Annual Luncheon Celebrates Franco Corelli April 25, 2003 12:15 PM The Waldorf-Astoria, NYC Join celebration in the Grand Ballroom of New York's Waldof-Astoria on Friday, April 25 for "Celebrate Corelli" a salute to the legendary tenor. "Celebrate Corelli" will feature not only the celebrated tenor himself, but an impressive contingent of the wonderful artists who appeared at the Met with him. Paying a spoken tribute to Franco Corelli will be Leontyne Price, who shared her 1961 Met debut with him. The afternoon will also include a film tribute, featuring historic film clips of Corelli performances. . |
Nataniel Irvin in title role, and Teddy Tahu Rhodes as a Pilot |
Opera "The Little Prince" by Rachel Portman |
Houston Grand Opera (13-22 June, 2003) |
Opera based on Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "The Little Prince". The production is destined for four other U.S. opera companies in future seasons, beginning with Milwaukee's Skylight Opera Theater in March 2004. |
International Richard Wagner festival in Baureuth, Germany began Friday (July, 25, 2003) with opera |
Politicians and celebrities were among the 2, 000 guests who head one of Wagner's most accessible work. The festival is held every summer in the southern town of Bayreuth where Richard Wagner lived. |
On 22 May, 2003 was 190th anniversary of birth of the greatest composer of German opera Richard Wagner |
Richard Wagner's grandson Wolfgang Wagner with his family at the opening ceremony of the 92nd Richard Wagner Festival. The month-long festival will run until August 25, 2003. |
Evgeny Mravinsky (1903-1988) |
100th anniversary of the birth of the great conductor Evgeny Mravinsky |
Tenor Placido Domingo left the stage of the Vienna State Opera |
The famed tenor, singing the part of Count Loris Ipanoff, had about thirty seconds of "Amor ti vieta", his one big aria, when his voice seemed to give out in mid-phrase. He put his hands to his head, then spoke briefly (but inaudibly) to the audience and walked off the stage on the arm of soprano Paoletta Marrocu. State Opera Intendant Ioan Holender then emerged and told the audience that there would be a pause while officials considered the situation. Eventually, he returned and said that while Domingo was not well, he would continue. The performance resumed at the point following "Amor ti vieta", and while Domingo's voice seemed slightly week for the remainder of the second act - he sang the occasional phrase an octave lower than written... |
Andante magazine, 2 october 2003 |
Alexander Borodin |
12 November 2003 will be 120th anniversary of birth of the great Russian composer Alexander Borodin |
click to listen music from opera "Prince Igor" by Borodin |
The magnificent Franco Corelli (1921 - 2003) |
The magnificent Franco Corelli died at 82 in Milan last week. First of all, he had a voice of truly sensual beauty, its ardent warmth like that of the Mediterranean sun. He looked as good as he sounded - his muscular physique and chiseled fratures made him the perfect romantic hero. Born in Ancona, the son of an Italian naval shipbuilder, he grew up intending to become a maritime engineer. But once Mr. Corelli entered a Florence singing contest. To his astonishment, he took a prize, and was seriously encouraged to study voice. Mr. Corelli debuted in Bizet's "Carmen" at Spoleto in 1951. Three years later he bowed at La Scala, opposite Maria Callas, in landmark stagingof Gasparo Spontini's "La Vestale". la Scala became an operatic home, the Metropolitan Opera another: After his sensational 1961 debut there in "IlTrovatore", opposite another debutante, Leontyne Price, he became a pillar of the company for the next decade, singing major Verdi and Pucciniroles, not the least of them Calaf in "Turandot" - he and Bergit Nilsson would regularly raise the roof in that one. Mr.Corelli sang with a rapid, fine-grained vibrato, the natural pulsation like that a violin or cello, typical of earlier 20th - century singers like Caruso. And it lent a flamelike urgency to his singing. In that veim, he would ,also, like Caruso , glide on his vibratobetween the notes of a melodic phrase -an expresive technique caled portamento. Mr.Corelli knew how to impart additional pathos to a phrase with a weep in the voice. But he was never a lachrymose singer. And of course, there are the gleaming Corelli high notes, the top C in "Di quella pira" from "Il Trovatore" and the top C and final B-flat in the beautiful "Bianca al par" in the Italian version of Meyerbeer's "Les Huguenots". I treasure a pirate recording of his incendiary 1962 La Scala performance of this opera as I do his noble 1960 La Scala performance of Donizetti's Poliuto, opposite Callas. ..in the warmth of the spotlight, Mr.Corelli would instantly transform himself into the musical god his audiences adored. ..he was an extremely deliberate technician whose rock-solid technique enable him to sing the end of "Celeste Aida" with full-throated attack of the final B-flat before miraculously diminishing the tone to a dulcet pianissimo. And he spent his life perfecting his instument, taping each performance so he could listen and improve upon it. He also taught privately. One student during the 1980s was the American tenor Neil Shicoff, who sings the formidable role of Eleazar in the Met's new production of Jacques Fromental Halevy's grand opera "La Juive" this week. "I did not work with him on particular music, but purely on vocal technique", recalls Mr.Shicoff. Mr. Shicoff acknowledges that' I have heard wonderful tenors in my lifetime, with wonderful voices and high notes. But nobody, nobody I ever heard live was like Franco Corelli. |
The Wall Streer Journal, 4 November 2003 Barrymore Laurence Scherer |
Metropolitan Opera honored the life and career of Franco Corelli |
."His reputation .. colored by the purely commercial quality" |
The appoitment of Peter Gelb, 51, as the next genaral manager of the Metropolitan Opera, which was announced Saturday is in some ways as surprising. Mr.Gelb,who will begin work with Mr. Volpe on Aug. 2005, assuming the job in full one year later, is an equally radical choice. He best-known achievment, however, is the reinvention of the Sony Classical label. Mr. Gelb was film and television producer. While his reputation may be colored by purely commercial quality of some of his Sony creations... |
"The Met Opera's New Radical Choice" The Wall Street Journal November 2, 2004 |
Ancona onora il suo Grande Tenore Franco Carelli Dal 21 marzo fino al 12 aprile al Teatro delle Muse sara possibile visitare la mostra multimediale sul tenore dorico Franco Corelli:l'esposizione comprende materiali di archivio della Rai, registrazioni, filmati, interviste, fotografie, locandine e manifest. www.gomarche.it |
Le Muse per Corelli |
Le Muse per Corelli, a tribute by the city Ancona in which Franco Corelli was born and the theatre Teatro delle Muse which he inaugureted in 2002 when it reopened, promises to be one of the most significant celebration out of all those organised around the world to commemorate this unforgettable artist. The commission for the first "Franci Corelli" International Award awarded prize to master Corrado Rovaris, for the level of the deep and intelligent contribution given to the Mozartian interpretation in the musical direction of the opera Il Re pastore, which opened the 2003-2004 Lyrical Season in Ancona. Over and above considering the staging of the opera in its various constituting elements, the Award has anothe Impotant peculiarity: the winner receives an original sculpture which is crafted specially for the occasion by a great artist and which is different every year. Eliseo Mattiacci, one of the prominent figures of the renewwal of art since the Sixties, sculpted the piece for the first edition of the "Franco Corelli" International Award. The second edition of the "Franco Corelli" International Award awarded the prize to soprano Carmela Remigio. She will have the concert in Teatro delle Muse on 26 April, 2006 in occasion of the Ceremony of delivery of the second edition of the International Prize assigned to the soprano for her interpretation of role Adalgisa "Norma" in Lyric Season 2004-2005 The winner will receive also a sculpture by Valeriano Trubbiani. |
Carmela Remigio as Adalgise "Norma" |
Teatro delle Muse, Ancona, Italy |
Events that dedicates to Franco Corelli In Teatro delle Muse ( Ancona, Italy) will be until 05/7/2006 tel 071-52525 fax 071-52622 boxoffice@teatrodellemuse.org |
click on picture to listen voice of Beverly Sills |
( 1929-2007 ) |
King Harld V of Norway officially opened Norway's National Opera House on April 12, 2008. |
with a Gala featuring the National Ballet, National Opera Orchestra and performances of works of Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Edward Grieg. |
Orpheo, Monteverdi will be the first opera to be performed in the new opera house on May 29, 2008. |
The first opera on the main stage will be "Don Carlos" in September 2008 |
