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Browsing: Classical Music

Metropolitan Opera Announces 2011-12 Season Including 11 Live in HD

By Newswire on 17 February 2011 Newswire, Opera

Here is the Metropolitan Opera’s 2011-12 Season announcement.Wah Keung Chan—Seven New Productions, Including a World Premiere,a Met Premiere, and the Complete Ring Cycle,Headline the Met’s 2011-12 SeasonJames Levine conducts the final two installments of Robert Lepage’s production of the Ring: Siegfried and Götterdämmerung; complete cycles scheduledfor April and May 2012The season opens with the first-ever Met performance of Donizetti’s Anna Bolena,starring Anna Netrebko in the first of two new productions she sings this season; Laurent Pelly’s production of Manon follows in AprilThe world premiere of The Enchanted Island, a pastiche of Baroque music and Shakespearean comedy, opens on New Year’s EveTony Award-winning stage directors Michael Grandage and Des McAnuffmake their Met debuts…

Victoires de la Musique Classique in France

By La Scena Musicale Team on 16 February 2011 La Scena Spotlight, Orchestral

By Frank Cadenhead The prime-time live telecast Monday night, February 14, of the French show Victoires de la Musique Classique was already good news. This is the top awards show for classical music in France, comparable to America’s Grammy awards, and it focuses mainly on French artists. But in competition with other shows on the major channels, its traditionally weak ratings always cause talk of taping it and showing it on off hours. This year, from the convention center in the city of Nantes, it headlined the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and their engaging young American conductor, John…

Breaking News: Canadian soprano Simone Osborne Sings Juliette

By Newswire on 14 February 2011 Newswire, Opera

Soprano Simone Osborne (photo: Connor Beaton)It has just been announced that Vancouver soprano Simon Osborne will be making her Vancouver Opera debut as Juliette in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette next season. Below is the Press Release from Vancouver Opera. Osborne burst onto the scene after winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2008, and has since taken on major assignments. Currently she is Pamina in the COC production of The Magic Flute. Upcoming engagements include an Atlantic Canada recital tour, Gilda in Rigoletto for the COC next season, and Mozart Requiem for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in January 2012.*******************Vancouver…

Breaking News: Canadian Peter Barrett Makes Met Debut

By Newswire on 14 February 2011 Newswire, Opera

Just received the following press release from the Met – Newfoundland baritone Peter Barrett is making his Met debut this evening as Dr. Malatesta opposite a stellar cast of Anna Netrebko Norina and Matthew Polenzani as Ernesto. This is great news for Peter and for Canadian opera. He was a member of the COC Ensemble, and even at that early stage of his career, he had all the ingredients of a major singer – gorgeous voice, solid training, stage presence, musicality, and the drive and ability to excel. We say Bravo to Peter, and “Toi toi toi” for this evening!…

Festival of Renaissance Music – Conspirare’s Contemporary Twist

By Paul E. Robinson on 31 January 2011 Concert Reviews, Opera

by Paul E. RobinsonCraig Hella Johnson never ceases to amaze us. Just when you think his exceptional musical imagination has surely outdone itself, he comes up with something even more remarkable. His latest achievement was a festival given at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in Austin and called Renaissance & Response: Polyphony Then and Now. Sound like an article in an academic journal? Perhaps, but that didn’t stop his many followers from selling out four concerts in one weekend and to judge by the concert I attended, enjoying every moment of it.The basic concept of the festival was to combine music…

This Week in Montreal / Cette semaine à Montréal – Jan. 31 – Feb. 6

By La Scena Musicale Team on 27 January 2011 Opera, This Week in Montreal, Violin

Werther @ The Montreal Opera: two shows left on Jan. 31 and Feb. 3It’s your last chance to catch the beloved Massenet adaptation of Goethe’s Sturm und Drang masterpiece. A success since its 1892 premiere, Werther is one of the staples of the operatic repertoire. The Montreal Opera’s production is a rare treat to sample the rare baritone scoring for the lead role, which Massenet wrote himself for Mattia Battistini in 1902. It transfers the action from late 18th-century Germany to 1920s America, in a move which the Gazette’s Arthur Kapatainis suggests alludes to a Gatsby-Daisy relationship between the troubled…

Prix d’Europe Music Journalism Prize

By Newswire on 27 January 2011 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Newswire

For its 100th edition, the Prix d’Europe is launching its Music Journalism Prize in honour of Claude Gingras (Prix d’Europe en journalism en homage à Claude Gingras). All articles (news/information, features including interviews, profiles and music history article, and reviews) published in English and French in 2010 will be eligible. Deadline for submissions: February 28, 2011. http://www.prixdeurope.ca/

Austin Symphony’s New World “Beyond the Score”

By Paul E. Robinson on 23 January 2011 Concert Reviews, Orchestral

By Paul E. Robinson It is always a difficult business to “educate” the classical music audience without talking down to them on the one hand or talking over their heads on the other, and while some subscribers welcome non-musical elements in a concert, others hate them.The Austin Symphony and conductor Peter Bay deserve full marks for making a valiant effort to both educate and entertain at their Long Center concert last week.In the first half of the concert, we were given some background on the piece courtesy of the Chicago Symphony’s (CSO) Beyond the Score series, a multi-media production incorporating…

Austin Symphony Celebrates Mexico!

By Paul E. Robinson on 23 November 2010 Orchestral, World Music

by Paul E. RobinsonLast weekend (November 19 and 20) the Austin Symphony under music director Peter Bay presented an all-Mexican programme. And there was a good reason for it. This year, Mexico is celebrating the 200th anniversary of its independence, and the 100th anniversary of its revolution. A big year for Mexico and President Calderon duly named it “Año de la Patria.”Surprisingly, given the inspiration for this concert, there was virtually nothing in the programme book to let the audience know what it was all about. All we got were the cryptic words “Mexico’s 200/100” on the main programme page.…

Jaap van Zweden Masterly in Shostakovich Eighth

By Paul E. Robinson on 8 November 2010 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Orchestral, Romantic

by Paul E. RobinsonClassical TravelsMeyerson Symphony CentreDallas, TexasOctober 22, 2010Mendelssohn: Violin ConcertoShostakovich: Symphony No. 8Nicola Benedetti, violinDallas Symphony Orchestra/Jaap van ZwedenJaap van Zweden took most of the summer off to nurse a sore shoulder. The recuperation seems to have been successful and he is back in town leading the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) with even more energy than before. Among his specialties are the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler and Shostakovich is not far behind. Last season in Dallas he conducted a stunning performance of the Symphony No. 7 and this season he followed it up with an equally fine…