By David Salazar
Sarasota Opera has announced its 2023-24 season.
The season opens with “The Music of Giacomo Puccini,” a concert featuring famed arias by one of opera’s most renowned composers. The showcase will feature soloists from the Sarasota Opera alongside the Sarasota Orchestra and conductor Victor DeRenzi.
Performance Dates: Nov. 10 & 12, 2023
Next up is Benjamin Britten’s “The Little Sweep.” It will be presented by the Sarasota Youth Opera.
Performance Dates: Nov. 4 & 5, 2023
The 2024 Winter Opera Festival will kick off with “Carmen” for 12 performances.
Performance Dates: Feb. 17 – March 22, 2024
That will be followed up by “Lucia di Lammermoor” for eight performances.
Performance Dates: Feb. 24 – March 23, 2024
Next up is Verdi’s “Luisa Miller,” which gets six performances. The opera was last performed with the company 25 years ago.
Performance Dates: March 9 – 24, 2024
The season ends with “L’infedltà delusa” by Haydn. That opera gets five performances. This will be a company premiere and the first fully-staged production of the opera in the U.S. in over 50 years.
Performance Dates: March 155 – 23, 2025
By David Salazar
Grange Park Opera has announced its summer 2023 slate.
The company will feature three operas between June 8 – July 12, 2023.
First up is Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” The opera will be directed by Charlie Edwards with Gwyn Hughes Jones and Rachel Nicholls as the star-crossed lovers. Joining them will be Christine Rice as Brangäne and David Stout as Kurwenal. As King Marke, audiences will see Matthew Rose. Rounding out the cast will be Mark Le Brocq, Sam Utley, and Thomas Isherwood. Stephen Barlow conducts the Gascoigne Orchestra.
Performance Dates: June 8 – July 9, 2023
Next up is “Tosca,” directed by Stephen Medcalf and conducted by Mark Shanahan, who leads the BBC Concert Orchestra. Izabela Matula takes on the title role alongside Otar Jorjikia as Cavaradossi and Brett Polegato as Scarpia.
Performance Dates: June 10 – July 5, 2023
The final opera of the Grange Park Opera festival will be “Werther” with Leonardo Capalbo and Ginger Costa-Jackson as Werther and Charlotte. Other cast members include Iria Perestrelo, Dominic Sedwick, Alan Ewing, Robin Horgan, and Ross Cummings. Christopher Hopkins conducts the Gascoigne Orchestra. John Doyle directs.
Performance Dates: June 17 – July 12, 2023
By Francisco Salazar
Insignia Athlone Artist Management has announced that industry leader Sean Kelly will join the team representing the European roster.
In a statement, the management team said, “Sean brings a wealth of vocal, operatic, and symphonic knowledge to our team, along with long-time connections to the European market. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome him as a Partner and Artist Manager.”
Kelly has worked as a conductor, pianist, and vocal coach/repetiteur. He has also worked with the Metropolitan Opera, Seattle Opera, The Atlanta, Ft. Worth, and Wolf Trap Operas, as well as the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and Teatro Comunale Francesco Cilea in Italy, and the Istanbul Opera Festival. He was also the Music Director of Brooklyn’s LoftOpera.
Kelly was also Head of Music and Chorusmaster at Opera Omaha and served on the faculties of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia, and the Music Festival of Lucca.
On February 24, at 7PM, the Metropolitan Opera presents a concert to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, in association with Lincoln Center and the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations. Tickets are $50 and go on sale Wednesday, February 1, at 12PM ET. The concert will also be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on Sirius XM Channel 355, made available via the Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, and streamed live on the Met website.
Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leads the Met Orchestra, Chorus, and star soloists in a program of Mozart’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, as well as the Ukrainian National Anthem and Valentin Silvestrov’s “Prayer for Ukraine.” The soloists will be soprano Golda Schultz and mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, as well as Ukrainian tenor Dmytro Popov and Ukrainian bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi.
To support relief efforts in Ukraine, please visit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine website.
By Francisco Salazar
The Teatro alla Scala has announced a conductor change for its concerts on Feb. 15, 16, and 18, 2023.
The company said, “due to family circumstances, Daniel Harding has to withdraw from conducting the concert scheduled for 15, 16, and 18 February. La Scala thanks Daniel Barenboim who made himself available to take his place, on the same dates and with the same program.”
The performances will mark Barenboim’s return to La Scala in seven years. The conductor was the Music Director of the legendary Milan theater from 2011 to 2014.
The concert is set to include Mozart’s Mozart Symphony No. 39, 40, and 41. Audiences not in Milan will be able to see the concert via the company’s new streaming platform.
By Francisco Salazar
The King’s Singers have revealed that their Feb. 11, 2023 concert was canceled due to homophobia.
The ensemble took to social media posting, “we are deeply saddened that our concert at Pensacola Christian College was canceled at two hours’ notice on Saturday, February 11th. The school gave its reasons for cancellation as “Concerns” expressed about the ‘lifestyle’ of members of our group.”
The ensemble added, “it has become clear to us, from a flood of correspondence from students and members of the public, that these concerns related to the sexuality of members of our group.”
The ensemble went on to state that they had performed at the University before and said that it entered the contract knowing that it was a Christian institution. They also added that it was the first time that the ensemble was canceled for this reason.
They concluded, “We look forward to seeing our friends in Northern Florida again soon, in a context where we’re celebrated for who we are as well for the music we make.”
This is the latest incident in Florida that showcases the rise of LGBTQ+ discrimination. Back in March of 2022, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the “Don’t Say Gay” Bill in which “public school teachers in Florida are banned from holding classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity.” The anti-LGBT governor also ordered Florida Universities to Submit Data on Trans People and “recently moved to strip an Orlando performing arts center of its liquor license in retaliation for hosting a holiday-themed drag show in December.”
By Logan Martell
Wexford Festival Opera has announced that Paul Cleary has been appointed as its new Chairman of the board of Wexford Festival Trust, effective this month.
Cleary has volunteered with WFO for nearly 40 years in various administrative and artistic roles. He joined the board of the Wexford Festival Trust in 2014, and served as Vice Chairman from 2016-18; currently, he is the chairman of the Artistic Advisory Committee as well as the Finance Committee. A Wexford native, Cleary graduated from UCD with a degree in Science, going on to hold different positions in the wastewater industry, with extensive experience in sales, marketing, business development, and logistics. Since 2021, he has worked in supply chain consulting with an emphasis on circular economy and sustainable supply chain.
“For over seventy years, Wexford Festival Opera has occupied a unique place in the opera world,” says Cleary in an official press release. “In October 2022 our audiences returned for their first ‘restriction free’ festival in three years. Their joy and happiness being back in Wexford was palpable, a testament to the dedication and commitment of the people of Wexford who over the years have made the festival a truly unique experience. I am honoured to be appointed to the role of Chairman of Wexford Festival Trust. I wish to thank my predecessor, Dr Mary Kelly for guiding the organisation through perhaps the most challenging period of our history. While the emergence from the pandemic still presents challenges, I am confident Wexford Festival Opera will continue to attract and delight opera lovers for many years to come.”
Wexford Festival Opera will lift the curtain on its 72nd season, centered on “Women and War,” on Oct. 24, 2023.
By David Salazar
New Orleans Opera is set to present Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” this March.
The opera will star Hiromi Omura and Bryan Hymel as well as Nina Yoshida Nelson, Weston Hurt, Julius Ahn, André Chiagn, and Hidenori Inoue. Aria Umezawa directs with Judith Yan conducting the Louisiana Philharmonic.
In a statement about the production, Umezawa noted that “In Puccini’s opera, the titular Butterfly has every reason to conjure a fantasy world for herself. The hardship she has endured incentivizes her to accept an offer: the opportunity to marry a man who will afford her the type of security she hasn’t known since the loss of her father. This offer becomes a lifeline and the stakes are high for the arrangement to succeed, but the longer Cio-Cio-San lets herself mistake fantasy for reality, the less she is able to accept the truth of her situation.
Umezawa continued, “in a similar way, we the audience, are emerging from our own periods of hardship, and the desire to escape into a fantasy world for some respite is appealing. But some of the onstage worlds we build are harming members of our community by perpetuating stereotypes and numbing us to violence committed against certain bodies – in the case of ‘Madama Butterfly,’ anti-Asian violence. When we are unaware of the fact that our fantasies have been constructed for us, and when we are not called upon to confront what we are witnessing, we are less able to recognize the truth – that these same narratives are playing out in the world around us: as an online comment, harassment on the street, or at its worst, as a shooting in Georgia.”
The opera opens on March 24 and will get a repeat performance on the 26th.
By David Salazar
Oper Köln is set to present two unique opera productions this coming April.
First up, Oper Köln will present a new version of composer Arnaud Petit’s “La Bête dans la Jungle” based on the novella by Henry James. The work will be world premiered on April 14, 2023 with Frederic Wake-Walker directing. François-Xavier Roth conducts with KS Miljenko Turk and Emily Hindricks starring.
The following day, the company will present a new production of Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Holländer” in a new production by Benjamin Lazar. Roth conducts a cast starring Karl-Heinz Lehner, Ingela Brimberg, Daila Schaechter, Dmitry Ivanchey, Joachim Goltz, and Maximilia Schmitt.
The two operas will get subsequent performances on April 15 – 30 across three weekends.
By Logan Martell
On Feb. 1, 2023, British composer and writer Kit Hesketh-Harvey passed away at the age of 65.
Born on April 30, 1957, in Zomba, Malawi, Hesketh-Harvey was a senior chorister at Canterbury Cathedral before going on to attend Clare College, Cambridge on a choral scholarship. From 1980 to 1987 he was a staff producer for the BBC-TV Music and Arts Department, leaving to write the script for Merchant Ivory’s film “Maurice.” A year later, he studied with Stephen Sondheim as a result of winning the Vivian Ellis Award for musical-theatre writers. Hesketh-Harvey would perform as part of a musical comedy duo with pianist Richard Sisson, called Kit and The Widow, over the next 30 years, going on a number of theater runs on Broadway and West End, as well as international tours.
Among his musicals are “Writing Orlando” and “Yusupov,” which came in partnership with composer James McConnel. He has adapted such works as Offenbach’s “Le Belle Helene” for English National Opera, with his translation of “The Bartered Bride” for the Royal Opera House being nominated for a Grammy award. His translation of “The Merry Widow” was used in Opera North’s 2010-11 season and in the Sydney Opera House in July 2011.
He is survived by his two children, Augusta and Rollo.
