First up is “A Visit to Friends,” a new opera by Collin Matthews and William Boyd. It stars Lotte Betts-Dean, Susanna Hurrell, Marcus Farnsworth, Edward Hawkins, and Gary Mattewman. Jessica Cottis conducts and Rachael Hewer directs.

Performance Date: June 13 & 14, 2025

James Davy leads the Britten Pears Chamber Choir in a concert featuring works by Helen Grime and Daniel Kidane.

Performance Date: June 15, 2025

Mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean and pianist George Xiaoyuan Fu join forces with filmmaker Matilda Hay for works by Schubert and a film by Hay.

Performance Date: June 15, 2025

Allan Clayton and Claire Booth join Ryan Wigglesworth and the Knussen Chamber Orchestra for a program of works by Beethoven, Britten, and Helen Grime.

Performance Date: June 15, 2025

Soprano Claire Booth headlines a “Creative Discussion: Speak of the North” alongside composer Gavin Higgins, poet Katrina Porteous, and historian Professor Julian Wright.

Performance Date: June 16, 2025

Soprano Claire Booth headlines “The Idea of North: Grieg, Grainger, and Gavin Higgons” alongside Christopher Glynn and Tamsin Waley-Cohen.

Performance Date: June 17, 2025

Anna-Maria Helsing leads the BBC Concert Orchestra and Iceland Philharmonic Choir in music by Grieg, Lindberg, Mendelssohn, Nielsen, Alfvén, Mäntyjärvi, and Richter, among others.

Performance Date: June 17, 2025

Soprano Sophie Bevan headlines a program of music by Betsy Jolas and Ravel alongside the Knussen Chamber Orchestra Players and pianist Ryan Wigglesworth.

Performance Date: June 18, 2025

Tenor Allan Clayton headlines a program of works by Kidane, Turnage, and Nielsen alongside the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner.

Performance Date: June 19, 2025

Allan Clayton stars in “Lamentations” alongside the Dunedin Consort. The program includes music by Caroline Shaw, Zelenka, Coult, and Bach.

Performance Date: June 21, 2025

Soprano Anu Komsi performs Strauss’ “Vier letze Lieder” alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sakari Oramo. The concert also includes violinist Leila Josefowicz in Helena Grimes’ Violin Concerto.

Performance Date: June 21, 2025

Soprano Juliet Fraser headlines her own composition, “Lament.”

Performance Date: June 21, 2025

Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu perform works by Britten, Eisler, Barber, Brahms, Grieg, Schubert, Weber, and Tchaikovsky, among others.

Performance Date: June 22, 2025

Allan Clayton stars in a concert alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra that includes music by Helen Grime, Britten, Sibelius, and Brian Elias.

Performance Date: June 22, 2025

Benjamin Appl and James Bailieu headline a recital of German Lieder. Also on the program are sopranos Lyriel Benameur and Ceferina Penny, as well as pianists Archie Bonham and Francesca Lauri.

Performance Date: June 23, 2025

Alphonse Cemin conducts an ensemble that includes mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska in a program that includes works by Tyshawn Sorey, Cassandra Miller, and Boulez.

Performance Date: June 23, 2025

Sopranos Lyriel Benameur and Ceferina Penny, as well as pianists Archie Bonham and Francesca Lauri, headline a program of works by Marx, Wolf, Nadia Boulanger, Lili Boulanger, Fauré, Bonis, and Satie, among others.

Performance Date: June 24, 2025

Benjamin Appl and James Baillieu headline a program entitled “Fischer-Dieskau: Singer, Hero, Mentor.”

Performance Date: June 24, 2025

Soprano Ana Kimsi and violinist Sakari Oramo perform Kurtág’s “Kafka-Fragments.”

Performance Date: June 24, 2025

Soprano Sophie Bevan headlines “Remembering Jennifer Vyvyan” alongside pianist Ryan Wigglesworth. The program includes works by Micahel White, Rameau, Britten, Poulenc, and several traditional songs.

Performance Date: June 26, 2025

The BBC Singers, under Sofi Jeannin, perform works by Britten, Palestrina, Daniel Kidane, Schoenberg, Poulenc, and Thea Musgrave.

Performance Date: June 26, 2025

Tenor Nick Pritchard and pianist Ian Tindale perform works by Britten, Holst, and Daniel Kidane.

Performance Date: June 27, 2025

Antonio Pappano and Allan Clayton perform works by Vaughan Williams, Britten, and Elgar, alongside the London Symphony Orchestra principals.

Performance Date: June 28, 2025

The post Allan Clayton, Benjamin Appl, Sophie Bevan, Claire Booth, Lotte Betts-Dean Headline Aldeburgh Festival 2025 appeared first on OperaWire.

So as has become our tradition, here is a look at some of OperaWire’s editorial team’s picks for their personal favorite performances of 2024.

Matt Costello: Act three of “Götterdämmerung” – Tanglewood

It’s always a tricky thing to think about one’s “Performance of the Year.” Especially challenging when there were a great number of remarkable performances – for which, at this end of year – I am certainly thankful.

But for this exercise, I used some helpful criteria. First, was it extraordinary? Obvious one that. Then: were all the elements of the performance at the same or similar wonderful level? And finally, is there something perhaps surprising about it….even unexpected? And with that, it was easy to make a choice. This year, during their always fantastic summer season, Tanglewood and the Boston Symphony Orchestra programmed Act three of Wagner’s tetralogy finale, “Götterdämmerung.” 

Extraordinary? Well, the BSO, under Andris Nelsons, always hits that mark. And the performers, remarkable as well, led by Christine Goerke’s Brünnhilde and Michael Weinius’s Siegfried. But the entire ensemble was simply wonderful. 

And the surprise? That in a summer concert series, people picnicking on the lawn, candles and bubbly often spotted, such a weighty piece was scheduled, and then pulled off. And with such intense drama…despite no sets and mostly minus props, and yet riveting. Totally compelling – and I say this having been to the mecca of Wagner performances, Bayreuth.

Bernardo Gaitan: “Il cappello di paglia di Firenze” – Teatro alla Scala

This is undoubtedly one of the best shows of 2024, showcasing a fresh revitalization of a little-known gem from the operatic repertoire. This hilarious contemporary farce by Nino Rota—a prolific yet often unperformed composer in the operatic realm—shone brightly in an impeccable production that perfectly captured the work’s light and sophisticated essence.

The post Best of 2024: OperaWire’s Team on the Best Performances of the Year appeared first on OperaWire.

While Benajmin and Crimp’s colleagues on the contemporary opera scene pander to audiences with trendy and timely topics, the British duo returns to truly universal sources—the archetypal myths that transcend time and culture. “Picture a day like this” is an hourlong chamber opera in the pattern of their first creation, “Into the Little Hill”—a dark retelling of “The Pied Piper.”

“Picture” adapts another, less familiar folktale that appears in various guises across the globe. Its plot is deceptively simple: a nameless Woman’s child dies, and the village crones tempt her with a magical solution. If she can track down a truly happy person by the end of the day and cut a button from their clothes, her son will live again.

Crimp’s libretto is reminiscent of “The Little Prince”—the possible candidates on the Woman’s list recall the string of self-deluded grown-ups that Saint-Exupéry’s pint-sized hero encounters. Initially, they seem happy. But as soon as the Woman scratches slightly beneath the surface, she discovers that their happiness is false.

The episodic format offers Benjamin the opportunity to develop a distinct sound world for each of the five contenders. Actually, two distinct sound worlds—one representing their supposed state of felicity and another once the Woman learns the reality of their situation. There’s a moment during each scene when this “switch” occurs, indicated by a drastic change in style and instrumentation.

She first meets two Lovers, a soprano and countertenor, who seem eternally suspended in erotic ecstasy. Their lines, supported by a rustic consort of recorders, intertwine like Poppea and Nerone’s. Benjamin has a way of staggering and overlapping voices that feels both conversational and lyrical—a stylized naturalism that is particularly effective in this duet.

The parodies of swelling Wagnerian climaxes evaporate as soon as the male Lover offhandedly explains that their relationship is open—something the female Lover didn’t entirely agree to. Sputtering brass and side-drum motives intrude, taken up by countertenor Cameron Shahbazi as he stutters out the word “polyamory.” Shahbazi comes off as a smarmy narcissist, yet simultaneously smooth-talking and seductive.

Following the Lovers, the Woman comes across an Artisan—a button-maker, in fact, whose button-covered suit is sonically simulated with a cabasa rattle. Backed by piccolo birdsong, baritone John Brancy ascends into his falsetto, scaling what resembles a natural overtone series.

It’s a delirious and almost giddy happiness that turns out to be, in his words, “dose-related.” To prevent himself from self-harm, the Artisan is dependent on anti-psychotic drugs, which Brancy bellows for with sinister desperation. The strings’ pricking pizzicato and cut-like col legno strokes are uncomfortably suggestive of razor nicks. Brancy offers a performance that is equal parts terrifying and affecting. He reaches a near-shouted A-flat when he exposes the rope-burn around his neck, the ensemble bursting into a fff chord of suffocating intensity.

Crimp wisely follows this with a comic intermezzo featuring an egotistical young composer. Soprano Beate Mordal’s endless self-aggrandizing is accompanied by flashy Vivaldian string figuration. Her execution is hilariously cocky and braggadocious, especially the cartoonish repetitions of “happy, happy, happy” that mask her character’s inner doubt.

The sequence of contrasting musical moments in Benjamin’s score calls to mind “Bluebeard’s Castle,” with its separate sonic palettes for each of the rooms. And as in Bartók’s opera, the scenes are unified by a kind of ritualistic repetition indebted to the structure of fairytales. The beginning of every scene, for instance, is marked by a muted trio of two trumpets and trombone. Its function is akin to the “Promenade” theme between the movements of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” But the little contrapuntal fanfares the trio plays are stylistically closer to medieval music, establishing an archaic atmosphere.

At the close of every scene is a series of clock chimes played on the tubular bells—a reminder that the Woman has until nightfall to carry out her mission. They always toll on the same two pitches, E-flat and D, which emerge as an idée fixe in Benjamin’s score. This descending half-step is first heard in the Woman’s opening line on the phrase “had died” when she relates the passing of her child. The motive’s association with these words, along with it’s keening, downward motion, would seem to connect it to mourning.

But this isn’t a Wagnerian-style leitmotif tied down to a single concept. Benjamin’s approach to musical meaning is closer to the Symbolist movement. It’s why Crimp is such an ideal match for the composer—both artists deal in the inscrutable and the ambiguous, only gradually revealing the half-lit shapes that hover at the edges of our consciousness.

Benjamin’s sonic symbol, though confined to just a pair of pitches, accumulates a vast constellation of associations as the opera progresses. It’s not simply an emblem of sorrow. Rather, it comes to represent the Woman’s obsessive belief that the resurrection of her child will bring her happiness—a notion that we slowly begin to realize is an impossibility, since no happy person exists in her world.

The opera’s cyclicality is momentarily broken halfway through by a solo passage for the Woman—a number that Benjamin explicitly labels “Aria.” Crimp’s ABA-form text would seem to call for a corresponding da capo setting. Yet Benjamin resists this urge. Instead, he traces a wide-ranging emotional trajectory. Mezzo Marianne Crebassa audibly passes through all five stages of grief. Backed by searing quadruple-stop harmonies, she rails against fate, cursing her lot in bitter, sobbing phrases.

Crebassa’s cathartic wail on “I wanted miracles” marks a complete shift in the aria. Her hushed delivery conveys that hollow numbness one feels after weeping. The vocal writing takes on a folksy quality, reminiscent of an Eastern European funeral lament. It closes with a passage of unexpected and unaffected melodic beauty, enveloped in a dewy cloud of harp and celesta. This finely crafted aria is the highlight of a role that is exquisitely tailored to Crebassa’s instrument. Benjamin takes ample advantage of her earthy bottommost register—her groaning low notes are positively gut-wrenching.

Following a Berg-like orchestral interlude on the E-flat/D motive, the Woman finds herself at the twilit home of Zabelle—finally, a truly happy person who dwells in domestic bliss with her family. Benjamin evokes her Edenic garden in lush textures that teem with instrumental activity. As Zabelle, soprano Anna Prohaska describes her paradisiac life in soaring flights of avian coloratura tinged with folk inflections. It’s a performance of such effortless, inhuman perfection that it borders on the impossible.

Indeed, the side drum ricochets that punctuate the scene—which seem to imitate the shimmer of a mirage—hint that all is not what it seems. Zabelle explains that the tableau is merely an illusion, a kind of frozen vision of times long gone. At some point in the past, a group of men invaded her home, seized her possessions, and kidnapped or murdered her husband and children. The details are left purposefully hazy. But considering the Armenian origins of Zabelle’s name, as well as the genocidal allegory of Crimp and Benjamin’s earlier “Into the Little Hill,” it’s likely that she was the victim of an ethnic cleansing. “I’m happy only because I don’t exist,” Zabelle explains before fading away. Meanwhile, the E-flat/D chimes signal that the Woman has failed her task.

Or has she? In the final scene, as the village crones gleefully mock her for trying the undo death itself, the Woman stretches out her hand to reveal a button. Whose? It couldn’t belong to any of the pseudo-felicitous individuals on her list. Nor to Zabelle, who was merely a memory projected into the present. Could it be the Woman’s, cut from her own sleeve? Perhaps she has attained, not happiness—which is dependent entirely on luck and circumstance—but a form of contentment. Or perhaps she’s achieved some Buddhist transcendence of worldly attachment. Benjamin’s closing music again conjures a verdant garden—a personal Eden or Nirvana where the falling half-step motive is transformed into a pastoral cuckoo call on clarinet.

While the libretto of “Picture a day like this” resembles a fable, there’s no pre-packed Aesopian moral at the end. It’s closer to a Zen koan—a paradoxical aphorism or anecdote that isn’t “solvable” in the sense of a riddle, but is meant to inspire meditation. In an age when sanctimonious creators of opera feel compelled to beat listeners over the head with political platitudes, Crimp and Benjamin show genuine respect for their audiences. Their musical myths challenge and provoke, but ultimately allow spectators to glean their own, deeply personal interpretations.

The post CD Review: George Benjamin & Martin Crimp’s ‘Picture a day like this’ appeared first on OperaWire.

As the holiday season arrives, this week also features several high-profile recordings by superstars including a Christmas album that features many classics.

Schubert Lieder 

Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky releases a new album of Schubert Lieder.

In a statement, he said, “Schubert’s music has been with me always, throughout my career as a musician: violinist, pianist, and ultimately singer. This album is a declaration of love, for his genius but also for the German language. I am delighted to rejoin Jérôme Ducros, on this our third album together, and in this program of Lieder we’ve carefully selected.”

Aletheia

Ondine releases Aletheia, choral works by New York-based Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė. The album features four choral works exploring the direct emotional expression of singing voices without a text. The works are performed by the Latvian Radio Choir under the direction of Sigvards Klava.

Tales of song and sadness

“Tales of Song and Sadness” is released featuring a double tribute commemorating the demise of Frans Brüggen and Louis Andriessen. The recording features the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Cappella Amsterdam, under the direction of Daniel Reuss.

The Christmas Album 

Benjamin Appl continues his collaboration with Alpha Classics celebrating Christmas through the enduring tradition of Bach chorales and popular carols. Appl is joined by Germany’s children’s choir Regensburger Domspatzen, the Munich Radio Orchestra, and his mother on guitar.

In a statement, he said, “Christmas evokes intense memories and emotions in all of us. It takes us back to our childhood: that sense of magic and excitement, so often reawakened by the sight of a traditional Nativity scene, or the lights on a Christmas tree, or by hearing Christmas carols. It was with all these images in mind that I returned to my hometown to record this album with ‘my’ boys’ choir. When, after more than twenty years, I found myself back among the choristers and heard the familiar sound, the emotion was very intense.”

Dark Hymnal

Composer David T. Little releases a brand new album, “Dark Hymnal,” on Cantaloupe Music.

“Dark Hymnal” is a series of electronic “meditations” derived from Little’s opera film “Black Lodge,” and includes samples from the opera’s original soundtrack, performed by Timur and the Dime Museum and Isaura String Quartet and featuring text by librettist Anne Waldman.

In a statement Little says, “As you listen, your ears might deceive you, at times making you think you hear things that aren’t actually there. It might at other times feel as if the music—and the audio—is attempting to crack out of the frames which contain it: sounds throb and push against speaker cones; chords melt, or vanish after merely a hint, their harmonies showing one path, then pivoting toward another, more dangerous, more enticing. Dark Hymnal may feel simultaneously lulling and disconcerting, comforting and perplexing, and even at times, frightening; a work with its spiritual roots in the world of Black Lodge.”

Kris Defoort: The Time of Our Singing

Kris Defoort’s fourth opera is recorded by Claron McFadden, Mark S. Doss, Simon Bailey, and Levy Sekgapane. La Monnaie Chamber Orchestra is conducted by Kwamé Ryan.

Gluck: Iphigénie en Aulide

Alpha Classics releases a new recording of Gluck’s only French opera. The recording stars Judith van Wanroij, Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Cyrille Dubois, Tassis Christoyannis, and Jean-Sébastien Bou. Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles and Le Concert de la Loge is conducted by Julien Chauvin in his first operatic recording.

Jacques Offenbach: La Vie Parisienne

Anne-Catherine Gillet, Véronique Gens, Artavazd Sargsyan, Sandrine Buendia, Marc Mauillon, Jérôme Boutillier, and Pierre Derhet star in this classic Offenabch work. The Orchestre National et Choeur du Capitole de Toulouse is conducted by Romain Dumas. Bru Zane releases.

Choir Concerto

The SWR Vokalensemble is conducted by Yuval Weinberg in music by Alfred Schnittke, Artemy Vedel, and Dmitry Bortniansky. SWR Music releases the album.

Giacomo Puccini: Messa di Gloria

BR Klassik releases Puccini’s work with Tomislav Mužek, and George Petean. Ivan Repušić conducts the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Munich Radio Orchestra.

In a review by OperaWire, Bob Dieschburg said, “The Croatian demonstratively purges the score of the operatic, turning out a surprisingly refined, and lyrical interpretation of this almost-renegade in the Puccini repertory.”

Welcome Joy – A Celebration of Women’s Voices 

Chandos releases Freddie Crowley and his Corvus Consort new album and is joined by harpist Louise Thomson. The album features music by Gustav Holst, Imogen Holst, Elizabeth Poston, Judith Weir, Gemma McGregor, Olivia Sparkhall, Hilary Campbell, and Shruthi Rajasekar.

Puccini: Tosca

C Major releases Puccinio’s timeless thriller from the Arena di Verona. Recorded in June 2023, the work stars Sonya Yoncheva, Vittorio Grigolo, Roman Burdenko, Carlo Bosi, and Giorgi Manoshvili. Francesco Ivan Ciampa conducts the classic production by Hugo de Ana.

Carl Maria von Weber: Der Freischütz

C Major Releases Bregenz Festival’s production of Weber’s famed work. Recorded in July 2024, the opera stars Mauro Peter, Nikola Hillebrand, Christof Fischesser, Katharina Ruckgaber, and Moritz von Treuenfels. Enrique Mazzola conducts Philipp Stölzl’s production.

Verdi: Ernani

Verdi’s early work is released by C Major Entertainment from the Bregenz Festival. Saimir Pirgu, Guanqun Yu, Franco Vassallo, and Goran Jurić star in the recording which was made in August 2023. The Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Wiener Symphoniker are conducted by Enrique Mazzola. Lotte de Beer directs.

Then and Now

American tenor Gregory Kunde releases a new album in which he looks back at the music he first fell in love with as a boy, the pop jukebox standards of the day, delivered by the likes of Sinatra, Bennett, and Darin. Delos releases the new album.

Andrew Lloyd Webber: Requiem & Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings

BR Klassik releases the live recording from the Herz-Jesu Church in Munich that was made in 2023 as a tribute to the British composer’s 75th birthday. The requiem stars Soraya Mafi, Benjamin Bruns, and Florian Markus/Henrik Brandstetter. Patrick Hahn conducts.

The post Sonya Yoncheva, Benjamin Appl, Philippe Jaroussky, Gregory Kunde & Saimir Pirgu Lead New CD/DVD Releases appeared first on OperaWire.

On Nov. 15, the company will present a concert “The Future is Now” at the Herbst Theatre. The evening will feature 2024 Adler Fellows: sopranos Georgiana Adams, Caroline Corrales, Arianna Rodriguez and Olivia Smith; mezzo-soprano Nikola Printz; tenor Thomas Kinch; baritone Samuel Kidd; bass-baritones Jongwon Han and James McCarthy; and pianists Julian Grabarek and Yang Lin. They will be accompanied by the San Francisco Opera Orchestra under the baton of Benjamin Manis.

The evening will include music by Mozart, Handel, and Verdi and an excerpt from Kevin Puts’ “The Hours.”

The other evening will take place on Nov. 17 featuring the San Francisco Opera Chorus in concert at the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building. Chorus Director John Keene conducts, and Associate Chorus Master Fabrizio Corona provides support at the keyboard for this afternoon of a cappella and accompanied choral works. The 75-minute program features selections from the concert, sacred, and opera repertoires, including music by Charles Gounod, George Frideric Handel, Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Reena Esmail and Gwyneth Walker.

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Yannick Nézet-Séguin has been awarded the Kilenyi Bruckner Medal of Honor by the Bruckner Society.

The Philadelphia Orchestra announced the news via social media and said, “Congratulations to Music and Artistic Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on being awarded the Kilenyi Bruckner Medal of Honor by the Bruckner Society! Dr. Benjamin Korstvedt, president of the Bruckner Society of America, presented Yannick with the medal amid a successful weekend of performances of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony.”

The Kilenyi Bruckner Medal of Honor by the Bruckner Society is an award by the American sculptor Julio Kilenyi of New York who wanted to give formal expression to his great love for the Bruckner’s music and designed an exclusive Medal of Honor.

Past recipients include George Szell, Leon Botstein, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Bruno Walter, Arturo Toscanini, and Paul Hindemith.

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This week it’s all about the tenor. Three of opera’s leading tenors release albums that feature their vocal depths and their passion. There are a number of the world premiere recordings and several choral albums.

Ways You Went

Donald Nally’s chamber choir The Crossing releases its latest studio album which features original compositions by composers Martin Bresnick and Mason Bates.

Bresnick’s song cycle “Self-Portraits 1964” exclusively deals with the life and personality of a single man while Bates’ trilogy “Mass Transmission” takes a telegraph conversation between mother and daughter in the 1920s and sets it to music.

Ombre di luce

Nathan Granner presents an album of tenor arias by Paër, Mozart, Gluck, Salieri, and Bologne. He is joined by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, under the baton of Clelia Cafiero. PENTATONE releases the album.

In a statement, Granner said, “As I sit here, reflecting on the creation of this album, I can’t help but marvel at the parallels between our modern world and the Age of Enlightenment. Just like the classical era from 1750 to 1827, we find ourselves seeking comfort and stability amidst the chaos that surrounds us. The societal changes and revolutions of THAT time transformed every aspect of life, from literature and music to the very nature of war. It was a time when people began to demand their rights. Opera characters like Beaumarchais’ Figaro and Susanna and Da Ponte’s Don Ottavio subtly led to real-world shifts in how we treated one another.”

George Benjamin and Ensemble Modern

Ensemble Modern Media will release a new album featuring four works by George Benjamin, performed by the Ensemble Modern Orchestra and soprano Anna Prohaska. The album features “A Mind of Winter” “At First Light,” “Palimpsests” and the arrangements of the “Art of the Fugue.”

Nessun Dorma

Warner Classics releases Pene Pati’s second album, which balances favorite numbers with operatic rarities – two of them in world premiere recordings. The album features works by Puccini, Verdi, Donizetti, Mascagni, Mercadante, Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Massenet, Halévy and Guiraud. Joining the Samoan tenor on the album are his soprano wife, Amina Edris, his tenor brother Amitai Pati, conductor Emmanuel Villaume, the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Choeur de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Roberto Alagna 60

Aparte Music celebrates Roberto Alagna’s 60th birthday and his 40th career anniversary,

Alagna performs alongside the Morphing Chamber Orchestra under Giorgio Croci in a program that is very much in his image: showing a contagious passion, and an insatiable appetite for the exploration of different repertoires and styles. The repertoire includes the works of Gounod, Massenet, Thomas, Adam, Verdi, Leoncavallo, Pergolesi, Wagner, Flotow, Moniuszko, Tchaikovsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. There are also Italian and French songs as well as English and South American crossover music.

Fairy Tale Song Cycle

Siblings Jennifer Shorstein and Benjamin Shorstein release their first recording with their “Fairy Tales” song cycle on Madre Vaca Records.

The Shorstein siblings have been crafting songs together for years, with Jennifer writing the words and Benjamin the music. In a statement, Benjamin Shorstein says “writing songs with Jennifer is a dream; she creates these beautiful, evocative scenes. It’s the most exciting thing to sit down at the piano with her lyrics and explore the musical terrain they inspire.” The work features soprano and tenor voices, piano, violin, cello, percussion, and clarinet.

Four vocalists, including another Shorstein sibling, Rebecca, perform the piece with instrumentalists from the Bold City Contemporary Ensemble. Sopranos Rebecca Shorstein and Monica Pasquini are joined by tenor Jake McKenna and soprano Jennifer Anderson.

Chamber Music by James Joyce, Vol. 1

Desmond Earley and the Choral Scholars of University College Dublin present an album of world-premiere recordings of choral works commissioned from 18 composers to accompany poems from the 1907 poetry collection “Chamber Music,” by the celebrated Irish novelist and poet James Joyce. Signum Classics Classics releases the album.

Zarzuela

Juan Diego Flórez releases his upcoming album “Zarzuela” which will be released on his new record label, Florez Records. The tenor performs music by José Serrano, Federico Moreno Torroba, Pablo Luna, Ruperto Chapí, Gerónimo Giménez, Rafael Calleja & Tomás Barrera, Reveriano Soutullo & Juan Vert, Amadeo Vives, and Agustín Pérez Soriano. Flórez is joined by the Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra and Choir and Spanish conductor Guillermo García Calvo.

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This week audiences will get to hear one of the great tenors of his generation alongside some of the greatest sopranos in one album dedicated to Puccini. There are also world premiere recordings of new works and one debut album. Here is a look.

Robeson

In a statement, Tines said, “This album is my most personal artistic statement to date. I’ve endeavored to compare and contrast my journey as an artist with that of my artistic ancestor and hero, Paul Robeson, the unparalleled singer, actor, and activist. Standing on his beliefs of egality for the disenfranchised led to governmental and public attacks that almost ended his life. This album is the fever dream of the universal journey to battle internal and external persecution in order to find one’s self and decide what you need to say the most now that you’ve survived.”

Bach: Arias for Alto

Zoltán Daragó makes his long-awaited album debut showcasing the countertenor in 11 arias from well-known and lesser-known cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach. Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset are featured on the album.

The post Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Netrebko, Davóne Tines, Sonya Yoncheva & Zoltán Daragó Lead New CD/DVD Releases appeared first on OperaWire.

The Virginia Opera announced its 2024-25 season which will be performed at the Harrison Opera House, Center for the Arts at the George Mason University and Dominion Energy Center.

First up is “Don Giovanni” in a production by Kyle Lnag and starring Ethan Vincent, Alexandra Loutsion, Symone Harcum, Wm. Clay Thompson, Jordan Costa, Ricardo Lugo, Chase Sanders, and Patrick Wilhelm.

Performance Date: Sept. 27-Oct. 13, 2024

Bizet’s “Carmen” will be the second production of the season. The opera stars Lisa Marie Rogali, Zach Borichevsky, Rolfe Dauz, and Alicia Russell Tagert. Kyle Lang directs.

Performance Dates: Nov. 8-24, 2024

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Così fan Tutte” will be performed as the third showcase of the season. Mo Zhou directs a cast starring Keely Futterer, Kristen Choi, Terrence Chin-Loy, Ethan Vincent, Joseph Barron, and Ashley Fabian.

Performance Dates: Feb. 14-March 2, 2025

Damien Geter and Jessica Murphy Moo’s “Loving V. Virginia” will make its world premiere in a production by Denyce Graves. The opera stars Flora Hawk, Jonathan Michie, Troy Cook, Christian Sanders, Benjamin Werley, and Adam Richardson, among others.

Performance Dates: April 25-May 11, 2025

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It felt like a significant event – Friday, June 14’s remounting by Opera Australia of the 2022 Adelaide Festival hit, “Watershed,” about the 1972 murder of Adelaide University law lecturer, Dr. Ian Duncan. This revival in the Sydney Opera House spoke to the success of the work at its first airing. Surely it had resonated in Adelaide, where the tragic events took place, but how would this work, described as an oratorio by its creators – Brisbane composer Joseph Twist, Sydney and Melbourne librettists Alana Valentine and Christos Tsiolkas respectively, and Sydney director Neil Armfield – fare in its transfer to Sydney? You could expect a certain amount of predisposition towards the subject matter, given the size of Sydney’s gay community and the fact that this story looms so large in Australia’s history of gay rights. There had been open weeping during the Adelaide performances, and “Watershed” would receive a standing ovation on opening night in the Sydney Opera House. Ultimately, everyone could find their own moving moment in this work.

“Watershed” is about the drowning of Dr. Duncan in Adelaide’s Torrens River, the banks of which were a well-known ‘gay beat’ in the 1970s. According to the coronial report, the murder was perpetrated by “persons unknown,” but it has long been thought that they were members of the South Australian police. Soon after Duncan’s murder, Adelaide’s morning daily The Advertiser ran an editorial which read “Legalise Homosexuality.” The controversy eventually resulted in a government, led by progressive hero Don Dunstan, passing the first legislation in Australia to decriminalize homosexual acts in 1975. Thus, Dr. Duncan’s murder could be considered a ‘watershed’ moment in Australian politics.

What sort of opera, or oratorio, would this material furnish? Certainly, it was one that sparked memories and galvanized extra-musical interest. Facebook contained reminiscences by people who were in Adelaide at the time and whose lives were touched by the event. A timeline published in the program booklet accompanying an article by historian, Tim Reeves, was chilling in its real-world resonance: “1973, September 19: Peter Duncan [later, Attorney General] introduces dramatically different 1973 bill into House of Assembly; November 21: Bill fails by one vote in Legislative Council…” The librettists in their program note testified to having experienced homophobia. Emotionally charged, then, even before the show began! But what promised to be an emotional experience turned out to also be a very effective piece of theater – an oratorio, claim the creators, but one enlivened by intelligent stage movement and sufficiently informative back-projections. These were of newspaper stories and images of the benign scene – the riverbank where the events took place – to escape any sense of concert-mode staticity. It negotiated the spectrum from musical theater to opera incredibly successfully. The choreographer was Lewis Major and video designer Sean Bacon. The director of “Watershed” was Neil Armfield, whose works have previously been reviewed by OperaWire – Pinchgut Opera’s “Platée” in 2021, and The Met’s production of Brett Dean’s “Hamlet” in 2022.

Primarily, “Watershed” benefitted from an engaging, ear-beguiling score, and a powerful libretto that was by turns raw and uplifting. Composer Joseph Twist has had his work performed by Moby, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chanticleer, and The Wiggles, among others. Winner of the 2013 ASCAP Jimmy van Heusen Award, his music was immediately appealing and apt for every incident. He acknowledges the influence – “tinges” – of Britten, Bach, Adams, and Sondheim. I thought I heard Bernstein and Reich in there as well. But what mattered was that the music served the drama and was frankly impressive in its discovery of music even in prose – a marimba pattern keeping up the tension beneath the dry words of a coroner, for example – but also melodic shape extracted from prose when sung.

Part of the success of the score lay in its constantly-refreshing metric modulations, skilfully managed by conductor Brett Weymark. It was as if Twist already had his ears attuned to the track structure of some projected CD, guaranteeing the audience an impression of the music that they could take away with them. It is worth noting that Twist was described in the program as “Composer and Orchestrator,” a sign of the range of interest he could extract from an ensemble comprising only a small number of strings, two percussionists, a keyboardist, and a guitarist. The powerful text by playwright Alana Valentine and novelist Christos Tsiolkas (author of “The Slap”) was intended to be ‘radiant’ – hence the ‘oratorio’ appellation, perhaps – and it achieved this while being at times blunt and pungently realistic. The performance came with a language warning, but some of the old Australian expressions such as “Too right” – which is (or was) used by a certain vintage of Australian – were just plain moving. Amazing how a word like “poofter” could transport us back to the 1970s and the hostility of pre-Dunstan Australia. Perhaps it is not as common now?

One of the most striking features of the oratorio was the ease with which the work could move between opera and musical theater through well-judged transitions between speech, dialogue, arias, and choruses. This suggested, perhaps, that these two genres are realistically points on the same continuum. The musical tension and release enriched a sometimes straightforward documentary-style recounting of events. The latter is witnessed, for example, when the narrator declares, “Duncan is not yet in the water…”

“Watershed” is ostensibly an oratorio, the dramatic form usually performed without stage movement: but movement enlivened this space. Dancer Macon Escobal Riley, representing the drowning man, and a narrator – the Lost Boy – played by actor and musical theater artist Tomáš Kantor, moved freely across the stage. So too as did a fresh-voiced tenor Mark Oates as Duncan/Dunstan, and authoritative baritone Pelham Andrews as whistle-blower vice squad officer Mick O’Shea/police officer/ lawyer. The drowning man, splashing through a moat onstage, created one of the most radiant moments in the whole work. During the ending, ripples created by Riley’s movement as he was drawn up out of the water were reflected on the proscenium, drawing us all into contemplation, realising that he and Kantor had kissed – finally and with finality. Singers appeared lightly mic’d, such that they could deliver the work’s occasional dialogue clearly without forcing anything.

Some of the most affecting moments were provided by the chorus prepared by Paul Fitzsimon and Michael Curtain. Especially powerful was the sequence early in the show where the date of Dr. Duncan’s drowning is given – May 10, 1972 – and chorus members interject with other dates – presumably instances of other bashings. But the chorus also acted – at times affecting mockingly camp gestures – and had some of the most pungent lines, including presumably the perpetrators’ disclaimer: “We thought all faggots floated / No homos in the Ark.” Twist’s choral writing seemed especially rich and varied. “I would never describe myself as a homosexual,” sings Oates and two women soloists from the chorus respond, “But no priest would give you communion.” Oratorio then, but an element of upbraiding traditional Christianity. There was even an acknowledgement of the Aboriginal owners of the lands around the Torrens River – the use of the traditional name for the river, ‘Karrawirra Parri’ – all tying in, it seems, with a sentiment that “there’s a space in our lands for your name.” The text hits home, with other recognizable Adelaide place-names such as Gawler and Semaphore receiving mention.

A documentary-style structure obliged the creators to move on after the passing of legislation since, in real life, there was a New Scotland Yard investigation that concluded there were inadequate grounds for prosecution. There was the danger here of anticlimax. But individualized lines toward the end, arguably the most moving in the entire work, broadened out the significance of Dr. Duncan’s murder and South Australia’s subsequent public policy change to the wider community, “I’m the archivist who read your case…” and showed the power of colloquial rhyme, “I’m the priest who’s no longer devout / I’m the police diver who dragged your body out.”

Broad appeal may be timely. As Armfield says in his program note, “the forces of reaction are gathering – we wonder, in spite of Marriage Equality and various state-led recognitions of equal rights, just how far this country has come from institutionalised homophobia.” Twist in his program note hopes that “the diversity and accessibility of ‘Watershed’’s music will afford future performances by choirs of all kinds, so that we may continue to share in this important story that touches us all.” He should get that wish.

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