Teatro Regio di Torino Launches New "I Vespri Siciliani"

As previously discussed, the diva taking over the role of Elena in this avante-garde Verdi opera is Sondra Radvanovsky. La Stampa has a gallery featuring great photos from the production. Two more shots after the jump. 

Happy Birthday: Teresa Berganza

Mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza was born on March 16, 1935, in Madrid, Spain. She studied piano and voice at the Madrid Conservatory, where she was awarded first prize for singing in 1954. She made her concert debut in Madrid in 1955. Berganza made her operatic debut as Dorabella in Così fan tutte in 1957 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. That same year, she made her Teatro alla Scala debut and the following year her debut at Glyndebourne. In 1959, Berganza made her first appearances at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, which became one of her signature roles. In 1967, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro. As a recitalist, Berganza made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1964. Her concert repertoire includes Spanish, French, German, and Russian songs. From 1957 to 1977 Berganza was married to the composer and pianist Félix Lavilla, with whom she recorded and performed regularly and with whom she has three children, including soprano Cecilia Lavilla Berganza. Berganza shared the 1991 Prince of Asturias Award for arts and letters with six other Spanish singers. In 1992, Berganza participated in the opening ceremonies of Expo '92 in Seville and the opening ceremonies of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. In 1994, she became the first woman elected to the Spanish Royal Academy of Arts. She currently teaches singing at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, continues to perform music of Spanish composers, and gives master classes all over the world. [Source]

"Longe mala umbrae terrores" RV 629 (Vivaldi)
7 canciones populares Españolas (de Falla)
"Conservati fedele" K23 (Mozart)
"Bramo di trionfar" Alcina (Händel)
"Nacqui all'affanno..Non più mesta" La Cenerentola (Rossini)
"Habanera" Carmen (Bizet)
"Con amores la mi madre" (Obradors)
"L´indifférent" Shéhérazade (Ravel)
"O del mio dolce ardor" Paride et Elena (Gluck)

Be sure to check out the gallery of recordings with original cover art after the jump.

Margaret Price Sings Strauss "Vier Letzte Lieder"

Happy Birthday: Christa Ludwig

"Mainacht" (Brahms)
Leonard Bernstein, piano

The mezzo-soprano was born March 16, 1928, in Berlin, Germany. Her father, Anton Ludwig, was a tenor and opera director. Her mother, Eugenie Besall-Ludwig, was her first voice teacher and a mezzo-soprano at the Aachen Opera House when Herbert von Karajan led the orchestra from 1934 to 1941. Ludwig made her debut in 1946 at the age of 18 as Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus at Frankfurt, where she sang until 1952. She was a member of the Darmstadt Opera from 1952 to 1954, then sang the 1954–1955 season at the Staatsoper Hannover. She joined the Vienna State Opera in 1955, where she became one of its principal artists and was appointed Kammersängerin in 1962 and performed with the company for more than thirty years. In 1954, Ludwig made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, and appeared there regularly until 1981. Ludwig made her

"Starke Scheite schichtet mir dort"
Götterdämmerung (Wagner)

debut as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival in 1966. In 1960, she performed as Adalgisa alongside Maria Callas as Norma, in Bellini's opera by the same title. Ludwig made her American debut at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Dorabella in Così fan tutte in 1959. That same year, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in as Cherubino, and subsequently sang 121 performances until 1993, including the Met premiere of Die Frau ohne Schatten. Ludwig first appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1969 as Amneris in Aida.

MET Sirius XM Radio Tonight: "Lucia di Lammermoor"

Listen to the Metropolitan Opera perform Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor live tonight at 8:00 PM EST on Sirius XM radio. Intermission guests: Peter Mattei, Deborah Hoffman, Dolora Zajick and Gregory Buchalter.

GLEE Followers Rejoice and Mourn In Latest Episode

For fans of the television show Glee, the Warblers at Dalton Academy have a long-standing tradition of giving a canary to a new member. The latest inductee to care for the bird was Kurt. Featured in several of the episodes, the bird has served as a story line linchpin for the musical hit show. Last night's episode will probably be most remembered for the long-awaited kiss between Blaine and Kurt, but opera folks may have been giddy to see Pavarotti being protected from drafts by Kurt's Burberry cage cover. Kurt loves the bird for his "optimism and love of song." *Spoiler alert: The canary dies of an apparent stroke, which prompts Kurt to sing a memorial rendition of "Blackbird" by the Beatles. It is also the moment that Blaine realizes his true feelings for Kurt. Pavarotti the canary even had his own Twitter account and Glee wiki page. Watch the full episode and check out lots of screen caps after the jump.

Renée Fleming Celebrates 20 Years at the Metropolitan Opera

Click on the above image to launch the video interview with Renée Fleming

On March 16, 1991, a young soprano by the name of Renée Fleming was covering the role of Countess Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, when she got the

The soprano in her early
days of New York City

telephone call at her apartment in Queens, NY, that Felicity Lott had the flu and was unable to sing the performance. That began what is now 20 years and over 200 performances at the opera house. Local news channel NY1 has an interview with the soprano talking about growing up singing, her early days in New York at Juilliard, dealing with various crisis (both mental and vocal) throughout her career, being a mother and risking it all to put out an indie-rock crossover album. The interview has lots of early photos of the singer, check out some of them after the jump. [Source]

MET Sirius XM Radio Tonight: "The Queen of Spades"

Listen to the Metropolitan Opera perform Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades live tonight at 8:00 PM EST on Sirius XM radio. Intermission guest: Renée Fleming.

Wallis Giunta: A Canadian North Star Beginning To Shine Brightly

(Photo: Tobin Grimshaw)

The 25-year old mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta could easily be confused for a Hollywood starlet like Isla Fisher, Amy Adams or even a young Julianne Moore with her glamorous looks and auburn hair. A native of Ottawa, she is currently a member of the Canadian Opera Company's Ensemble Studio, but her star is about to get a whole lot brighter. With a schedule that includes a recent stint at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the much-touted production of The Nightingale and Other Short Fables and this week she will partake in New York Festival of Song recitals at the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, N.Y., on March 13 and at New York’s Merkin Hall on March 15 and 17. After studying this coming summer in Italy with Kiri Te Kanawa and Germany with Edith Wiens, she will take

her spot in the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program for the 2011-12 season. The latter achievement came about when she was studying at the Steans Music Institute at Ravinia and met Brian Zeger, director of the LYADP and the vocal-arts department at the Juilliard School of Music, who arranged for her to audition for Maestro James Levine (for which she sang arias from Il Barbiere di Siviglia and La Clemenza di Tito). In November 2010, she saw her first opera at the MET. It was production of Così fan tutte with a cast that included LYADP alumni Nathan Gunn, Isabel Leonard and Danielle de Niese.

Five Winners Chosen in MET National Council Auditions

Finalists pre-concert (left to right): Joseph Lim, Joseph Barron, Deanna Breiwick, Ryan Speedo
Green, Philippe Sly, Sasha Djihanian, Michelle Johnson and Nicholas Masters (Photo: Gothamist)

Of the eight singers selected from 1,500 that participated in the Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions, five were each named winners of a $15,000 prize yesterday. Curiously no mezzo-soprano or tenor voices were represented, except the emcee Joyce DiDonato and the entertainment for the day Lawrence Brownlee. The winners included Michelle Johnson, Joseph Barron, Ryan Speedo Green, Joseph Lim, Philippe Sly. The Sunday concert was conducted by Patrick Summers and the audience nearly filled the cavernous Metropolitan Opera.

How ever you want to describe it, not politically correct, tasteless or even uncouth, the writer Mike Silverman of the Associate Press ends his review thusly: "Brownlee is probably the closest thing there is to a black American superstar in opera these days, so it was especially heartening that two of the winners, Johnson and Green, also are black." [Source, Source]

Boston Lyric Opera Scores with Händel's "Agripinna"

Caroline Worra in the title role with Christian Van Horn
as the Roman emperor Claudio

"The aria [“Voi che udite il mio lamento"] was particularly moving on Friday, thanks to the pure-voiced and uncommonly sensitive singing of the young countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as Ottone. He was well-matched by his Poppea, the impressive Kathleen Kim, who acted vividly and sang with a nimble, clear, gleaming soprano. David Trudgen sang well as Nerone, even if one could imagine additional dimensions to his man-boy conception of the role. Christian Van Horn was a vibrant Claudio, by turns a chest-baring lothario and moralizing sovereign. Jose Alvarez, David McFerrin, and David M. Cushing rounded out this cast. And in the title role, Caroline Worra was vocally and dramatically commanding as a freewheeling Agrippina, crazed with blind ambition for her son yet not without her own sympathetic vulnerabilities." [Source]

Bryn Terfel Stunning in Domingo Celebrity Series

(Photo: Deutsche Grammophon)

Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel had a successful evening of arias and show tunes at the Kennedy Center last week: "It is always a pleasure to see a superstar at the top of his game in a relaxed, unbuttoned performance....Terfel is by now perfectly at ease onstage, making frequent eye contact with audience members while singing and between selections...It is in the extremes - high, low, loud, soft - that his natural gifts most clearly set him apart from others; the sound pours out like warm honey without any sense of strain...At this point in Terfel's career, every performance is a master class in singing and stagecraft."

The maestro conducting the performance did not fair so well: "Domingo's conducting continues to unimpress. While his hand was relatively sure in the numbers he knew from his own repertoire, the difficult 'L'onore!' from Verdi's Falstaff was a mess; he repeatedly allowed the orchestra to swamp Terfel in the show tunes; and he could not find the Viennese lilt in Strauss's Die Fledermaus overture. The Opera House Orchestra is playing well these days, but not always well enough to cover for weak conductors." [Source]

Two Opposing Views of Dolora Zajick in MET "Spades"

Ms. Zajick in Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades
Photo: Marty Sohl/The Metropolitan Opera)

"Though the countess is at the dramatic center of the opera, the role does not involve much singing. To have the powerhouse mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick in the part was luxury casting. Staying true to the character and the music Ms. Zajick reined in her voice and acted with aching vulnerability, especially in the poignant scene in which, after a ball, the countess sings herself to sleep with the strains of a romantic song from her youth." - Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times

(Photo: Sara Krulwich/New York Times)

"The biggest disappointment, though, was mezzo Dolora Zajick in the spooky title role. The scene where the countess dozes off while crooning a sentimental song from her youth can evoke eerie nostalgia and loss with only a wisp of voice. Here, Zajick uncorked her sumptuous mezzo as if to launch into "God Bless America." - James Jorden, New York Post


Both agree, however, that Peter Mattei's portayal of Yeletsky wins for best performance. [Source, Source]

Quotidian Dope; Vol. 1, Issue 5

"Opera singer" Hayley Westenra will perform the national anthem for Prince William at a benefit concert for earthquake victims in her hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand. [Contact Music]

Simon Keenlyside helps Cleveland Orchestra complete their Mozart cycle with Don Giovanni performances on March 19, 22 and 24. [Cleveland Live]

March 15 marks the 116th anniversary of Enrico Caruso's debut at Teatro Nuovo in Naples, Italy. Not only a great career, but read about details of his recorded legacy. [Deutsche Welle]

San Francisco Opera assistant general director, Matthew Shilvock, buys home in Novato, California, for $585,000. [Block Shopper]

Laurence Olivier Award-winners for Best New Opera include OperaUpClose and Soho Theatre's La Bohème. [Independent]

Verdi beats out Mozart for most operas performed worldwide 2,259 to 2,124. However, breaking down the figures by single opera, there were 451 performances of Die Zauberflöte and 447 of La Traviata. Guess that means everyone is a winner? [La Stampa]

Angela Gheorghiu Pre-Cancellation Interview In Daily Express

Brigit Grant, of the Daily Express (U.K.), scored a major interview with soprano Angela Gheorghiu days before she canceled her entire run of performances for Roméo et Juliette at the Metropolitan Opera. Throughout the interview it is clear this is a determined woman who knows what she wants and does not want foolish people in her path. Topics during the conversation include her dealings with Michael Jackson (“I cannot have a conversation with someone who knows nothing about opera"), an ongoing friendship with Sting and his wife Trudi (they "remain very close"), directors who attempt to work on productions of operas in languages they don't speak (“You wouldn’t dream of doing Shakespeare if you can’t speak English"), her tumultuous relationship with Roberto Alagna ("I needed a change and

With Sting in Little Petra, 2008

wanted to perform with other tenors. I always follow my instinct.”), her thoughts about reputation in the opera world (“They say I am difficult but who are they? Who is with me on stage when I perform? The answer is no one.") and adopting her niece after her sister's death (“Like my sister, Ioana has a wonderful voice but I don’t want to force her to sing. It must be her decision..."). [Source]

Jonas Kaufmann Makes Recital Debut in Los Angeles

(Photo: Robert Millard/L.A. Times)

California has long been a beauty-obsessed state, thanks mostly to Hollywood and Beverly Hills, but one is surprised to see half of a recital review taken up by physical description: "The latest swoon-worthy tenor is Munich-born Jonas Kaufmann, who drove the audience nuts Friday at his U.S. recital debut sponsored by the Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Fans demanded no fewer than five encores....Kaufmann is tall, poised, curly-haired. He has chiseled looks and dramatic presence. His voice has a baritone’s dark coloring and weight, and he can use it for poetic effect. He knows that less is more, so he did not rely on extraneous gestures to punch up his program of lieder by Schumann and Strauss." How was the singing? Mostly good, but the rest of the review can be summed up in one direct quote, "One fears he may be living off his capital not his interest." [Source]