Joyce DiDonato Headlines Bastille Day Concert At Eiffel Tower

Bryn Terfel and Joyce DiDonato during a rehearsal in Paris

"She's no stranger to singing at major outdoor gatherings broadcast to a television audience of millions around the world, as she did last year when she performed the national anthem at the final game of the Major League Baseball World Series. Tonight Joyce DiDonato is an American in Paris, singing at the foot of the Eiffel Tower for Paris' annual Bastille Day classical gala, the Grand Concert de Musique Classique. Performing alongside the likes of Bryn Terfel (the duet 'La ci darem la mano' from Mozart's Don Giovanni), Lang Lang and Gautier Capuçon. The 2014 extravaganza was headed by the beloved homegrown soprano Natalie Dessay, but this year's vocal pyrotechnics come from the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano who received a major award from French classical music magazine Diapason d'Or for

Purchase Joyce DiDonato's new album here.

her last album of rare Italian arias, Stella di Napoli. There will certainly be an American flavour to proceedings, with Bernstein and Gershwin on the programme. Erato is proud of its strong French routes and early championing of French music and artists - but also of its international outlook today. Joyce singing for the people of Paris and viewers around the world in front of the Eiffel Tower could sum up perfectly Erato and Warner Classics' vision today. The concert will finish, as it does every year, with a spectacular fireworks display. Vive la France, vive la musique!" [Source] See the program and star-studded roster after the jump.

Highly Fashionable Opera Divas On The Cover Of A Magazine

Kathleen Battle (Japan, 1992)	Barbara Hendricks (Paris, 1987)
Anna Netrebko (Russia, 2012)	Renée Fleming (USA, 2005)

It's pretty typical to find opera sopranos gracing the covers of industry magazines in glamorous gowns and jewels, but it is a rare sight to see these divas go mainstream with coverage the likes of Tatler, Vogue, Esquire, and Town & Country. Here we have some wonderful samples of ladies who truly reached the zenith of popularity and gave good face for these leading publications. We didn't forget the men. Be sure to check out a special cover (not for the faint of heart...) after the jump. 

Bryn Terfel Talks New CD (And How To Pronounce His Name)

More about the recording after the jump.

Bryn Terfel Talks About Getting Golf Time in Down Under

Terfel at the 2010 at the Ryder Cup golf tournament.

"The booming bass-baritone - an operatic superstar - seizes every opportunity to play courses around the world. And this week in Melbourne has been no exception with Terfel shuttling between Hamer Hall and Royal Melbourne Golf Club. 'Oh, it's the best, just beautiful,' the barrel-chested Welshman says of Royal Melbourne. 'I'm not a very good golfer. I'm a calm golfer and it doesn't faze me that I can't par every hole but if I have a couple of good shots, that always brings me back to the course.' But how does this powerhouse singer motivate himself?

Domingo, Terfel and Fleming Bring Olympic Spirit to London Opening

Opera singer Renee Fleming performs
"Vissi d'Arte" on stage during the Opening
Ceremony of the 124th IOC Session, prior
to the start of the London 2012
Olympic Games at The Royal Opera House
on July 23, 2012 in London, England.

"It's not often that Placido Domingo is upstaged at the Royal Opera House. Yet flamboyant London Mayor Boris Johnson managed to pull it off at a star-studded Olympic gala on Monday night. Opera stars Domingo, Renee Fleming and Bryn Terfel were the headline performers at the opening ceremony of the International Olympic Committee session at the famous venue in Covent Garden. But it was Johnson who brought the house down with his bombastic recital — in ancient Greek — of a Pindaric Ode for the London Games. After the Greek version, he paused and said 'which roughly translates as' before reading out the ode in English. It included word plays on the names of Olympic champions, including the 'lighting bolt around the track.' Pindar was an ancient Greek lyric poet famous for his victory odes. Johnson, who studied classics at Oxford, commissioned the poem for the games. It was written by Oxford academic Armand D'Angour and consists of six verses in rhyming couplets. Johnson received a huge round of cheers, applause and whistles from the packed theater, a bigger ovation than that received later for Domingo and Terfel's duet performance of Bellini's final opera and Fleming's Puccini aria." [Source]

Early Summer Release to Include Renée Fleming's Greatest Hits

The Art of Renée Fleming
Bellini: Casta Diva (from Norma)
Bernstein: Somewhere (from West Side Story) with Placido Domingo (tenor)
Catalani: Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (from La Wally)
Cilea: Io son l'umile ancella (from Adriana Lecouvreur)
Dvorak: Mesícku na nebi hlubokém 'Song to the Moon' (from Rusalka)
Gershwin: Summertime (from Porgy and Bess)
Gounod: Ah! Je veux vivre dans ce rêve (from Roméo et Juliette)
Gounod: Ave Maria
Handel: Ombra mai fu (from Serse)
Korngold: Glück, das mir verbleib 'Marietta's Lied' (from Die Tote Stadt)
Puccini: Vissi d'arte (from Tosca)
Puccini: Un bel di vedremo (from Madama Butterfly)
Puccini: O mio babbino caro (from Gianni Schicchi)
Schubert: Ave Maria, D839

Bonus tracks:
15. Wheels of a Dream [with Bryn Terfel]
16. Amazing Grace
17. Rodgers - Carousel / You’ll Never Walk Alone
18. Hallelujah – [new cut]

Release dates: USA - June 12 / UK - June 4 / Japan - June 20

Fashion at the Opening Night of the Metropolitan Opera

Photographer Patrick Michael Hughes focuses on the glamour of an opening night crowd attending the performance of Anna Bolena last night at the Metropolitan Opera. "The people of Manhattan are always fashion-forward. DNAinfo.com captures the latest style and accessory trends, from sunglasses to shoes and handbags to hairdos, as they're worn out on the streets." Click here to access the photo gallery of images. One more image after the jump.

Opera star Bryn Terfel arrives with Susana Llanio who is wearing an Escada gown.

Racette and Terfel Team Up Again for "Tosca" at Ravinia Festival

Maestro Conlon leads Racette and Licitra
(Photo: Patrick Gipson/Ravinia Festival)

"The trio of leads included two-thirds of the spring Metropolitan Opera cast from the Luc Bondy production that continues to stoke controversy in opera circles. At the core was a gripping, seething portrayal of the loathsome Scarpia by Bryn Terfel. The Welsh bass-baritone assumed a more static stage presence than the other cast members, yet he effortlessly commanded the full attention of a captivated audience with malevolent, coiled-spring intensity. His depiction of the sadistic police chief evolved from calm, confident brutality to wounded, vengeful fury, all evinced without bellowing or bombast. Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra has been well received at the Met and elsewhere for his idiomatic, dulcet-toned Cavaradossi. In this reading there was a hint of grain in a few top notes, as well as scenes in which he seemed needlessly risk-averse. On the whole his warm and ardent portrayal earned hearty and well-deserved kudos from his grateful admirers. Soprano Patricia Racette has also scored triumphs with leading companies in the title role, and her absorbing performance Saturday affirmed her status as a leading Tosca of our time. She wasn’t as vocally dazzling as some who have personified the celebrated singer and jealous lover, but she brought an honest dignity to a role often overwrought by helpless despair." [Source]

Get Thee to a Gift Shop

If you are in New York City, be sure to stop by the Metropolitan Opera Gift Shop today at 2PM EST to meet the stars of Wagner's Die Walküre, Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel!

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]

Royal Wedding Music, Part 2: Who Would Be Available To Sing?

POTENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR ROYAL WEDDING SOLOIST
In a business where professionals are contracted out five years in advance, what singer could possible be free to sing for the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on April 29, 2011? Checking schedules of the top dozen front-runners for the job discloses that some could be a private jet ride away from the event:

Renée Fleming will have completed her last performance of Strauss's Capriccio at the Metropolitan Opera on April 23 and has a Strauss concert of orchestral songs and scenes from Arabella with the Berlin Philharmonic under Christian Thielemann.

Anna Netrebko sings the Pergolesi Stabat Mater on April 28 in Geneva, Switzerland, and again on May 2 in Toulouse, France.

Kate Royal makes her Metropolitan Opera debut the night of April 29 in Orfeo ed Euridice. The second performance of the run is May 4. There are only five performances of the Gluck opera.

Angela Gheorghiu has concerts on April 27 and May 1 at the National Concert Hall in Seoul, Korea.

Marina Poplavskaya is performing The Tsar's Bride of Rimsky-Korsakov at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden during the month of April and her penultimate performance in the run takes place at 7PM on April 29.

Plácido Domingo: Birthday Gala For A Titan

Domingo with Queen Sofía and musical guests Conlon, Berganza, Terfel,  Arteta and Martínez 

A gala blowout beyond compare took place at the Teatro Real for tenor Plácido Domingo's 70th birthday. The program, performers and guest list are after the jump.

Bryn Terfel Puts Wales Before Wagner

"My favorite role is being a modest Welsh countryman singing the adorable songs of my motherland. They are the most important things I have ever sung and will ever sing. The Welsh language is of huge significance, due to its natural singing advantages. There is an amazing tradition of singing there, be it in choirs or as soloists. And last but not least, the tradition is there and always being nurtured from all ages. Only after Welsh folk songs comes Wotan, Hollander and others," he says. [Source]

Reflections With Bryn Terfel

"At 16 I was interested mainly in soccer, and following Manchester United. And I loved my rock groups, Pink Floyd, Queen, Dire Straits. I had a wonderful combination of farm life and city life. Our closest city was Carnarvon, so we’d go there and then all my friends would come and visit me and we could fish, play football in the fields, climb trees. It was a very very happy time."

Get more fun facts here.

Is a High Note Like a Hole in One?

Bryn Terfel tees off at an exhibition match for the Ryder Cup in Wales.

Golf seems to be the chosen sport these days of many type-A opera singers. What is it that attracts these stage animals out into the subdued wilderness of the country club scene? I would guess the discipline that they so aptly apply to their craft is quite easily transferable to the links: skill,  precision and accuracy.

Rolex Keeps Time with the Arts

Top: Plácido Domingo, Jonas Kaufmann, Renée Fleming
Bottom: Bryn Terfel, Cecilia Bartoli, Rolando Villazón

"Since its inception at the beginning of the 20th century, Rolex has always encouraged individual excellence and the pursuit of perfection. In keeping with this long tradition, today it makes a particular contribution to the arts world through its various sponsoring activities."

(Photos: Rolex)