Opera - my/maSCENA

Sharon Azrieli: Final Act

By Charles Geyer on 31 August 2024 Montreal, Opera, Vocal

Update (Sept. 19, 2024): Sharon Azrieli is sad to announce that she will not be performing with the Opera de Montreal in Barber of Seville due to circumstances out of her control. “I’ve waited my entire career to sing with Opéra de Montréal,” says soprano Sharon Azrieli. The wait is over! The Montreal-born-and-raised Azrieli will be performing the piquant role of the maid Berta in Opéra de Montréal’s new production of Rossini’s The Barber of Séville (Sept. 28 through Oct. 6). It’s a moving capstone to a remarkably varied operatic, concert and recording career. French Connection “My favourite opera…

Claire de Sévigné, Phillip Addis, Kirsten MacKinnon, Sarah Dufresne

Opera Across Canada: a season anchored by the classics

By Gianmarco Segato on 30 August 2024 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Opera, Vocal

In many ways, the 2024-25 Canadian opera season represents post-pandemic reality. Government subsidies that helped companies survive the horrors of more than two years of disruption are now a thing of the past. The new season sees Canada’s opera companies proceeding with a degree of caution, but even in a sea of Bohèmes, Fledermice and Elixirs there are signs that not all eyes are just on the box office. Pacific Opera Victoria Starting at our nation’s westernmost opera outpost, Pacific Opera Victoria offers a season well-balanced between tradition and the (almost) new. The season opens in October with a new…

Camilla Nylund (Isolde) & Christa Mayer (Brangäne) in Bayreuth Festival's Tristan und Isolde. Photo: Enrico Nawrath

Review | Bayreuth Festival 2024: Wagner revisited

By Gianmarco Segato on 29 August 2024 Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Opera

One of the most unique features of the annual Bayreuth Festival dedicated to the operas of Richard Wagner is the opportunity it affords to revisit productions. Most big time European summer opera festivals pride themselves on presenting brand new stagings each year (though times may be changing given this year’s revival of Katie Mitchell’s 2016 production of Pelléas et Mélisande at Aix-en-Provence). But the idea of reviving and refining productions at Bayreuth is part of its DNA thanks to the Werkstatt (workshop) process initiated by Wieland Wagner in the 1950s. Stage directors are encouraged to hone their ideas as productions…

The Ohio Light Opera presents The Count of Luxembourg, Photo credit: Matt Dilyard

Review | Ohio Light Opera (OLO) Celebrates its 45th Season

By Paul E. Robinson on 30 July 2024 Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Opera

Ohio Light Opera (OLO) is the resident professional company of the College, and for 45 years has been presenting operetta and musical comedy. This summer they are offering performances of Guys and Dolls, The Sound of Music, Me and My Girl, The Gondoliers, The Count of Luxembourg, and The Arcadians.

Jingjing Xu. Photo: Minna Hatinen

Newswire | Chinese Mezzo-Soprano Jingjing Xu is the Winner of the 2024 Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition

By Newswire on 14 June 2024 Classical Music, Music Competition, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

Helsinki, 12 June 2024 – The winner of the 9th Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition is the Chinese mezzo-soprano Jingjing Xu. “The standard of the competitors has been extremely high, and the audience fantastic”, says Soile Isokoski, the chair of the jury. The winner of the 2024 Mirjam Helin competition is the Chinese mezzo-soprano Jingjing Xu, who received a prize of €50,000. The German soprano Kathrin Lorenzen placed second, receiving €40,000, and the South Korean tenor Junho Hwang placed third and received €30,000. The Polish soprano Justyna Khil (4th), the Armenian baritone Aksel Daveyan (5th), and the Croatian soprano Josipa…

Perryn Leech

Perryn Leech resigns as General Director of Canadian Opera Company

By Gianmarco Segato on 12 June 2024 Arts Industry, Classical Music, Opera, Toronto

The Canadian Opera Company, Canada’s largest opera company, has announced the resignation of their General Director Perryn Leech. David Ferguson, a past President and Chair of the company’s Board of Directors has been named Interim General Director. Leech joined the COC as its General Director in March 2021. Previously, he was Managing Director of Houston Grand Opera from 2011 having joined that company in 2007. Leech took over from Alexander Neef, who led the COC from 2008-2020 and left to become Director of l’Opéra national de Paris. More news to follow as this story develops.

CD Review | Massenet, Werther, baritone version, Bru Zane, 2024

By Gianmarco Segato on 31 May 2024 CD and Book Reviews, Classical, Classical Music, Opera, Vocal

Massenet – Werther (baritone version) Tassis Christoyannis (Werther), Véronique Gens (Charlotte), Hélène Carpentier (Sophie), Thomas Dolié (Albert), Matthieu Lécroart (Le Bailli), Artavazd Sargsyan (Schmidt), Laurent Deleuil (Johann/Brühlmann); Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Children’s Choir of the Zoltán Kodály Hungarian Choir School, György Vashegyi, conductor Bru Zane, 2024 This new Werther continues Bru Zane’s estimable series of French opera recordings, complete with elaborate hardcover book filled with extensive scholarly essays. Massenet himself approved a baritone version of his famous tenor showcase at the request of the great Italian baritone Mattia Battistini, but no autograph of the alternate score exists. Since its premiere…

CD Review | Lully Armide, Château de Versailles Spectacles, 2023

By Justin Bernard on 31 May 2024 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Opera, Vocal

Lully – Armide Stéphanie d’Oustrac, Cyril Auvity, Tomislav Lavoie, Marie Perbost, Eva Zaïcik, Timothée Varon, David Tricou, Virgile Ancely, Anouk Defontenay and Jeanne Lefort; Le Poème Harmonique, Chœur de l’Opéra de Dijon; Vincent Dumestre, music director Château de Versailles Spectacles, 2023 Recorded in May 2023 at Versailles’s Royal Opera, Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide here receives a royal treatment in every sense of the word. Le Poème Harmonique, directed by its founder Vincent Dumestre, showcases its expertise in the 17th- and 18th-century repertoire thanks to an interpretation full of the bounding energy which characterizes French music. Each section of instruments seems to…