Browsing: Vocal

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…

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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.

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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…

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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.

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Alexander Brose, Michael and Sonja Koerner President & CEO Designate of The Royal Conservatory of Music, Executive Director of Performing Arts Mervon Mehta, and Dean of The Glenn Gould School James Anagnoson, today revealed programming details of the 16th season at Koerner Hall.

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Welcome to the 2024 Summer national issue of La Scena Musicale, our final national issue of the year, in this our 28th season (2023-24) of publishing. CURRENT ISSUE La Scena Musicale’s 28th annual Summer Festival Guide is again glossy, all-colour and in the bigger three-column format. With over 450 festivals, this is Canada’s largest directory of summer arts and music festivals—classical music, jazz, world, folk, country, pop and rock music, theatre, dance, film, visual arts and competitions. This summer issue comes in separate English and French editions with a combined print run of 68,000 copies and is distributed nationally, including…

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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…

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Rose in Bloom Erin Morley, soprano; Gerald Martin Moore, piano Orchid Classics, 2024 One of today’s most in-demand lyric coloratura sopranos, Erin Morley sings roles like Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier, Cunegonde in Candide and Gilda in Rigoletto at The Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera. Rose in Bloom is her debut recital disc alongside pianist Gerald Martin Moore. It centres on floral themes in songs dating from the early 19th century to the current day. Morley’s consummate mastery of high, florid music ensures there are inevitably several songs representing composers’ penchant to equate piping coloratura with…

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Co-hosted by Canada Choral and l’Alliance chorale du Québec, the Podium 2024 Choral Conference and Festival took place in Montreal from May 16 to 19. This year’s theme was “Open voices, open minds.” Bringing together dozens of choirs from across Canada and beyond, the festival featured seven major indoor concerts and a series of free concerts, which took place across downtown Montreal. The festival opened with the Cultural Landscapes concert, featuring Toronto-based ensembles Babεl and Concreamus, as well as Coroncoro Vocal Ensamble from Bogotá, Colombia. The high-calibre performances delighted the audience. Coroncoro should be singled out, having delivered a flawless…

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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…

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