Met Opera Dismantles Its Ballet in Buyouts
Allan Kozinn
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The New York Times
The Metropolitan Opera
has decided to disband its resident ballet company, whose roots date
back to the opera’s founding in 1883. The 8 remaining dancers of the
Metropolitan Opera Ballet, down from 16 in 2011, have accepted buyout
packages and left the company, their union confirmed.
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Placido Domingo turns Isabel Allende short story into opera
Agencia EFE
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Global Post
Under the baton of Placido Domingo, acclaimed Chilean
writer Isabel Allende's short story "Una Venganza" ("An Act of
Vengeance") emerges from the printed page as the opera "Dulce Rosa," a
production with a Latin heart and Greek tragedy in its soul that
premieres Friday in Los Angeles.
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Experiments in venue: Take me out to the … opera?
Marsha Lederman
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The Globe and Mail
As opera companies met last week in Vancouver for the annual North American opera conference, strategies like these are feeding a great sense of optimism and renewal. The fat lady is not singing. But it is imperative, these companies are hearing, to change up the tune to some extent – or at least, where (and how) you can hear it.
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Moms in Opera: Women on the Edge
Moms In Opera: Women On The Edge
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NPR
We love mothers for all the Hallmark reasons: for their compassion
and patience, not to mention giving birth. But some moms aren't exactly
greeting card friendly — and none less so than those who live in the
opera house.
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Adapting 'The Great Gatsby': Film or Opera?
Brian Wise
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WQXR
The return of The Great Gatsby to cinemas comes just as
composer John Harbison's opera adaptation from a decade ago is getting
some fresh attention in concert halls. Coincidence? It's hard to say if
the film begot the opera revivals, but here's a cheat sheet on what to
listen for in each version.
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Los Angeles Opera among recipients of new-audiences grant
David Ng
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LA Times
As the classical-music world continues to struggle with graying and
shrinking audiences, companies are experimenting with ways to attract
new crowds. On Tuesday, 13 opera companies across the nation were named
recipients of a new grant from Opera America designed to foster
attendance growth.
Based in New York, Opera America is a nonprofit
organization whose goal is to promote and raise general awareness of
opera as an art form. The group said it awarded a total of $300,000 in
grants -- ranging from $7,500 to $30,000 -- under the new program, which
is titled "Building Opera Audiences."
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OPERA America Program to Aid 13 Companies
Allan Kozzinn
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ArtsBeat (The New York Times)
Thirteen opera companies across the United States will share $300,000 in grants awarded by OPERA America in the first year of its new Building Opera Audiences program. The grants, which range from $7,500 to $30,000, are for programs meant to increase first-time opera attendance, and to increase return visits.
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Dallas Opera names Emmanuel Villaume new music director
Scott Cantrell
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The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Opera has named French conductor Emmanuel Villaume its new music director. He
was introduced by Dallas Opera General Director Keith Cerny at a news
conference Tuesday morning at the Winspear Opera House. Speaking in
charmingly accented, fluent English, Villaume praised the opera house,
the Dallas Opera Orchestra, the company staff and “the response of the
people in the house, the community.”
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Two Opera Professionals Produce Legendary Operas at Home
Staff
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Cerritos-Artesia Patch
It’s an insane idea, to produce opera at your home and expect audiences to flock to backyard performances of Così fan tutte or Don Giovanni.
But a couple of wild and crazy professionals, artistic director Josh
Shaw of Highland Park and musical director Stephen Karr of New Jersey,
have done just that. Their company, Pacific Opera Project (POP) — launched
in 2011 — aims to provide audiences with an alternative to L.A.'s
big-budget opera circuit and offer local performers a showcase for their
talent. (They even pay their artists!) A fully functioning opera
company, POP operates primarily out of Josh Shaw’s home on the border of
Eagle rock. The compound houses skeletons of sets, props and costumes
procured from studio auctions, including a pair of purple pants worn by
Jack Nicholson during his turn as the Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman.
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Why Not Have City Opera Go Home to City Center?
Anthony Tommasini
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The New York Times
Last spring, reflecting on the completion of New York City Opera’s first
season as an itinerant company bringing productions to the people in
theaters throughout the city, George Steel, its general and artistic
director, defended his decision to abandon Lincoln Center and argued
that things were going well.
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Theater's Expiring Subscription Model
Terry Teachout
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The Wall Street Journal
"I'm in the ticket-selling business. If I don't sell tickets, we shut
down. We used to do it by selling subscriptions. That gave us money up
front, and it also made it easier for me to do serious work, because
people were buying a five-show package, and they trusted me to give them
a well-chosen, wide-ranging package each year. We'd do a comedy, a new
play or two, a classical revival, maybe a couple of modern classics.
August Wilson, Tennessee Williams, that kind of thing. Sometimes they
didn't like all five. Maybe they never did. But they still went home
feeling like they'd gotten a balanced diet, they'd done their duty to
theater. And that used to matter to people. It really did. They thought
that seeing good shows made you a better person."
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Atlanta Opera Appoints Tomer Zvulun as General & Artistic Director
Staff
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broadwayworld.com
Beginning June 1, 2013, Tomer Zvulun will become the Atlanta Opera's new general and artistic director. At only 37 years old, Zvulun is hailed as a rising star in the opera industry, and has earned consistent praise for his creative vision and work in prestigious opera houses worldwide, including The Metropolitan Opera, and the opera companies of Seattle, Cleveland, Dallas, Cincinnati, Buenos Aires, Wolf Trap and more. Zvulun, an Israeli native, will manage both the artistic and administrative aspects of The Atlanta Opera.
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Opera dressers: quick, my hot towels!
Hermione Hoby
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The Guardian (U.K.)
They zip the zippers, fetch the chocolate, calm the nerves — and occasionally look after babies. Hermione Hoby spends an evening backstage with the unsung heroes of opera: the dressers.
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Interview: San Diego Opera Property Master Retires
Beth Accomando
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KPBSSanDiego
When Aida closes this weekend it not only marks the end of the San Diego Opera’s
2013 season but also the end of their property master’s 25 year career.
Go backstage with Ned W. Krumrey to see that a property master is
responsible for everything from human sacrifices to taking out the
trash.
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Supersizing a 'Sunday in the Park'
Jan Benzel
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The New York Times
What happens when you take a Stephen Sondheim chamber piece — Sunday in the Park With George — and produce it operatically, quadrupling the size of the orchestra?
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What if an Arts Organization was a MOOC?
Douglas McLennan
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Diacritical
That’s “Massive Open Online Course” and they’re everywhere right now. Some of the most prestigious universities are creating courses online and attracting tens of thousands of students.
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Fort Worth Opera announces 2014 festival
Mark Lowry
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The Star-Telegram
One day before the 2013 Fort Worth Opera Festival is to begin, the organization announced the 2014 season, its 68th. Two
of the 2014 works, both from this century, had previously been
announced: the regional premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Silent Night and the world premiere of With Blood, With Ink. The rest of the season comprises one warhorse, Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, and Bizet's second best-known opera, The Pearl Fishers.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/04/19/4788165/fort-worth-opera-announces-2014.html#storylink=cpy
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Chicago Opera Theater, Luna Negra Dance team for rarely staged tango opera
Kyle MacMillan
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Chicago Sun-Times
Astor Piazzolla took these essential qualities of the tango and invested them with even greater depth and complexity, as he merged the traditional form with jazz and classical music and took it off the dance floor onto the concert stage.
Piazzolla’s nuevo tango style, which he pioneered in the 1950s and ’60s, became a hit with audiences of all kinds, and he remains one of the best-known composers of the 20th century.
Wishing to tap into the power and popularity of his music, Chicago Opera Theater, along with Luna Negra Dance Theater, will present the composer’s rarely performed tango opera, Maria de Buenos Aires.
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'Django Unchained' pays homage to Wagner's 'Siegfried'
David Ng
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LA Times
When Los Angeles Opera presented its new production of Richard Wagner's Siegfried a few years ago at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the packed house included the usual assortment of donors and local opera buffs. Nestled somewhere in the orchestra section was an odd man out: Quentin Tarantino, the filmmaker whose hyper-modern and manic sensibilities would seem at odds with slow-moving 19th century German opera.... Tarantino's feelings about Siegfried remain unknown, but it's safe to say his encounter with the opera eventually helped to inspire his most recent movie, Django Unchained, which is available on DVD and video-on-demand this week.
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Obama's arts budget plan goes beyond restoring 'sequester' cuts
Mike Boehm
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Culture Monster (Los Angeles Times)
President Obama’s budget proposal for the coming fiscal year would boost
federal arts spending 10% above where it stands at the moment, lifting
it to $1.58 billion for the 2013-14 budget year that begins Oct. 1 and
more than compensating for cuts from the "budget sequestration" bill
that went into effect last month.
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Rocking the Cradle of Opera: Tough Times for Florence’s Maggio Musicale
Fred Plotkin
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OperaVore (WQXR)
Ask Italophiles to name their favorite city and more than a few will
cite Florence. It seems to exert considerable fascination for foreigners
and garners respect among many Italians. Florence has made excellence
and innovation its hallmark. Most people think of it as the cradle of
the Italian Renaissance, the place where almost every great Italian
writer and artist, including Dante, Petrarch, Giotto, Brunelleschi,
Leonardo and Michelangelo, left ample evidence of their genius.
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Opera Colorado announces 2014 slimmed-down season
Claudia Carbone
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Examiner.com
Opera Colorado has announced that its 2014 season will include only two productions: Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi and Carmen by Georges Bizet. In January of this year, the company announced a reorganization with a
$1.2 million fundraising campaign that pared its offerings to two
productions instead of the usual three per season. The "Stories that
Sing" campaign has raised more than $1.3 million thus far, and donations
are being accepted at operacolorado.org/support.
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Wagner's Dark Shadow: Can We Separate the Man from His Works?
Dirk Kurbjuweit
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Der Spiegel
Born 200 years ago, Germany's most controversial composer's music is cherished around the world, though it will always be clouded by his anti-Semitism and posthumous association with Adolf Hitler. Richard Wagner's legacy prompts the question: Can Germans enjoy any part of their history in a carefree way?
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Coughing And The Meaning Of Art
Alva Noë
•
Cosmos & Culture (NPR)
Most people attending live performances are not sick. But then why is there so much coughing at live performance?
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Weekend Listening: Estonia’s Austerity Opera
Liis Kangsepp
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Emerginf Europe (The Wall Street Journal)
Opera fans, austerity buffs, armchair economists and everyone in between
can now have a listen to an operatic work based on a Twitter dustup
between Estonia President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and economist Paul Krugman that took place last summer about the merits of the small Baltic nation’s economic recovery.
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From the Audience to the Stage at the Metropolitan Opera
Daniel J. Watkin
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ArtsBeat (The New York Times)
The soprano Danielle de Niese came for a relaxing evening at the
Metropolitan Opera – in the audience — with her husband and parents on
Tuesday night. Instead, she found herself onstage.
On the morning of the performance, Natalie Dessay told Met officials that she was too ill to sing in Handel’s Giulio Cesare. “Symptoms of a cold,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “She could not vocalize properly.”
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Here Comes Steve Jobs: The Shakespearean Opera
John Brownlee
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Cult of Mac
Can this cockpit hold the vasty plains of Cupertino? The Lyon Opera
is about to find out. Coming in 2014 to the famous French opera house is
Steve Five, an operatic mash-up of Shakespeare’s 1599 play Henry V and, wait for it, Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography.
The co-production with the Theatre de la Renaissance will debut as part of the 2014 Biennale Musiques en scène. Subtitled — wait for it! — “King Different,” Steve Five
will conjure its own “muse of fire” to “assume the port of Woz” and
relaying the story of two kings — one of England, the other of computers
— who confronted reality by reinventing it with “the brightest heaven
of invention.”
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Simon Crookall to lead Hawaii Opera Theatre
Staff
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Pacific Business News
The Hawaii Opera Theatre named Simon Crookall, former president and CEO of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, to serve as the organization’s executive director. Crookall’s appointment is effective May 13. He succeeds Karen Tiller, who is stepping down to spend more time with her family.
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Bass, Tenor, Alto, Sombrero
Jennifer Maloney
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The Wall Street Journal
As opera companies and symphony orchestras across the country confront
financial crises, Houston's main company is undergoing a surprising
resurgence. The Houston Grand Opera is commissioning new works that tap
into city's growing Hispanic community. Its most ambitious commission to
date, "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna," or "To Cross the Face of the Moon,"
is the world's first mariachi opera, the company says.
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London hosts first 'opera Oscars', but UK doesn't make top award shortlist
Dalya Alberge
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The Guardian (U.K.)
London is preparing to host the inaugural International Opera
Awards — the "opera Oscars" — but there is no British company in
contention for the most coveted award. It was not the "most dazzling
year" for British opera, according to the chairman of the judges, John
Allison, editor of Opera magazine. "Overall, some of the best work was done somewhere else," he said.
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A treasury of opera poisonings
Carolyn Y. Johnson
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The Boston Globe
Obsessive opera fans are used to sorting their full-throated, passionate art form into
categories—lyric or grand, Italian or French, opera buffa or opera
seria. Now, from a very unlikely corner, comes another possibility:
sorting them at the molecular level.
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Opera singers invade London supermarket
Ben Lee
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Digital Spy
A group of opera singers took shoppers at a supermarket by surprise this week. Dressed
as casual shoppers and staff, the performers delivered a rousing
rendition of the famous Italian classic 'Funiculì, Funiculà' in the
middle of the Waitrose-run Food Hall at John Lewis on Oxford Street,
London.
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First, Make Sure Your Idea Works on a Small Stage
Adam Bryant
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The New York Times
This interview with Francesca Zambello, general and artistic director of the Glimmerglass Festival and artistic director of the Washington National Opera, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
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