Pretty Yende News

Edward Parks and Maurizio Muraro will sing the roles of Figaro and Dr. Bartolo respectively, in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia at this Saturday evening's performance. They will replace the originally scheduled Peter Mattei and Valeriano Lanchas, who are ill.

As Opera News notes in a "Spotlight" double-page spread in the just-published February issue, Tucker Award-winning tenor Stephen Costello is now "at the top of his game." This spring, marking his house title role debut, he headlines Gounod's Romeo et Juliette (March 3-18) at New York's Metropolitan Opera, starring opposite Pretty Yende in Bartlett Sher's hit staging. By way of a preview, Costello and Yende will each sing romantic arias from the opera in a special Valentine's Day edition of WQXR'S Classical Beer Jam at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space in downtown Manhattan, marking their first public appearance together (Feb 14). Opera lovers around the world can catch a live webcast of the performance on Facebook and WQXR.org. Meanwhile, the tenor may already be seen at the Met, channeling Frank Sinatra as the Duke of Mantua in Michael Mayer's Vegas setting of Verdi's Rigoletto (Jan 20-Feb 4), to which, last year, the New York Times found his "bright tenor … perfectly suited."

There's some famous and gorgeous music in Gounod's ROMEO ET JULIETTE—Juliet's waltz, Romeo's “Ah, leve-toi, soleil” and a number of duets —but this is definitely not one of those operas where the title characters can take turns with the showpieces but never look each other in the eye. Luckily, that wasn't the case with Diana Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo in the Met's new Bartlett Sher production, where they lit some fires at Tuesday's performance.

Metropolitan Opera for a pair of back-to-back productions. Marking his house title role debut, he headlines Gounod's Romeo et Juliette (March 3-18) opposite Pretty Yende in the same hit Bartlett Sher staging in which he starred opposite Anna Netrebko at the 2010 Salzburg Festival.

National Chorale, New York's premier professional choral company, under the Artistic Direction of Everett McCorvey, continues its 2016-2017 Season at Lincoln Center with Beethoven's Symphony #9 and the World Premiere of a musical adaptation of Goodnight Moon tonight, November 18, 2016 at 8pm at the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, NYC.

National Chorale, New York's premier professional choral company, under the Artistic Direction of Everett McCorvey, continues its 2016-2017 Season at Lincoln Center withBeethoven's Symphony #9 and the World Premiere of a musical adaptation of Goodnight Moon.

National Chorale, New York's premier professional choral company, under the Artistic Direction of Everett McCorvey, continues its 2016-2017 Season at Lincoln Center with Beethoven's Symphony #9 and the World Premiere of a musical adaptation of Goodnight Moon on Friday, November 18, 2016 at 8pm at the David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, NYC.

Pretty Yende, a rising star soprano with a modern fairy-tale story, releases her debut album A Journey on Sony Classical.

21C MEDIA GROUP just released its season preview of opera, vocal and choral music for 2016-17. Scroll down for details!

The Metropolitan Opera's 2016-17 season, the 50th anniversary of its home at Lincoln Center, will feature 225 opera performances of 26 operas in a varied repertory that ranges from 18th century masterpieces to one of the most acclaimed operas in recent years. Repertoire for the company's 132nd season will include the Met premiere of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's 2000 opera L'Amour de Loin, as well as new stagings of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Gounod's Romeo et Juliette, Dvo?ak's Rusalka, and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. A gala concert on May 7, 2017 will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the company's Lincoln Center location with performances by opera's leading stars honoring the Met's past and future. Ticket prices will not increase, remaining the same as in the current season, and audience development programs instituted by the company in recent years will continue.  

Cape Town Opera hopes to provide a feast for opera lovers with its 2016 season, which was recently announced in the Mother City. The company's young international opera stars have joined forces with a new team of award-winning creative minds to make next year a memorable one for grand opera.

LA Opera is collaborating with Classical KUSC 91.5fm to produce the ninth consecutive season of LA Opera On Air, a weekly broadcast series of LA Opera performances recorded live at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Beginning with Verdi's La Traviata, starring Nino Machaidze and Plácido Domingo at 10am on Saturday, May 16, 2015, the weekly series hosted by KUSC's Duff Murphy will feature five performances from LA Opera's 2014/15 season and a special encore broadcast of Jules Massenet's Thaïs from the 2013/14 season. The series will be broadcast locally on Classical KUSC 91.5fm, its repeater stations (see below) and also streamed live online at KUSC.org.

Live From Lincoln Center - the pioneering, award-winning performing arts series - today unveiled programming for the second half of its 40th anniversary season on PBS.

Live From Lincoln Center - the pioneering, award-winning performing arts series - today unveiled programming for the second half of its 40th anniversary season on PBS.

Soprano Angela Meade, the youngest singer ever featured on the cover of the “Diva Issue” of Opera News (November 2014), launches 2015 with a trio of high-profile events in January. She makes her eagerly awaited debut with the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert in three performances of Verdi's Requiem at Avery Fisher Hall (Jan 15-17). Later in the month audiences have the opportunity to hear her star turn in the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala concert on aLive From Lincoln Center broadcast. “Richard Tucker Opera Gala: A New Century”, which was taped last October, airs on PBS on Friday, January 23, 2015. This weekend Meade is performing in a more intimate New York setting at the Morgan Library (Jan 11) where she shares the bill of a George London Recital with baritone Nicholas Pallesen, a fellow winner of the George London prize.

This January, Live From Lincoln Center-continuing its 40th anniversary season-will broadcast one of the most celebrated opera events of the year, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's annual gala concert.

The Metropolitan Opera may have its spectacular Julie Taymor production of THE MAGIC FLUTE, but the real fun in town is the Mozart at the new Victory Theatre on West 42nd Street, where the South African Isango Ensemble is in residence.

Pretty Yende--a name that in itself brings certain expectations as well as smiles--burst on the New York opera scene at the start of 2013, in a baptism by fire. At just 27, the South African soprano from Piet Retief, Mpumalanga memorably stepped into one of the lead roles in the revival of Rossini's LE COMTE ORY (opposite, no less, star tenor Juan Diego Florez) on short notice.

Soprano Anna Netrebko was AWOL. Tenor Marcello Giordani wasn't there. Mezzo Isabel Leonard didn't make it either. At least tenor Richard Tucker (1913-1975) had the best excuse for not being at Avery Fisher Hall on Sunday evening. But, as they say “the show must go on”--and the annual gala of The Richard Tucker Foundation certainly did, despite all the cancellations. Celebrating the famed singer, as well as showcasing the newly anointed winner of its top award, tenor Michael Fabiano, the evening was filled with many pleasures.

A little slapstick here, a little mysticism there, some knockout arias, a love story, parental conflict--put them all together and you have Mozart's DIE ZAUBERFLOTE--better known in these parts as THE MAGIC FLUTE. Add a good cast and a spectacular production with wonderful effects, flying boys, Bunraku-style bears, serpents and other animals and you should have a wonderful evening at the Met. The key word is 'should,' because this week's FLUTE was somehow less than the sum of its parts.