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United Kingdom The London Opera Company’s Siegfried: Soloists, The London Opera Company Orchestra / Peter Selwyn (conductor). Sinfonia Smith Square, 2.11.2025. (KB)
DONIZETTI SONG PROJECT: MICHAEL SPYRES & MARIE-NICOLE LEMIEUX – VOLS. 3&4 (ORR256&257) – release date: Friday 21 February
LONDON RECITAL – Monday 10 March, 7pm at Cadogan Hall
WATCH NOW ON OPERA’S RARA’s YOUTUBE (available 30 days from 16 March)
Oxford Opera Company’s TOSCA at the OXFORD PLAYHOUSE
Friday 28 & Saturday 29 March 2025
Oxford Playhouse is excited to announce a brand-new production of Puccini’s iconic opera Tosca, presented by Oxford Opera Company.
Following the success of their 2022 production of The Magic Flute, the company will return to The Playhouse stage on Friday 28 and Saturday 29 March with a fresh take on Puccini’s classic opera. The brand-new production will be sung in English and will feature a new translation commissioned exclusively for the company.
‘No risk, no fun’
2025/26 season at Hamburgische Staatsoper under new leadership team
For full details and how to book tickets CLICK HERE
A new generation of leaders takes over at Hamburg State Opera, all in their early to mid-forties: artistic director Tobias Kratzer, general music director Omer Meir Wellber, and Demis Volpi, artistic director of the ballet company (appointed in the summer of 2024). Managing director Dr Ralf Klöter praised their ability to achieve balance of continuity and new departure, while Dr Carsten Brosda, the city state of Hamburg’s senator for culture and media, emphasised how much Hamburg’s citizens were looking forward to the developments at their opera house. Indicative of the collaborative spirit of the season, the opera, ballet and concert departments gave a joint press conference, and their season is represented in a single combined brochure.
Brentwood School proudly announces the launch of the First Brentwood International Music Competition, a landmark initiative designed to attract and celebrate the world’s most talented young musicians. This exciting new venture marks a significant milestone for the school’s Specialist Music Programme, which has already demonstrated exceptional promise in its inaugural term.
From friendship to music: Stephen Williamson premieres Christopher Theofanidis’s clarinet concerto at the CSO
On a summer day in 2022, Stephen Williamson stood outside with his clarinet in Aspen, Colorado. Surrounded by an endless blue sky, mountains and the sun, Williamson – the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s principal clarinetist – worked through intricate passages of a new concerto. Its composer, Christopher Theofanidis, was there with Williamson, shaping the music in real time. ‘Playing it outside in the fresh air, with the mountains around us, brought a whole new dimension to the sound’, Williamson recalls.
After almost three years of anticipation – due in part to an unexpected health setback – Williamson is finally set to premiere the concerto, Indigo Heaven, which was written specifically for him.
The 77th edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence from 4 – 21 July 2025
The metamorphosis of Calisto, the reincarnation of Buddha, the transformation of Louise, the protean Don Giovanni… The focus of the 2025 edition of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (for more information click here) is clearly on the inexorable mutability of all things and the perpetual reinvention of the self. ‘There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature’ says Ovid in his Metamorphoses; and this is reflected in Cavalli’s La Calisto, which depicts a fascinating continuum between nature, mankind and the gods.
Opera Holland Park’s 2025 Season
New productions of two dark Gothic fantasies. The return of an explosive contemporary classic. Sentiment and satire in two co-productions with Scottish Opera and D’Oyly Carte. A succession of significant role and house debuts, a recital series exploring the connections between opera and song, and a revival of a much-loved tragedy of first and last love.
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