NEW! Clara Schumann Festival at St John’s Smith Square – 22 to 24 February 2019
07/01/2019
Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birth
Clara Schumann (c) Andreas Staub
For concert information and how to book click here. Read more
NEW! Venus Unwrapped: Kings Place’s Year-Long Focus on Women Composers
04/01/2019
VENUS UNWRAPPED
A new light on music by women (January – December 2019) opening on Thursday 10 January with a concert that marks the 400th birthday of singer and composer Barbara Strozzi. Kings Place’s Venus Unwrapped is a year-long series focusing on the creative firepower of women composers.
For more information about Venus Unwrapped events and how to book click here. Read more
NEW! Opera Buenos Aires in 2019 – Largely Traditional
12/12/2018
Teatro Colón’s 2019 season
Enrique Arturo Diemecke, Teatro Colón’s artistic & production director-general
presents the 2019 season (c) Teatro Colón/Juan José Bruzza
Announcing the Teatro Colón’s 2019 season, artistic and production director-general Enrique Arturo Diemecke described it as ‘traditional with innovation’, which appears to be an accurate summation.
Opera
At least as far as the opera season is concerned, the slant is more towards the former, with the difficult economic times presumably also reflected in the few top name singers lined up. For those, we need to look to the ‘Great international interpreter’ series.
Numerically the season is the same as 2018, with eight operas (one in concert) and three chamber operas, as well as the now becoming regular choral symphony series.
The season kicks off on 12 March with a new local production of Rigoletto. Argentine Fabián Veloz will be in the title role, with Ekaterina Siurina as Gilda, Pavel Valuzhin as the Count of Mantua and Goderdzi Janelidze as Sparafucile and Maurizio Benini is the guest musical director.
Previn’s Streetcar Named Desire will have its Colón premiere in May. David Brophy is the musical director with a cast including Daniela Tabernig, David Adam Moore, Sarah Jane McMahon, Eric Fennell and Victoria Livengood.
Roberto Oswald’s 1993 production of Turandot follows in June/July. Christian Badea conducts with María Guleghina in the title role, Verónica Cangemi as Liu, Kristian Benedikt as Kalaf, James Morris as Timur and Raúl Giménez as Altoum.
July/August will see a highlight of the year with a return after over 25 years of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. The mainly local cast includes Carla Filipcic Holm, Gustavo López Manzitti and Hernán Iturralde along with Jennifer Holloway as the Composer and Ekaterina Lekhina as Zerbinetta. Alejo Pérez conducts.
Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea will be given in a concert production in August/September by the Ensemble Matheus led by Jean-Christophe Spinosi. Principals include Josè Maria Lo Monaco, Fillipo Mineccia, Anna Sohn, Francesco Fernandes-Rueda, Rupert Charlesworth, Carlo Allemano and Emilie Rose-Brey.
Donizetti’s buffa Don Pasquale follows in September/October with Srba Dinić as musical director. Nicola Ulivieri in the title role leads a largely local cast including Jaquelina Livieri, Santiago Ballerini and Darío Solari.
November sees a return in a new production of Orfeo ed Euridice. Counter tenor Daniel Taylor and Marisú Pavón are in the title roles, Ellen McAteer is Amore and Manuel Coves conducts.
The season closes marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Offenbach with a new production of his arguably best-known opera The Tales of Hoffmann in November/December. Enrique Arturo Diemecke has designated himself musical director with principals including Ramón Vargas in the title role, Rubén Amoretti as the four villains, Rachel Gilmore as Olympia, Milijana Nikolic as Giulietta, Virginia Tola as Antonia and Sophie Koch as Niklausse.
Chamber and choral
The three chamber operas for the year are a reprise of the December 2018 production of Thomas Adès’ Powder her face in March, Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince in its Latin American premiere in September and the 14-year-old Mozart’s Mitridate, rè di Ponto, also a Latin American premiere, in December.
The choral symphony series also comprises three works. These are Mozart’s Requiem in April, Roberto Caamaño’s Magnificat in May and Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust in August.
Other highlights
As alluded to, look to the ‘Great international interpreters’ for the stars and programmed are recitals from Elina Garanča (19 June), Aida Garifullina (16 August) and a provocatively entitled ‘No tenors allowed’ of extracts from operas and musicals from Thomas Hampson and son-in-law Luca Pisaroni (4 October). John Elliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists and Monteverdi Choir also appear in this series (13 November).
And courtesy of Mozarteum Argentino, Joyce DiDonato will be returning for the fourth of what has become a traditional biennial concert series, this time with Il Pomo d’Oro (28 & 30 October).
(At the time of writing, no 2019 season announcements had been made by the local independents.)
Jonathan Spencer Jones
For more details click here.
NEW! English National Ballet at the London Coliseum 13 December 2018 – 20 January 2019
14/11/2018
English National Ballet
Nutcracker … Swan Lake … Manon
London Coliseum
13 December 2018 – 20 January 2019
www.ballet.org.uk
This Winter, English National Ballet presents three critically acclaimed productions, Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Manon, at the London Coliseum. The company today announces Principal Casting for performances of Nutcracker and Manon, and, an additional performance of Manon. Read more
NEW! Looking Ahead to the 2019 Lucerne Festivals
29/10/2018
Lucerne Festival: Advance concert details for the Spring and Summer Festivals 2019 Read more
NEW! Opera Holland Park’s 2019 Season
18/10/2018
Investec Opera Holland Park announces 2019 Season casts and dates
Read more
NEW! The Met: Live in HD in 2018/19
05/09/2018
The Met: Live in HD season returns to international screens this October with three productions. Read more
NEW! The Royal Opera House’s Exciting 2018/19 Cinema Season
05/09/2018
The Royal Opera House celebrates 10-years of live cinema broadcasts
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