Met Opera Announces ’24-25 Season

Four contemporary operas have their Met premieres.

10 Operas by Black Composers You Should Know

Operas from the 19th century to today that depict Black stories.

Anthony Davis’s X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X

Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential opera, which premiered in 1986, arrives at the Met at long last.

Musical Events for Black History Month

Honor Black artistry with an entire month of exciting musical events — operas, chamber concerts, jazz orchestras, broadcasts, and more!

LA Opera scraps planned world premiere of Mason Bates’ ‘Kavalier and Clay’ adaptation over finances

“It was a very ambitious and therefore expensive project, and unfortunately in the current conditions, it wasn’t something that we can manage,” LA Opera CEO Christopher Koelsch said.

Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking

Starring Joyce DiDonato and Ryan McKinny, Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts this landmark premiere of the most widely performed new opera of the last 20 years.

Giddens & Abels’ Omar

The luminous score—composed by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels—incorporates distinctive West African traditions with traditional opera instrumentation.

George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This

A universal tale with moving colors, where the flow of music follows the flow of life; an initiatory fable on human nature and self-discovery.

Adams’ Nixon in China

From Paris Opera, hear a star-studded cast that includes Thomas Hampson as Richard Nixon and Renée Fleming as Pat Nixon, with John Matthew Myers as Chairman Mao.

Terence Blanchard’s Champion

Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green is the young boxer Emile Griffith, who rises from obscurity to become a world champion.

Chicago Opera Theater Names New General Director

Lawrence Edelson founded American Lyric Theater in 2005, building a model organization for presenting and fostering new opera.

On a Knife’s Edge: Cooking, Music, History Come Together in Okpebholo’s Cook-Off

In Chicago composer Shawn E. Okpebholo’s new opera, three chefs vie for cooking show glory — and $100K — by tackling the classically American dish macaroni and cheese.

50 Years of COT: Anniversary Season Boasts Shostakovich, Heggie, Premieres, and More

Three mainstage operas, three additional special events, and all six titles are Chicago premieres.

Seattle Opera puts story of Afghan women center stage

An opera based on the popular novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” which is set in Afghanistan, is making its world debut in Seattle.

Sing Different: Why the Life of Apple’s Steve Jobs Makes for Great Opera

Steve Jobs gets the operatic treatment with Mason Bates’ Grammy-winning The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. We spoke with the composer, librettist Mark Campbell, as well as baritone Edward Parks, who created the role of Jobs.

COT’s 22-23 Season: ‘Turing’ World Premiere, Britten, Heggie for 50th Anniversary

In this celebratory season, audiences will hear two twentieth-century operas and three world premieres across COT’s full slate of mainstage and special programming.

Opera film ‘Soldier Songs’ about war trauma heads to Grammys

An hour-long piece for baritone and orchestral septet, the work depicts with unrelenting intensity the horrors of war and the PTSD faced by many returning veterans.

Composer Ricky Ian Gordon Premieres 2 Operas in 5-Day Span

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Intimate Apparel both opened in the last week of January.

Lyric’s ’22-23 Season: Verdi, ‘Fiddler,’ Fleming, & ‘Carmen’

Plus a world premiere, Chicago-set take on ‘The Barber of Seville’ and the return of ‘West Side Story’

Lyric’s Next Show, Mazzoli’s ‘Proving Up,’ Postponed

The opera had been scheduled for performances in late January, and according to Lyric, rehearsals were set to begin this week.

Met Opera to present Blanchard’s ‘Champion’ in April 2023

The staging follows the success of the composer Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones on the opening night of this season.

Verismo Meets Lyrical Flow: Chicago Composer Creates Opera from Classic Nas Track

It was a rap song by Nas that directly influenced Chicago composer Steve Wallace’s newest chamber opera, Undying Love.

Met returns with 1st work by a Black composer in its history

Fire Shut Up in My Bones became the first work by a Black composer in the 138-year history of the Metropolitan Opera as the company presented its first staged performance since March 2020 following a gap caused by the coronavirus.

Met Opera to Stage Anthony Davis’ ‘X’ on Malcolm X in 2023

The Met says X will open on Nov. 3, 2023, in a staging by Robert O’Hara that will be conducted by Kazem Abdullah. Will Liverman will star in the title role.

Watch WFMT’s Classical Conversation With ‘Approaching Ali’ Composer D. J. Sparr and Star Soloman Howard

Ali was among the most important, most charismatic, most unique figures in American (not just sports) history. So how do you adapt the monumental life of the People’s Champion into an opera?

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