The Richard Tucker Music Foundation announced today that Christian Van Horn has been named as the winner of the 2018 Richard Tucker Award.
1940s German musical movie star Marika Rökk was a Russian counterspy!
Intrepid cub reporter Terry Teachout has scored the scoop of the century!
“Maestro James Levine, the Met’s Music Director since 1976, announced that after 40 years in the position, he will retire at the end of the current season, for health reasons,” says the Met press office.
From the Met: “Jonas Kaufmann has canceled his performances in this season’s new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut due to illness.”
Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, has announced he will quit this post in March 2017.
“Our patrons are also our investors, and because many of our core subscribers are also our most generous philanthropists, we need to make sure that our programming jives with their expectations, what they’d like to see onstage.”
The breaking news from San Francisco Opera is that Nadine Sierra will sing the title role of in a new production of Lucia di Lammermoor, replacing Diana Damrau, who will not.
John Berry, artistic director of the English National Opera, has announced he intends to step down from his role after 20 years with the Company.
In an unprecedented move, the Bayreuth Festival has named conductor Christian Thielemann official “Music Director.”
Opera star Montserrat Caballé has reached a deal with the public prosecutor to receive a six-month prison sentence and a €240,000 fine for defrauding the Spanish tax office.
The Metropolitan Opera just announced that 22 positions from its administrative staff of 254 have been eliminated as part of a company-wide program of cost cutting.
UPDATE: The Met has reached tentative agreements with AGMA and Local 802. The contract deadline has been extended through midnight on Tuesday, August 19, to allow Local One and the other remaining unions with unsettled contracts more time to secure new deals with the institution.
AGMA and Local 802 have agreed to the Met’s proposal that Allison Beck, a representative of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, be appointed immediately to mediate negotiations, working with both sides to find a compromise agreement.
According to the Facebook page of tenor Yusif Eyvazov (Des Grieux to Anna Netrebko‘s Manon in the Rome Opera Manon Lescaut), the two are “engaged.”
La Cieca’s spy informs her that the Met will announce its 2014-2015 “Wednesday evening.” Watch parterre.com starting at 4:00 pm tomorrow for up-to-the-minute coverage.
La Cieca hears that soprano Alex Penda is en route to London on a rescue mission, for which her friends (young or otherwise) are doubtless giving thanks.
Yes, you’ve heard it already, but you might as well have an official place to talk about it: Marina Poplavskaya goes on tonight in Les Vêpres siciliennes at the Royal Opera House.
Emma Thompson will portray Mrs. Lovett in the New York Philharmonic’s staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Wonder no more! Says the Met press office, “Elina Garanca has withdrawn from her 2013-14 Met engagements because she is pregnant with her second child, who is due this winter.”
Wendy White is suing the for a 2011 accident on stage during a performance of Faust.
Broadway actor Danny Burstein will make his Metropolitan Opera debut in the non-singing role of Frosch in this season’s performances of Die Fledermaus.
Aidan Lang has been named Seattle Opera’s third General Director effective September 1, 2014.
In a press release, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein at Düsseldorf has announced the cancellation of its controversial new production of Tannhäuser.