HOUSTON GRAND OPERA (HGO) celebrates the ten-year anniversary of JAKE HEGGIE's masterful first opera DEAD MAN WALKING (libretto by playwright TERRENCE MCNALLY) with a production featuring an all-star cast that includes award-winning mezzo JOYCE DIDONATO who returns to her original artistic home as SISTER HELEN PREJEAN, legendary mezzo FREDERICA VON STADE, in her farewell performance on the operatic stage, as the convict's mother - the role she created for the original San Francisco Opera production. Hailed as "the most compelling opera in decades" and described by HGO Music Director PATRICK SUMMERS as a Grand Opera that whispers with intimacy, Heggie's masterpiece has played to sold-out houses across the US and Europe since its premiere, arguably on its way to becoming the most performed America opera after GEORGE GERSHWIN's PORGY and BESS. It has been ranked along with Heggie's new, epic opera MOBY DICK as among the BEST OPERAS of the 21st century.

Watch a video of JAKE HEGGIE talking about the genesis of DEAD MAN WALKING at FANFAIRE FOUNDATION's opera appreciation concert "Writing Opera Today with Jake Heggie and Suzanna Guzman"

DEAD MAN WALKING opens on Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. in the Brown Theater of the Wortham Theater Center and runs through February 6, 2011.

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DEAD MAN WALKING, JAKE HEGGIE, FREDERICA VON STADE and JOYCE DIDONATO

On January 25, 2011 Virgin/EMI Classics releases JOYCE DIDONATO's latest
CD - DIVA, DIVO - a recording in which the mezzo-soprano, Gramophone Magazine's 2010 ARTIST OF THE YEAR sings, with her trademark dramatic flair and vocal acuity, an array of "trouser" and "skirt" roles, highlighting the vocal and gender range of her repertoire.

Recorded with the Orchestra and Chorus of Opéra National de Lyon, conducted by KAZUSHI ONO, the CD includes roles from Massenet's Cherubin, Cendrillo, and Ariane, Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and La clemenza di Tito, Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola, Berlioz's La damnation de Faust and Roméo et Juliette, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Gluck’s La clemenza di Tito and Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos - indeed, a tour-de-force CD!  PREORDER THE CD.

Coming to your neighborhood movie theater...

The latest HD LIVE player is the LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC which made its first simulcast on January 9 to over 450 movie theaters in the US and Canada. The program, hosted by pop/R&B singer and actress VANESSA WILLIAMS, paired American music by LEONARD BERNSTEIN and JOHN ADAMS with BEETHOVEN's Symphony No. 7. The remaining concert broadcasts feature an all-TCHAIKOVSKY program interspersed with performances by actors reading related Shakespeare texts (March 13, 2011) and an all-BRAHMS program (June 5, 2011).

What movie theatre audiences get (that those in the fabulous Disney Concert Hall don't) are up-close and dramatic views of the LA PHIL in action under the baton of its young, charistmatic Music Director GUSTAVO DUDAMEL--captured with multiple high definition cameras in digital surround sound), behind-the-scenes interviews and rehearsal footage.

When movie theater simulcasts are not feasible, beaming live or pre-recorded performances to large screens in public places are a viable way of enhancing public accessibility to opera and classical music. The MET has done this frequently in the past, as did the LA PHIL with DUDAMEL's inaugural concert as the orchestra's Music Director, and more recently LA OPERA with its free public screenings of DANIEL CATAN's IL POSTINO at the California Plaza in downtown LA and the Arts Plaza of Orange Country Performing Arts Center, recently renamed at a festive public ceremony SEGERSTROM CENTER FOR THE ARTS in honor of the vision, leadership and enduring generosity of the Segerstrom family, whose unwavering commitment has been at the core of the Center's success.

Hailed as "the world's most charismatic bass" RENÉ PAPE    returns to LA OPERA on January 15, 2011 in his West Coast recital debut. He sings a program of German Lieder-- some of the greatest, deepest songs by SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN, and HUGO WOLF-- accompanied by celebrated pianist BRIAN ZEGER. It will be an evening of depth, power and subtlety.

HOUSTON GRAND OPERA celebrates Houston as a meeting place for Eastern and Western cultures with the launch of Song of Houston: East + West, a series of new operas that
explore the stories of first- and second-generation immigrants to Houston from all over the East.

The project, which starts with the Chinese community and will continue through 2014, is deeply rooted in the cultures of all those for whom Houston is home, and will generate fresh, relevant, exciting new operas by important composers and librettists. A series of nine chamber operas is expected to be commisioned.
READ MORE...

And in China...

I SING BEIJING presages the rise of a dynamic scene for the vocal arts in the world's most populous country, paving the way for its entry into opera's A-list.

A one-month summer academy under the directorship of METROPOLITAN OPERA bass-baritone HAO JIAN TIAN, I SING BEIJING offers courses in vocal technique, diction, stagecraft, interpretation and musical styles of the western operatic repertoire as well as classes in Chinese language and culture.

Open to young professional and graduate level singers from all over the world, the full-scholarship program will be held at the HANYU ACADEMY OF VOCAL ARTS from July 18-August 18, 2011 and will culminate in a gala concert at Beijing's most high-profile venus, with introductions to important performing platforms and media outlets in China. APPLICATION DEADLINE: January 31, 2011. There's more information HERE.


Pictured above is the National Centre for the Performing Arts, one of 50 "Western" opera houses that have already been built in China's major cities. Construction of more houses in smaller cities is in full swing. In opera as in classical music in general... the "dragon" awakens, a phenomenon in the making!