Constantine Orbelian
NEW YORK New York City Opera (Michael Capasso, General Director) has announced the appointment of internationally acclaimed conductor and pianist Constantine Orbelian as the company’s Music Director and Principal Conductor. Maestro Orbelian will conduct his first NYCO production this summer when the company performs a newly created version of “Rigoletto” on Sunday, August 29 at the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice in Kingston, New York, followed by an encore performance of the Verdi favorite on Friday, September 3 as part of Bryant Park’s annual Picnic Performance series.
“We are indeed very fortunate to welcome the world-renowned maestro, Constantine Orbelian to the New York City Opera Family,” commented Mr. Capasso. “Maestro Orbelian brings decades of international experience conducting opera’s greatest stars both in performance and on award-winning recordings and will offer the company and its audiences many world-class performan
Lois Kirschenbaum, the ultimate opera superfan, dies at 88
By Corey Kilgannon New York Times,Updated April 9, 2021, 4:57 p.m.
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Lois Kirschenbaum backstage at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in June 2012.JULIE GLASSBERG/NYT
For more than a half-century, nearly every prominent singer to perform at New York Cityâs Metropolitan Opera could expect to be approached backstage afterward by a wispy woman in thick glasses, who held piles of memorabilia to be autographed while she praised their performance in a raspy Brooklyn accent.
That was Lois Kirschenbaum, one of New Yorkâs biggest and longest-standing opera buffs and a nightly staple at the opera since the late 1950s, before Lincoln Center was built, when the Met was located in Midtown.
By norman lebrecht
The Metropolitan Opera has crafted these unloving words in memory of its former music director whose death was made known today:
The Metropolitan Opera honors the memory of former Music Director James Levine, who held the musical reins of the company for four-and-a-half decades.
Maestro Levine conducted more than 2,500 performances of 85 different operas at the Met, starting with his company debut in 1971 leading Puccini’s Tosca. Celebrated for shaping the Met Orchestra and Chorus into the finest in the world, he was also responsible for considerably expanding the Met repertoire. Levine conducted the first-ever Met performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Verdi’s I Vespri Siciliani, I Lombardi and Stiffelio, Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Moses und Aron, Berg’s Lulu, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Berlioz’s
12 pm ET: Mark Morris Dance Group presents
Dido and Aeneas. A screening of the 1995 film directed by Barbara Willis Sweete who recreated the
Dido and Aeneas set on a sound stage in Toronto and filmed it without the constraints of a proscenium stage and with Morris in his critically acclaimed role. The screening will be followed by a live Q&A with Morris and Sweete and launches a week of activities including talks with dancers and artistic collaborators. Dance with MMDG classes for all levels to learn excerpts of the work; Dance for PD classes appropriate for anyone with mobility concerns. View here and on demand for one week.