New York’s Prototype Festival presents the world premiere of Terce: A Practical Breviary, Jan. 10-20. The opera, with music and libretto by Heather Christian, was inspired by the writings of three female mystics, including Hildegard von Bingen, is billed as “a radical rethinking of a monastic 9:00 AM mass that reimagines the face of the […]
Adoration is a new opera by Mary Kouyoumdjian based on the film by Atom Egoyan, examining terrorism, mass hysteria, and personal loss from the perspective of an orphaned teen. The world premiere will take place on Jan. 11-21 at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture as part of the Prototype Festival. https://prototypefestival.org/shows/adoration/
On Jan. 19, the Washington National Opera’s American Opera Initiative will perform the world premieres of three 20-minute operas by paired teams of young composers and librettists and performed by young artists in this mentorship program’s 11th year. A chamber orchestra made up of musicians from the WNO Orchestra will accompany. https://www.kennedy-center.org/wno/home/2023-2024/aoi-20-minute-operas/
The inspiring story of Helen Keller’s life will be told in the world premiere of Touch at Opera Birmingham on Jan. 19-21. Carla Lucero is the composer as well as co-librettist along with Marianna Mott Newirth. https://www.operabirmingham.org/touch
On Jan. 21, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, music director François-Xavier Roth and stage director Calixto Bieito will present a semi-staged concert production of Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s 1965 opera Die Soldaten at the Elbphilharmonie. This rarely heard work is a largely autobiographical account of Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, upon whose 1776 play it was based. https://www.elbphilharmonie.de/en/whats-on/zimmermann-die-soldaten/20233
Fans of Shostakovich’s operas will have the rare chance to hear a concert version of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on Jan. 30. Led by BSO music director Andris Nelsons, the cast includes Kristine Opolais as Katerina and Pavel Černoch as Sergey, along with the Tanglewood Festival […]
