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Combined Sacramento Opera, Philharmonic hope to draw larger audience

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

An avant-garde classical concert at a nightclub, an opera production at the Crocker Art Museum — these are a couple of ways that the soon-to-be-merged Sacramento Opera and Sacramento Philharmonic are trying to draw in more families and a larger audience for the 2013-2014 season.

Killer Plants Take Over Brooklyn Garden for Opera

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

In Rappaccini’s Daughter, a crazy botanist locks up his daughter in a garden with poisonous plants. The story by Nathaniel Hawthorne inspired an opera by Daniel Catan, a Mexican master of melancholy, who died unexpectedly two years ago after finishing a new orchestration of La Hija de Rappaccini. Conductor Neil Goren, Gotham’s artistic director, spoke to me during a rehearsal break.

Gloriana: Britten's problem opera

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Gloriana is the orphan among the Britten’s major operas — he called it “his slighted child” — and sixty years after its premiere, it has still not been fully adopted into the canon. What holds it back?

Canadian Opera Company draws 90 per cent attendance

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The COC announced Monday that it achieved 90 per cent attendance throughout the season, which featured seven productions and 61 performances.

Sacramento County lags in U.S. arts study

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Sacramento County trails in many categories in a national study that seeks to quantify the economic impact that nonprofit arts organizations have on their communities. Conducted every five years by the Washington-based arts advocacy organization Americans for the Arts, the study "Arts and Economic Prosperity" looks at spending by arts nonprofits and audiences. For the most recent study, covering fiscal year 2010-11, Americans for the Arts surveyed and gathered information from 182 communities in all 50 states.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/06/16/5500055/area-lags-in-us-arts-study.html#storylink=cpy

Lyric Opera [of Chicago] signs off on busiest season ever

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Lyric Opera's unprecedented effort this past season to make itself more generally relevant and to provide what general director Anthony Freud calls “a broader, deeper cultural service to more people around the city” appears to have paid off.

What's more, the company ended its 2012-13 season in the black, just as it has done for 25 of the past 26 years.

Nashville Symphony, musicians plan talks on new contract

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Officials of the union representing the musicians at the Nashville Symphony Association said negotiations over a new contract are set to begin this week even as the symphony’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center is facing a June 28 foreclosure auction.

New George Benjamin Opera Is Commissioned

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

The Royal Opera, in London, has commissioned the composer George Benjamin to write his third opera, which will have its premiere at Covent Garden in spring 2018. The as-yet-untitled work will have a libretto by the prolific playwright Martin Crimp.

Portland has so far collected $7.6 million in arts tax payments

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

A day after the third — and final — arts tax deadline, Portland city officials say they've collected about $7.6 million dollars from nearly 250,000 taxfilers. City staffers are still sorting through 10,000 paper tax returns and the city's Revenue Bureau expects to collect about $8.3 million by the end of the month.

X-Rays Reveal Censored Ending of Cherubini Opera

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Listen to a piano realization of the recovered Cherubini aria.