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JOHN ADAMS El Niño

John Adams conductor
Joelle Harvey soprano
Jennifer Johnson Cano mezzo-soprano
Daniel Bubeck, Brian Cummings, Nathan Medley counter-tenors
Davone Tines bass
London Symphony Chorus
Simon Halsey chorus director
London Symphony Orchestra
John Adams conducts his sparkling opera-oratorio El Niño, a contemporary re-imagining of the traditional nativity story told from different perspectives.

No composer in recent history has made a bigger impression in the world of opera than John Adams. Time and again his operas and works for the stage have struck a balance between the old and the new – classical forms live comfortably alongside contemporary musical techniques and traditional stories and narratives find relevance in the modern day.

El Niño explores the issues surrounding the traditional nativity story paying particular attention to the character of Mary and the journey of motherhood. The libretto, compiled by Adams himself, draws on a variety of sources from pre-Christian prophets to twentieth century Hispanic female writers. Adams responds to his text and chosen subject with music of astounding diversity and unabashed brilliance.

WAGNER, STRAUSS & BRUCKNER

Christopher Warren-Green, conductor
Georgia Jarman, soprano
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano
Paul Appleby, tenor
Davòne Tines, bass-baritone
Charlotte Symphony Chorus

WAGNER Overture to Tannhauser
STRAUSS Rosenkavalier Waltz Sequence
No. 1
BRUCKNER Psalm 150
BRUCKNER Te Deum

WAGNER, STRAUSS & BRUCKNER

Christopher Warren-Green, conductor
Georgia Jarman, soprano
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano
Paul Appleby, tenor
Davòne Tines, bass-baritone
Charlotte Symphony Chorus

WAGNER Overture to Tannhauser
STRAUSS Rosenkavalier Waltz Sequence
No. 1
BRUCKNER Psalm 150
BRUCKNER Te Deum

Beethoven composed his Solemn Mass in honor of his dear friend and piano/composition pupil, the Archbishop Rudolph of Austria. It is music of great emotional power that follows the traditional mass format yet is highly personal and direct. Beethoven wrote at the top of the score “From the heart—may it go to the heart” and stated his chief aim as “to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings not only into the singers by also into the listeners.” The exceptional May Festival Chorus, under the direction of Juanjo Mena, will beautifully convey the heartfelt message of this glorious music.

Beethoven composed his Solemn Mass in honor of his dear friend and piano/composition pupil, the Archbishop Rudolph of Austria. It is music of great emotional power that follows the traditional mass format yet is highly personal and direct. Beethoven wrote at the top of the score “From the heart—may it go to the heart” and stated his chief aim as “to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings not only into the singers by also into the listeners.” The exceptional May Festival Chorus, under the direction of Juanjo Mena, will beautifully convey the heartfelt message of this glorious music.

A co-production between Boston Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera
Music by Georges Bizet
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Production: Calixto Bieito
Revival Director: Joan Anton Rechi
Scenic Design: Alfons Flores

Sung in French with English supertitles

The 2016/17 season launches in September with the bicoastal American premiere of Calixto Bieito’s cinematic Carmen in a co-production with San Francisco Opera – opening May 2016 – marking the director’s long-awaited U.S. opera debut. Set in the arid earthiness of post-Franco Spain, this is a powerful account of a defiantly free-spirited woman and her obsessive lover. Jennifer Johnson Cano, critically acclaimed for her star turn in last year’s Don Giovanni, returns to Boston as the fiery, seductive gypsy who destroys the naïve soldier Don José, played by Roger Honeywell. Michael Mayes and Chelsea Basler return to BLO, and BLO Music Director David Angus conducts.

A co-production between Boston Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera
Music by Georges Bizet
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Production: Calixto Bieito
Revival Director: Joan Anton Rechi
Scenic Design: Alfons Flores

Sung in French with English supertitles

The 2016/17 season launches in September with the bicoastal American premiere of Calixto Bieito’s cinematic Carmen in a co-production with San Francisco Opera – opening May 2016 – marking the director’s long-awaited U.S. opera debut. Set in the arid earthiness of post-Franco Spain, this is a powerful account of a defiantly free-spirited woman and her obsessive lover. Jennifer Johnson Cano, critically acclaimed for her star turn in last year’s Don Giovanni, returns to Boston as the fiery, seductive gypsy who destroys the naïve soldier Don José, played by Roger Honeywell. Michael Mayes and Chelsea Basler return to BLO, and BLO Music Director David Angus conducts.

A co-production between Boston Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera
Music by Georges Bizet
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Production: Calixto Bieito
Revival Director: Joan Anton Rechi
Scenic Design: Alfons Flores

Sung in French with English supertitles

The 2016/17 season launches in September with the bicoastal American premiere of Calixto Bieito’s cinematic Carmen in a co-production with San Francisco Opera – opening May 2016 – marking the director’s long-awaited U.S. opera debut. Set in the arid earthiness of post-Franco Spain, this is a powerful account of a defiantly free-spirited woman and her obsessive lover. Jennifer Johnson Cano, critically acclaimed for her star turn in last year’s Don Giovanni, returns to Boston as the fiery, seductive gypsy who destroys the naïve soldier Don José, played by Roger Honeywell. Michael Mayes and Chelsea Basler return to BLO, and BLO Music Director David Angus conducts.

A co-production between Boston Lyric Opera and San Francisco Opera
Music by Georges Bizet
Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Production: Calixto Bieito
Revival Director: Joan Anton Rechi
Scenic Design: Alfons Flores

Sung in French with English supertitles

The 2016/17 season launches in September with the bicoastal American premiere of Calixto Bieito’s cinematic Carmen in a co-production with San Francisco Opera – opening May 2016 – marking the director’s long-awaited U.S. opera debut. Set in the arid earthiness of post-Franco Spain, this is a powerful account of a defiantly free-spirited woman and her obsessive lover. Jennifer Johnson Cano, critically acclaimed for her star turn in last year’s Don Giovanni, returns to Boston as the fiery, seductive gypsy who destroys the naïve soldier Don José, played by Roger Honeywell. Michael Mayes and Chelsea Basler return to BLO, and BLO Music Director David Angus conducts.

Opera responds to the Pulse Night Club Tragedy with a benefit concert that supports the vital infrastructure that supports diversity and understanding in our community. Opera Orlando has coordinated a concert featuring some of the art form’s brightest national stars supported by professional musicians from throughout Florida. Internationally-renowned David Charles Abell will conduct and legendary baritone Sherrill Milnes will be one of the evening’s hosts. Tickets are $25-$125 and go on sale August 19th. Opera Orlando will be joined by the Orlando Ballet and several opera companies from across the state including Opera Tampa, Opera Naples, St. Petersburg Opera, Sarasota Opera, First Coast Opera, and others. Pulitzer Prize winners Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell will also be presenting a new vocal work at this concert.

Artists include sopranos Ana Maria Martinez, Sarah Joy Miller, and Cecilia Violetta Lopez, Mezzo-Soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, tenors Chad Johnson and Javier Abreu, and baritones Mark Walters and Davis Gaines, all joined by an over 50 piece orchestra from across greater Central Florida and a 150 voice mass chorus put together by opera companies from across the state.

Program to include works by Wolf, Granados, Dvořák, Gurney, Britten, Howells, Vaughan Williams and Jonathan Dove

New York Philharmonic
Bramwell Tovey, conductor
Javier Perianes, piano
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano

MASSENET: Ballet Music from Le Cid
FALLA: Nights in the Garden of Spain
FALLA: The Three-Cornered Hat

Javier Perianes has fast become one of Europe’s most sought-after pianists, rendering sweeping passions with virtuoso flair. These qualities take center stage in a dramatic evening evoking Spanish country scenes and French dances through flamboyant rhythms, sensuous allusion, and shimmering wit.

Tragédie opéra in three acts
Libretto by Pierre Louis Moline after Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s Italian libretto
First performance of French Edition: Paris, Académie Royale de Musique, August 2, 1774
Sung in French with English supertitles above the stage

Driven by love and wracked with grief and uncertainty, Orphée descends into the underworld on a heroic mission to return his beloved to the land of the living. His passionate music wins their freedom, but the true test has just begun. Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus, this vivid, theatrical production promises a visual spectacular as it takes us on a quest through a series of worlds ranging from the sinister to the pastoral. Focusing on simple, dramatic effect, Gluck’s beautiful music gives a unique glimpse of an approach that changed the nature of opera when it was first seen 250 years ago. From one moment full of fury, the next clear and pure, this music is full of emotion. Orphée et Eurydice will become the earliest composition we have ever performed and mark the Company’s first foray into ‘early music’.

Tragédie opéra in three acts
Libretto by Pierre Louis Moline after Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s Italian libretto
First performance of French Edition: Paris, Académie Royale de Musique, August 2, 1774
Sung in French with English supertitles above the stage

Driven by love and wracked with grief and uncertainty, Orphée descends into the underworld on a heroic mission to return his beloved to the land of the living. His passionate music wins their freedom, but the true test has just begun. Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus, this vivid, theatrical production promises a visual spectacular as it takes us on a quest through a series of worlds ranging from the sinister to the pastoral. Focusing on simple, dramatic effect, Gluck’s beautiful music gives a unique glimpse of an approach that changed the nature of opera when it was first seen 250 years ago. From one moment full of fury, the next clear and pure, this music is full of emotion. Orphée et Eurydice will become the earliest composition we have ever performed and mark the Company’s first foray into ‘early music’.

Tragédie opéra in three acts
Libretto by Pierre Louis Moline after Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s Italian libretto
First performance of French Edition: Paris, Académie Royale de Musique, August 2, 1774
Sung in French with English supertitles above the stage

Driven by love and wracked with grief and uncertainty, Orphée descends into the underworld on a heroic mission to return his beloved to the land of the living. His passionate music wins their freedom, but the true test has just begun. Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus, this vivid, theatrical production promises a visual spectacular as it takes us on a quest through a series of worlds ranging from the sinister to the pastoral. Focusing on simple, dramatic effect, Gluck’s beautiful music gives a unique glimpse of an approach that changed the nature of opera when it was first seen 250 years ago. From one moment full of fury, the next clear and pure, this music is full of emotion. Orphée et Eurydice will become the earliest composition we have ever performed and mark the Company’s first foray into ‘early music’.

Tragédie opéra in three acts
Libretto by Pierre Louis Moline after Ranieri de’ Calzabigi’s Italian libretto
First performance of French Edition: Paris, Académie Royale de Musique, August 2, 1774
Sung in French with English supertitles above the stage

Driven by love and wracked with grief and uncertainty, Orphée descends into the underworld on a heroic mission to return his beloved to the land of the living. His passionate music wins their freedom, but the true test has just begun. Based on the Greek myth of Orpheus, this vivid, theatrical production promises a visual spectacular as it takes us on a quest through a series of worlds ranging from the sinister to the pastoral. Focusing on simple, dramatic effect, Gluck’s beautiful music gives a unique glimpse of an approach that changed the nature of opera when it was first seen 250 years ago. From one moment full of fury, the next clear and pure, this music is full of emotion. Orphée et Eurydice will become the earliest composition we have ever performed and mark the Company’s first foray into ‘early music’.

SEASON FINALE: BEETHOVEN’S NINTH
June 16-19, 2016
Helzberg Hall | Kauffman Center

Michael Stern, conductor
Kansas City Symphony Chorus
Charles Bruffy, chorus dierctor
Celena Shafer, soprano
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano
Robert Watson, tenor
Dashon Burton, bass-baritone

BEETHOVEN Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 2
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9

The grand finale of the season features three majestic works for chorus and orchestra. Beethoven maintained a lifelong admiration for the great German poet, Goethe. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage is a setting of two Goethe poems that journey from hushed mystery to triumph. Shostakovich wrote his youthful Symphony No. 2, “To October,” to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Beethoven’s epic final Symphony, culminating in the composer’s revolutionary and inspirational setting of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” caps the season in glorious, heavenly sounds. 

SEASON FINALE: BEETHOVEN’S NINTH
June 16-19, 2016
Helzberg Hall | Kauffman Center

Michael Stern, conductor
Kansas City Symphony Chorus
Charles Bruffy, chorus dierctor
Celena Shafer, soprano
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano
Robert Watson, tenor
Dashon Burton, bass-baritone

BEETHOVEN Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 2
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9

The grand finale of the season features three majestic works for chorus and orchestra. Beethoven maintained a lifelong admiration for the great German poet, Goethe. Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage is a setting of two Goethe poems that journey from hushed mystery to triumph. Shostakovich wrote his youthful Symphony No. 2, “To October,” to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Beethoven’s epic final Symphony, culminating in the composer’s revolutionary and inspirational setting of Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” caps the season in glorious, heavenly sounds.