by Daniel Hathaway
Hudson’s Nightingale Opera Theatre will mark its move into a new venue at Western Reserve Academy on Saturday, June 13 at 7:30 pm with a production of Gaetano Donizetti’s “melodramma giocoso,” The Elixir of Love.
One of the top comic operas of all time, Elixir was the most-performed opera in Europe during the decade following its premiere in 1832, and unlike many titles, has never fallen off the charts.
In a telephone conversation, we asked Melissa Davis, Nightingale’s artistic director, why she chose the piece for the company’s summer production. “We wanted to do a show with a smaller principal cast this year,” she said. “Tim Culver, the tenor who will be singing the role of Nemorino, told me, ‘I just really love Elixir. Have you thought about doing that?’ I’ve performed the opera three times in my career and remember it so fondly. It has such great music and such a fun plot. We decided to go with it.” [Read more…]
ing the Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra in their final US concert of the year on Sunday, June 14 at 3:00 pm in Severance Hall, Brett Mitchell will pack his bags to travel with the musicians to China to direct the same program in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Ningbo. In recent telephone conversations, Mitchell and principal cellist Henry Shapard shared their excitement and concerns about the upcoming international tour.
Since its founding in 1973, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition — the largest chamber music competition in the world — has helped launch the careers of many notable chamber music ensembles. Alumni and past winners with ties to Northeast Ohio include the Aeolus Quartet, Cavani Quartet, eighth blackbird, Imani Winds, Jasper Quartet, Jupiter Quartet, Miami String Quartet, Miro Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, and Prima Trio. Most recently, the Omer Quartet, representing the Cleveland Institute of Music, won the senior division string and grand prizes in 2013.
On Russian Duo’s latest CD, Interplay, pianist Terry Boyarsky and balalaika virtuoso Oleg Kruglyakov present a thirteen-track feast of music that beautifully marries traditional folk-tunes with classical elegance. On Sunday, June 7 at 7:00 pm, audiences can hear the music from the album performed live when Russian Duo hosts a CD release party at 
Having expanded its June season from five concerts in 2012 to eight in 2013, Franklin and Diana Cohen’s ChamberFest Cleveland grew again in 2014 to encompass ten events. Ten seems now to be the magic number for this enterprising festival, which offers everything you can imagine in the category of chamber music, played by an all-star cast of young musicians who come to Cleveland from far and wide. The ten concerts scheduled for the 2015 festival will begin on Wednesday, June 17 at Spaces and conclude on Wednesday, July 1 at a new venue, the Blackstone Organ House in Bratenahl.
“Severance Hall is going to be turned into a picturesque landscape of nature,” said Julie Kim, director of operations for The Cleveland Orchestra, during a telephone conversation. The outdoors will be brought inside when Franz Welser-Möst leads a cast of internationally-renowned singers in a new production of Richard Strauss’s one-act opera, Daphne, on Wednesday, May 27 at 7:30 pm, and Saturday, May 30 at 8:00 pm.
“Severance Hall is going to be turned into a picturesque landscape of nature,” said Julie Kim, director of operations for The Cleveland Orchestra, during a telephone conversation. The outdoors will be brought inside when Franz Welser-Möst leads a cast of internationally-renowned singers in a new production of Richard Strauss’s one-act opera, Daphne, on Wednesday, May 27 at 7:30 pm, and Saturday, May 30 at 8:00 pm.
On Wednesday, May 27 at 7:30 pm, and Saturday, May 30 at 8:00 pm at Severance Hall, Franz Welser-Möst will lead The Cleveland Orchestra and a cast of internationally-renowned singers in a new production of Richard Strauss’s one-act opera, Daphne.