Top Ten Opera Performances of 2013

This comes from Chicago Classical Review.

Riccardo Muti’s year with the CSO began on a low note with the conductor’s flu and hernia surgery causing him to cancel his January dates and a long-planned CSO Asian tour.
Yet after that dismaying start, the partnership of the orchestra and their beloved Italian maestro went from strength to strength in 2013, culminating in the magnificent September concert performances of Verdi’s Macbeth. The highlight of the CSO concerts marking Verdi’ s 200th birthday, this riveting concert offered Chicago’s finest opera performance of the year as well, with Tatiana Serjan’s vividly characterized and beautifully sung Lady Macbeth leading a faultless cast. The gleaming power and hair-trigger responsiveness of the CSO was jaw-dropping under Muti’s inspired direction, his lifetime of Verdi experience and scholarship shining through every bar.

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Hannibal

Christmas Opera

Phantom of the Opera with Lyrics

Review of Traviata at the Lyric Opera of Chicago

Check out this review of the opera which is still playing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Great Female Opera Performances

Check out the Lake View Orchestra

A flier for the performance in the Lake View neighborhood of Chicago is below.

Below is a photo of all 77 neighborhoods of Chicago.

Swimming Pool Opera: Chicago Opera Theater Puts on Show in Welles Park Pool

DNA Info has all the details.

(Photo courtesy of the Chicago Opera Theater)

Think opera is a bunch of horned Viking women standing in place for hours on end, hitting ear-splitting notes sung in a foreign language?
You haven't seen Chicago Opera Theater's free production of "Orpheus & Euridice," coming to Welles Park Dec. 19, 20 and 22.

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Great Opera Performances Video

Opera Company Commissions Rufus Wainwright to Compose Opera About Roman Emperor Hadrian

Here's the story from Opera News.

Entitled Hadrian, the work, which is currently in development, will be inspired by the Roman emperor's tragic love for the Greek youth Antinous during the the dawn of monotheism. It has been slated to open Canadian Opera Company's 2018-19 mainstage season.
"We began the process of creating a new opera for the Canadian Opera Company several years ago, and I'm very proud to say that we are now at the stage where we can make the news public," Neef said in a press release issued today by the company. "Bringing a world premiere to the COC's mainstage is a significant undertaking for the company and we're proud to say that all the elements are now in place to make a strong project. Rufus and I have been talking about what Hadrian would look like for at least three years now and I'm very excited about the musical and dramatic direction that this piece will take."
Hadrian will mark Wainwright's second foray into opera, following the 2009 world premiere of Prima Donnaat the Manchester International Festival and its subsequent performances in London, Toronto and New York. Playwright Daniel MacIvor, whose award-winning pieces for theatre including See Bob Run, The Soldier Dreams, You Are Here, Arigato, Tokyo and The Best Brothers, will write his first opera libretto.

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Great Opera Video

Chicago Sun Times Unimpressed with Latest at Chicago Lyric Opera

Here's the story.

While some may think of a night at the opera as an abstract means of escape, the artform and its presentation exist very much in time and space.
An audience brings memories of other casts and productions, often in the same opera house. The ability now to access recordings from almost any period or place throws on more layers of experience. Other symphony orchestras and chamber ensembles can make a city or festival a bazaar of comparisons and contrasts.

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Vivaldi Performance

Phantom of the Opera Performance

Rossini - La Cenerentola (1981) - Complete opera