Live broadcast of 'Phantom of the Opera' planned (AP)

NEW YORK – To mark its 25th anniversary, "The Phantom of the Opera" is coming to a movie theater near you.

Producers will broadcast a special performance of the show from London's Royal Albert Hall to movie houses in America, the UK, Europe, Japan and Australia. A live performance on Oct. 2 will be followed by re-broadcasts on Oct. 5, 6 and 11.

Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess, who co-starred in the "Phantom" sequel "Love Never Dies," will reunite for the special presentation. More than 200 original and current cast members are expected to make appearances.

"The Phantom of the Opera" is currently showing in London at Her Majesty's Theatre as well as New York, Budapest, Las Vegas and Kyoto. It has grossed over $5.6 billion worldwide.

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Small opera group offers engaging 'Ariadne' (AP)

By MIKE SILVERMAN, For The Associated Press Mike Silverman, For The Associated Press – Sun Aug 14, 2:31 pm ET

NEW YORK – The downsizing of the city's No. 2 opera company is shining a brighter light on the many smaller troupes that have taken fragile root in New York City's cultural soil.

One such group, the Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble, is presenting a brief summer season, consisting of Richard Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos" and Mozart's "The Magic Flute." The "Ariadne," especially, is an impressive display of what can be accomplished on a tiny budget.

For decades, the New York City Opera provided a place for up-and-coming singers who sometimes went on to major careers, often at the Metropolitan Opera. But financial problems have driven the NYCO from its Lincoln Center home, and its future is uncertain.

Meanwhile, scrappy companies like Dell'Arte, which was founded in 2000, offer a valuable opportunity for young performers, many of them just out of school. They don't get paid for their work, but they do get a chance to learn new roles, receive intensive coaching — and, best of all, perform in front of a live audience.

On Friday night, a talented cast working on a nearly bare stage in a rented space in the East Village made "Ariadne" come to life more buoyantly than it sometimes does in major houses with lavish sets.

The first half of the performance, the opera's prologue, was especially engaging. Director Benjamin Spierman created sharp interactions among the characters as they made backstage preparations for an entertainment at the estate of the richest man in Vienna. If the evening's second half was less enthralling, that's partly the fault of Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, for stretching out some of the material to the point of tedium.

Almost everyone showed vocal promise. As the Composer, mezzo-soprano Sarah Heltzel sang with fire and allure; soprano Mary Ann Stewart displayed a big, rich voice as Ariadne, and coloratura Jennifer Moore handled Zerbinetta's vocal acrobatics with aplomb — though her simpering portrayal was ill-advised. As Bacchus, tenor Shawn Thuris managed some heroic high notes with only occasional signs of strain.

It helped that Strauss wrote "Ariadne" for a reduced orchestra, allowing the 11 musicians assembled under conductor Christopher Fecteau's baton to provide a reasonable facsimile of the score.

That wasn't quite the case Thursday, when a different ensemble led by Samuel McCoy sounded underpowered in a transcription of Mozart's opera. And despite a program note promising an interpretation that emphasized the work's Masonic symbolism, director Susan Gonzalez offered little more than characters shuttling on and off stage.

Best among the "Flute" singers was soprano Sable Rivera, who brought a pleasant light lyric sound and an infectious charm to the small role of Papagena.

Both operas will play again next weekend with almost entirely different casts. For the audience, it's a chance to support aspiring singers just launching their careers — and maybe to hear some who will go on to make names for themselves.

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Nelson Mandela opera comes to Johannesburg (AP)

JOHANNESBURG – The refined strains of Western opera and traditional Xhosa song and a sexy dose of jazz drive a new opera that opens Saturday in Johannesburg about South Africa's former president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela.

Writer and director Michael Williams said in an interview before a dress rehearsal on Friday that the range of musical styles reflects South Africa's mix of cultures.

The sweeping production shows Mandela cheating on his wife, making political missteps and struggling with the burden of holding others' lives in his hands.

Aubrey Lodewyk, who plays an aging Mandela in the opera, says ordinary people can draw an important lesson from Mandela's life.

Lodewyk says: Mandela "was a human being, he had his faults. But yet he came out as great a man as he is."

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Obscure Strauss opera sparkles at Bard (AP)

By MIKE SILVERMAN, For The Associated Press Mike Silverman, For The Associated Press – 1 hr 40 mins ago

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. – Written during World War II when the composer was in his 70s and never performed in his lifetime, Richard Strauss's "Die Liebe der Danae" was long dismissed as a lame effort by an aging genius whose inspiration was running dry.

But the composer's next-to-last opera has also had its champions, none more fervent than Leon Botstein, music director of the American Symphony Orchestra. Botstein, who is also president of Bard College, had already recorded the work, and on Friday night he brought it to Bard's SummerScape arts festival for what he calls its "first fully-staged New York production."

It turns out the champions were right. The performance made a persuasive case for the opera (whose title translates as "The Love of Danae") as a piece well worth staging, if not quite an unjustly neglected masterpiece.

From its agitated opening chords to its elegiac conclusion, the score contains long passages of gorgeous music — along with a fair share of tedious "note-spinning." And the whimsical mythological plot has some surprisingly effective dramatic moments, made all the more pointed in the wittily updated production by architect Rafael Vinoly and Mimi Lien.

Strauss and his librettist, Joseph Gregor, amalgamated two different myths into one: the story of King Midas, who turns everything he touches to gold, and the legend of Danae, who is impregnated by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold.

In the opera, Danae is the daughter of bankrupt King Pollux, whose only hope for financial salvation is to marry her off to Midas. But this Midas is really just a camel-driver who has been deputized by Jupiter to woo Danae on his behalf. When Midas and Danae fall in love, Jupiter is furious and condemns them to a life of poverty. Eventually, the god learns to accept that for all his power, he can never experience love as mortals do.

It's not such a stretch to see how themes like the pursuit of wealth at all costs versus the triumph of true love in humble surroundings resonate in 21st-century society.

In the Bard production, smoothly directed by Kevin Newbury, Pollux is a corporate mogul who tries to hide under his boardroom table from his creditors. Jupiter's ship arrives in New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty faintly discernible in the background. Danae's picture is plastered on billboards advertising a brand of perfume called AU (the chemical symbol for gold). And she and Midas end up not in a hut in the Syrian desert but living in their car in the American West.

Botstein assembled a talented cast of singers who did valiant battle with Strauss' treacherous vocal writing. Meagan Miller, a soprano with a bright sound and impressive power, was Danae. She was able to scale the highest reaches of the role (including a final C-sharp), though sometimes her tone took on a hard, metallic sound. When not pushing for volume, she floated lovely soft high notes, even if once or twice she had trouble sustaining them.

As Midas, tenor Roger Honeywell sang his high-flying phrases ardently, though he seemed to be pressing his modest voice to its limits.

Baritone Carsten Wittmoser's voice isn't really big enough for the stentorian demands Strauss places on Jupiter, but to his credit he never let his tone turn coarse.

As King Pollux, tenor Dennis Petersen hurled out fierce high notes with flair. His four daughters-in-law, all former conquests of Jupiter, have large roles in this opera, and their voices blended nicely even as their antics became wearisome (Strauss' fault, not theirs). They were sopranos Aurora Sein Perry as Semele and Camille Zamora as Europa, and mezzo-sopranos Jamie Van Eyck as Alcmene and Rebecca Ringle as Leda.

The role of Xanthe, Danae's attendant, was sung with sparkle by soprano Sarah Jane McMahon. Her voice blended together bewitchingly with Miller's in their Act 1 duet, which echoes the great duet for sopranos in the composer's much-earlier "Arabella."

The orchestra played the difficult score extremely well under Botstein's persuasive baton.

As is often the case, Strauss saved the best for last. The final 30 minutes, starting with a brooding orchestral interlude and leading into a scene for Danae and Jupiter, show the composer at his most inspired. As the defeated god retreats to Mount Olympus, Danae comforts him with the gift of a golden comb from her hair — the last remnant of the riches she no longer wants. It's an image that resonates all the more for imagining Jupiter as a kind of stand-in for the composer himself.

There are four more performances through Aug. 7.

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Black teen's unusual talent: Singing Chinese opera (AP)

OAKLAND, Calif. – Tyler Thompson is an unlikely star in the world of Chinese opera.

The black teenager from Oakland has captivated audiences in the U.S. and China with his ability to sing pitch-perfect Mandarin and perform the ancient Chinese art form.

"As soon as he opens his mouth and sings in Chinese, the Chinese are very surprised and then feel very proud of him," said his music teacher Sherlyn Chew. "When he puts on the costume, and all the acting, you can see that he's pretty good."

Tyler, 15, is a standout student in Chew's Oakland-based Purple Silk Music Education program, which teaches children and youth — mostly from low-income immigrant families — how to sing and play traditional Chinese music. The program's Great Wall Youth Orchestra & Chorus has performed around the country.

Tyler has learned to sing several well-known pieces of Chinese opera, a centuries-old form of musical theater known for its elaborate costumes, clanging gongs and cymbals, wide-ranging vocals and highly stylized movements.

At the World Children's Festival in Washington in June, Tyler, dressed in a black robe emblazoned with golden dragons, got a standing ovation when he performed as Justice Bao, a famous Song Dynasty judge who fought government corruption, from the Chinese classic "Bao Qing Tian."

"The music is very beautiful, and it's very passionate. You can hear it when it's being played," said Tyler, a theater student at the Oakland School for the Arts. "It's made me want to know more about the world outside of America or California or Oakland."

David Lei, chairman of the Chinese Performing Arts Foundation in San Francisco, has seen Tyler perform several times and arranged to have him sing at the opening of a Chinese opera exhibit several years ago.

"It's very authentic because he hits the tones just right, so you understand everything," Lei said. "People just don't expect an Afro-American kid to be doing it. It's the initial shock. There's a sense of novelty."

Tyler, who comes from a music-loving family, began learning how to sing in Chinese a decade ago when he was a kindergartner in Chew's music class at Oakland's Lincoln Elementary School, where about 90 percent of students are Asian.

Chew quickly recognized Tyler's talent and recruited him to join her Purple Silk music program, where students learn to sing Chinese songs and play traditional instruments such as a two-string violin called an erhu, a four-stringed lute known as a pipa and a bamboo flute called a dizi.

"I really took a liking to him and thought he had quite a large range," said Chew, who started the music program at Oakland's Laney College in 1995. "He hears pitch very well, and his pronunciation of Chinese characters is very accurate."

Tyler's mother, Vanessa Ladson, said her son's education at a predominantly Asian elementary school and participation in the Chinese music program have made him more open-minded.

"He's grown a lot," she said. "He's learning a different culture, and the Asian children are learning his culture, so it's a plus-plus for everybody."

Tyler said friends and classmates sometimes poke fun at him, wondering where a black kid from Oakland learned how to sing Chinese opera.

"Sometimes they don't understand it," Tyler said. "It's just joking about the fact that as dark as I am, I'm singing Chinese. What's up with that? If I go to China, I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb. It's just those types of jokes. All in good fun."

Since his first solo at age 6, Tyler has performed at San Francisco's Davies Symphony Hall and Herbst Theater, on television shows such as "Good Morning America" and at the U.S. State Department, where he sang for then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi.

Tyler became a sensation in China several years ago after Chinese Central Television broadcast his performance at a Lunar New Year show in San Jose.

Tyler, who has learned to speak some basic Chinese, was scheduled to make his debut performance in China in July, but he and his mother ran into trouble getting visas in time, Chew said.

In recent years, Tyler has begun studying theater and acting more seriously, but he plans to keep performing traditional Chinese music, which has opened up a world of opportunities to him.

"I've been sticking to this to see where else it will take me," he said.

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New York City Opera musicians protest contract (AP)

NEW YORK – Musicians of the New York City Opera are staging a protest as the company announces its new season.

The union members say they're being offered a contract that would gut the chorus and orchestra and strip them of health and other benefits. And they say they're not even guaranteed a minimum number of work weeks.

City Opera spokeswoman Maggie McKeon says the company is simply executing a new strategy to reverse a decade of deficits. Opera officials were announcing the new program Monday — a season of only three or four operas.

The 68-year-old organization is revered as a pillar of American culture and has built the careers of such stars as Placido Domingo. But in recent years, it has struggled with a dwindling endowment and a multimillion-dollar deficit.

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Barenboim to stay 10 more years at Berlin opera (AP)

BERLIN – Renowned conductor Daniel Barenboim signed a new contract Wednesday to remain musical director of the city's Staatsoper opera house for another decade, Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said.

The Israeli-Argentinian conductor has been in the role since 1992.

"I'm extraordinarily happy that we managed to keep Daniel Barenboim in Berlin for the coming years," Wowereit said. "His efforts for the Staatsopera and the city of Berlin are indisputable."

Wowereit said the city's new contract for the 68-year-old would take effect when his current one expires at the end of the month.

The famous opera's 19th-century home on Unter den Linden boulevard in what used to be East Berlin is currently under construction and will reopen at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season.

The Staatsoper has moved across town to the Schiller Theater during the restoration work.

It's one of three major opera houses in the German capital.

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Daniel Barenboim to extend Berlin Opera contract (AFP)

BERLIN (AFP) – Daniel Barenboim, the Argentinian-Israeli pianist and conductor, is to extend his contract as music director of the Berlin State Opera, city officials said Thursday.

His current contract runs out in July of next year.

City officials did not specify for how long Barenboim would renew his contract, saying this would be made public at a signing ceremony on Wednesday.

In 2000, Barenboim, now aged 68, was made a life member of the Berlin State Opera.

A tireless campaigner for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Barenboim conducted an orchestra of top European musicians at a special concert in Gaza in May.

The British embassy in Berlin recently announced he was to receive a knighthood for his work toward reconciliation in the Middle East through music.

Barenboim will become an honorary Knight Commander of the most excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) but he will not receive a "Sir" title -- an honour reserved for Britons.

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Opera stars, fearing radiation, skip Japan tour (AP)

TOKYO – Two of the biggest stars of New York's Metropolitan Opera have bowed out of a Japan tour, citing fears of radioactive contamination and sending the company scrambling to find last-minute stand-ins.

Soprano Anna Netrebko and tenor Joseph Calleja announced just days before the opening show that they would not join the tour of Nagoya and Tokyo despite experts' assurances they would be safe, forcing the Met to "scour the world" for replacements, general manager Peter Gelb said Tuesday.

"Part of what makes opera such an exciting art form is that it is so unpredictable," Gelb said. "If there were a rationality clause in opera singers' contracts, not many opera singers would perform."

Japan was hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left about 25,000 people dead or missing and crippled a nuclear power station north of Tokyo, setting off radiation leaks. The plant remains unstable, though the leaks have declined substantially.

Tokyo briefly registered nominally higher radiation levels in its air and water, but they have subsided to pre-tsunami levels. There was never any scientific concern of a radiation impact on Nagoya, which is much farther away.

The disaster and the uncertainty it spawned caused a spate of concert cancellations, and the arts scene is only now returning to normal. Along with pop music and sports events, classical concerts by the Vienna Boys Chior, the Lyon Orchestra and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra also were nixed, along with performances by violinists Hillary Hahn and Anne Sophie Mutter.

"Of course, Tokyo is safe," said Momoko Serizawa, a spokeswoman for concert organizer Japan Arts. "But the visit by the Met comes at a very important and delicate time and we hope it will give impetus to others to follow soon."

Not all artists have stayed away — last month, opera great Placido Domingo performed in Japan and later donated $200,000.

Even so, Gelb said Netrebko, who is Russian, chose not to go through with the tour because of radiation concerns and because, she said, she had friends who died of cancer after the Chernobyl disaster in 1989.

Gelb said she told him that she would be so distraught that she wouldn't perform well and would be a disappointment to her fans.

Calleja also said he was concerned for his health.

Gelb said the Met struggled with whether to go ahead with the performances, planned years in advance.

Last month, David Brenner, an expert on low-dose radiation, was brought in from Columbia University to meet with the company. He informed them that radiation levels in Tokyo had returned to their pre-tsunami norm, and that the airplane trip or a simple X-ray would probably lead to greater exposure than the stay in Japan.

"There are cities in Europe with higher levels," Gelb said Brenner told the performers.

That was enough to convince all but three — German tenor Jonas Kauffmann announced last month he was pulling out. The rest of the 300-plus member company arrived in Nagoya, west of Tokyo, on Monday.

"Obviously, if it were not safe we wouldn't be here," Gelb said. "I feel very strongly that we have a responsibility to be here. I think we are setting an example by being here for the global artistic community and for the Japanese public."

Gelb said he hoped the Japanese would not take the withdrawals as an insult. "They are great artists and I hope the Japanese public won't think less of them," he said.

The tour, the Met's seventh in Japan, begins Saturday and runs through June 19.

Four singers — soprano Marina Poplavskaya, along with tenors Marcelo Alvarez, Rolando Villazon and Alexey Dolgov — will fill the hole left by Netrebko and Calleja.

The Met will be performing performing "La Boheme," "Don Carlo," and "Lucia di Lammermoor."

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Opera broadcasts build Latin American audiences (AP)

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Olga R. Rodriguez, Associated Press – Thu May 26, 2:13 pm ET

MEXICO CITY – The first thing opera buff Marcelo Perez did when he retired eight years ago was take a bus to the U.S. border and then a train to New York, where he realized a lifelong dream by catching a performance at the Metropolitan Opera.

From a nosebleed seat at the Met, the 76-year-old former office assistant for Mexico's Treasury Department saw Puccini's "Tosca," which tells the story of a love triangle involving an opera singer, an artist and a police chief, as well as torture, murder and suicide.

"The music pierced right through my soul," Perez recalled. "The experience was grandiose."

On a recent afternoon, Perez was preparing to catch another opera, Verdi's "Il Trovatore," but without the bus and train rides. This performance was being broadcast live from the Met to a packed house at Mexico City's National Auditorium, the biggest arts and culture venue in the capital.

In fact, growing numbers of people around Mexico and Latin America are filling auditoriums and movie theaters to catch simulcasts of live performances beamed from the Met. With low ticket prices and strong word of mouth, the broadcasts are introducing many in the region to the kind of world-class opera and dance previously available only in U.S. and European cities.

Opera simulcasts around Latin America are often sold out, and in Mexico City, the Met operas have been such a success with people of all ages that the National Auditorium this year added ballets staged by Russia's Bolshoi Theater and the Opera National de Paris.

High-definition technology "has democratized these art forms and made them available to all the people who can't afford to travel and pay the 300 dollars a ticket," said Giovanni Cozzi, president of Rising Alternative, a New York-based company that has international distribution rights for the Bolshoi Ballet, Opera de Paris and Teatro alla Scala Milan, among other institutions.

Rising Alternative is distributing delayed broadcasts of Bolshoi Theater and Opera National performances to Mexico, Peru and Brazil. Outlets in Colombia, Argentina and Costa Rica have also expressed interest in getting the broadcasts next season, Cozzi said. The company distributes such works to 30 countries.

The Met program pioneered simulcasts with a performance of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" shown in 60 places in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom during the 2006-2007 season. The program was so popular that the opera house expanded the high-definition satellite broadcasts to 1,500 screens in 46 countries, reaching 2 million spectators a year worldwide, said Met general manager Peter Gelb.

"The core audience is opera fans, but this is our tool to help develop new audiences as well," Gelb said. "Opera is not for everyone. It's for an intelligent audience that is interested in great singing, in great theater, but everything we're doing is to make it available to as many people as possible."

During a recent Mexico City showing of "Il Trovatore," all 6,500 seats were sold out at $3.50 to $35 each. Seeing the opera at the Met costs from $30 to $330.

Spanish subtitles translated the Italian of Verdi's dark masterpiece, which recounts a deadly rivalry between two long-lost brothers that results in infanticide and, yes, a climactic suicide.

Jorge Gutierrez, promotions director for the National Auditorium, said prices were kept low to attract opera newcomers and compete with other attractions in the city. The auditorium, which has the rights to distribute the Met program within Mexico, has expanded it to eight other Mexican cities.

"If you don't know about opera and have never listened to it, it can be intimidating," said Karina Pedroza, a 22-year-old nutrition student who was getting ready to watch her first opera at the National Auditorium, Wagner's "Die Walkure," which closed the Met's 2010-2011 season.

"The Met can summon the best in the world and spare no cost; that's why it would be impossible for an opera like that to come to Mexico," Gutierrez said. "Even if they went on tour, it would be impossible for us to afford bringing the performance here."

On a recent afternoon, about 700 people, mostly seniors, packed a small auditorium where Mexican opera expert Sergio Vela gave a pre-show talk and described Verdi's melancholic tendencies in a blow-by-blow account of "Il Trovatore." Some in the audience said the shows, despite their violent themes, were an escape from the drug wars engulfing parts of Mexico.

"Opera is filled with something special, and there are so many ugly things happening in our country that you can take a Saturday afternoon and come here and disconnect with these performances," said Teresa Moreno, a 73-year-old housewife, who brought her 38-year-old son.

For Marcelo Perez, who lives on a monthly pension of about $380, the Met simulcasts offer him a chance to enjoy the art form he fell in love with after watching a local company's performance of Verdi's "La Traviata" in 1970 at Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes.

At the recent "Il Trovatore," he broke into applause as soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, who played the heroine Leonora, sang her final aria, "D'amor sull'ali rosee" ("On the rosy wings of love"). The camera closed in on Radvanovsky's pain-filled face as she lamented her beloved's imprisonment, before poisoning herself in a final act of love.

"It would be better to see it live," Perez whispered during the scene, "but it's so well done that it captures you."

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Houston opera conductor named new music director (AP)

HOUSTON – Houston Grand Opera conductor Patrick Summers has been named the organization's artistic and music director in a shuffle of top management after the departure of general director Anthony Freud.

The opera's board also named chief operating officer Perryn Leech as managing director. Freud resigned to lead the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Summers has conducted more than 45 operas in his 13 years with the Houston Grand Opera. He also is principal guest conductor of the San Francisco Opera and appears with the Metropolitan Opera in New York and other leading companies.

Leech joined the Houston Grand Opera as chief operating officer in 2010, after a 27-year career in production at theaters and opera companies that include the English National Opera and the Welsh National Opera.

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Union files complaint to stop move of NYC Opera (AP)

NEW YORK – A union representing New York City Opera workers has filed a federal complaint saying the financially troubled company's plans to move out of Lincoln Center after 45 years are aimed at undermining performers' labor rights.

The American Guild of Musical Artists says the move to a smaller venue and a shorter schedule will mean less work for union members. It filed a complaint Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board saying the opera should have negotiated with the union.

The union represents about 200 opera workers, including about 50 choristers and 10 production workers.

An opera spokeswoman says the filing is without merit. The opera announced last week it was moving out of Lincoln Center and will do only three full-scale operas next season instead of five.

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Zambello advises National Opera as Domingo departs (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Washington National Opera announced Wednesday that it has appointed Francesca Zambello as the company's artistic adviser as famed tenor Placido Domingo steps down after 15 years with the opera.

The appointment comes as the company merges with the Kennedy Center to provide stability after years of financial struggles. Zambello previously worked with Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser at London's Royal Opera House.

"I think that opera has the chance to attract people in ways that we don't always think about, quite honestly," she said in an interview. "I'm all about creating productions that are accessible to the audience, that are entertaining, that are storytelling."

Zambello is a respected director in both opera and musical theater. She is currently directing a new production of Wagner's "Ring" cycle for the San Francisco Opera. The production originated with the Washington National Opera, but it was unable to finish all four episodes because of financial troubles.

Kaiser and Zambello agreed they would like to stage a complete "Ring" cycle in Washington after the opera spent considerable time and money developing it as the "American Ring" in 2006, drawing on themes and settings from U.S. history to explore Wagner's epic of greed, ambition and betrayal.

After the "Ring" productions in June, Zambello will step down as artistic adviser of the San Francisco Opera to focus her efforts on Washington and as director of the Glimmerglass Opera, a summer festival in Cooperstown, N.Y.

The New York-based director will be part of a team that will direct the opera's programming as it transitions from Domingo, who joined the company as artistic director in 1996. Early in her career, Zambello worked under the late director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle.

Kaiser said Zambello is the leading woman among opera directors. He declined to specify the term of her contract in Washington but said she will have an ongoing role. Naming an artistic adviser made sense while the company is in transition, Kaiser said.

"She's got a lot of vision in opera, and we think she's going to bring some really good programming ideas, casting ideas, ideas for the productions that should be used," he said.

Zambello also recently directed Broadway's "The Little Mermaid" as a stage adaptation of the Disney movie. It closed in 2009 before a national tour.

She said she wants to broaden the opera's programming to reach the widest possible audience, including tourists visiting Washington's cultural attractions. She also is eager to take operas beyond the grand Kennedy Center Opera House with productions in smaller theaters as well.

The 55-year-old Washington opera has always been "revered" under Martin Feinstein and Domingo, Zambello said, adding that she looks forward to ongoing collaborations with Domingo.

Much of the opera's resources are being used to pay off its debts before it merges with the Kennedy Center on July 1. Tax records from 2009 show the company carried a debt of about $11.6 million, and its endowment stood at $30.6 million. Its budget has been balanced in recent years after cuts in programming and staff.

Other operas have struggled through the recession. The New York City Opera just announced it is leaving its longtime home at Lincoln Center to cut costs. The Baltimore Opera closed its doors in 2009.

Change can help energize a theater, Zambello said.

"I think that this new arrangement will really, really help the company," she said, "in making it just explode more in the city's cultural scene."

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NYC Opera union seeks unfair labor practice charge (AP)

NEW YORK – A union representing workers at the financially troubled New York City Opera says it will file unfair labor practice charges after the board voted to move out of the Lincoln Center and cut staff.

National Executive Director Alan Gordon said Saturday that the American Guild of Musical Artists will also consider seeking an injunction preventing the production company from continuing to use the name New York City Opera.

On Friday, the board voted to leave the Lincoln Center, cut staff across the board and scale back its performance schedule. The opera's general manager, George Steel, says the changes are necessary to keep the opera afloat and build "a foundation for sustainable growth."

The 68-year-old organization is revered as a pillar of American culture. But in recent years, it has been struggling with a dwindling endowment and a multimillion-dollar deficit.

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Board of troubled NYC Opera meets to talk future (AP)

NEW YORK – The New York City Opera, a pillar of American culture that for decades has built daring new productions along with the careers of stars like Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming and Beverly Sills, is fighting for its life.

Members of the company's board met Thursday at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to consider the opera's future, and spokeswoman Maggie McKeon said Thursday evening that deliberations were continuing.

No announcements were expected before Friday.

Singers and production staff locked in a tussle over a new contract are threatening to "strike and drive City Opera out of existence," a union leader warned in an e-mail Wednesday to The Associated Press.

But in a letter to the board this week, union members expressed a willingness to make additional sacrifices, said Alan Gordon, executive director of The American Guild of Musical Artists, representing singers, dancers, stage directors and managers.

The company's endowment has dwindled from $55 million to $9 million, according to audits obtained by the AP. And City Opera has put off announcing its 2011-2012 season as it faces a projected deficit of $5 million.

The board chairman last month personally contributed an emergency $2.5 million toward plugging the deficit, company officials said.

Another current board member, Susan Baker, resigned as chairwoman in September after being blamed in the media for decisions that have left opera company on the financial brink. She was succeeded by Charles R. Wall, a former tobacco company attorney who contributed the $2.5 million.

Company officials declined to say how much money they have left, or comment on Gordon's statements.

The board is conducting an exhaustive financial review, with Wall saying that future programming won't be scheduled until the budget is balanced.

In the past three years, one season was totally eliminated and two cut down drastically.

City Opera's contracts with AGMA and Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, representing the orchestra, expired on April 29. The two sides are now involved in what Gordon called "very truncated negotiations."

He said that under an old contract, chorus singers were guaranteed 26 weeks of work each year. Now, with possible cuts in salary, working hours and medical coverage looming, they "will have to decide whether to bargain over reduced employment or, instead, strike and drive City Opera out of existence."

Chorus members earned an average of about $36,000 a year, "and every NYCO chorister has to maintain a second job in order to survive," the union boss said.

In the letter to the board, singers and production staff said they were willing "to find new and creative ways to work with smaller budgets and fewer resources than we ever have in the past." But they faulted the company for cutting back on such classic and traditional works as "Carmen" and "La Boheme" that are in their repertoire.

In its latest tax return, for the year ending June 2010, the company posted a $4.7 million operating deficit, with net assets tumbling to about $9.7 million from $58 million in 2007.

City Opera shares space at the David H. Koch Theater with the New York City Ballet as two of the dozen artistic constituents of Lincoln Center, the world's largest arts complex. Next door is the Metropolitan Opera, a grander company established in 1883 and known for its international superstar cast and big-budget productions.

By contrast, City Opera was founded in 1943. Then-Mayor Fiorello La Guardia called it "The People's Opera" — a jewel in the city's cultural crown that championed American singers who once went to Europe to establish themselves and has always offered more affordable tickets than the Met.

This spring, the company again demonstrated its pioneering spirit_ staging its annual Vox festival of contemporary American works at a Manhattan university and a chichi downtown club.

Vox follows a season that included a warhorse of the vocal repertoire, Donizetti's "Elisir d'Amore," as well as a family-friendly production called "Where The Wild Things Are," composed by Oliver Knussen and based on a beloved children's book by Maurice Sendak.

Although this season was critically acclaimed, ticket sales sagged.

Further highlighting the financial woes facing arts organizations, the venerable Philadelphia Orchestra last month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, making it the first major U.S. orchestra to do so.

Management for the orchestra, among the world's most renowned symphonies and the ensemble behind the soundtrack to Walt Disney's 1940 film "Fantasia," said it was facing a $14.5 million shortfall on a $46 million budget and would run out of cash by June.

The City Opera has been on a roller-coaster ride for several years, facing financial and artistic turmoil that threatened to close it down last season. But the shows went on — albeit only about 30 performances this season and last, compared with the more than 100 staged in previous years.

Like most nonprofit cultural institutions, City Opera depends on the financial backing of wealthy patrons.

The economic crisis that started in 2008 has forced many benefactors to scale back on their donations. But the economy cannot be blamed for everything — especially when companies of about the same size stay solvent, like the Chicago Lyric Opera.

City Opera's latest troubles began in 2007, with the appointment of Belgian director Gerard Mortier as general manager and artistic director, effective as of the 2009-2010 season.

Baker, a former Goldman Sachs executive, headed the board since 2003, around the time deficits started hounding City Opera.

The market crash was a catastrophic last straw. Baker looked for an innovative — but ultimately unsuccessful — way to counterbalance it, hiring the high-profile, avant-garde Mortier to replace the outgoing general manager, Paul Kellogg.

Mortier was used to staging expensive, cutting-edge extravaganzas in Europe, where he ran the Salzburg Festival from 1990-2001 and the Paris Opera from 2004-2009. He insisted that City Opera's theater be renovated, forcing the company to go dark for the 2008-2009 season, with only six unstaged performances elsewhere.

Total revenue dropped to $17 million in 2009, compared with $37 million the previous year, the audits show. And income from ticket sales plunged to about $186,000, down from $12 million.

To cover operating deficits, the company raided its endowment for about $24 million — an action that had to be approved by the New York attorney general's office, which oversees nonprofits. In 2003, the endowment was $55 million, according to the company audits.

Baker did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the AP.

Mortier held his position less than a year, working mostly from Paris; in between, the company covered his pricey first-class flights to New York, records show. He finally resigned on the grounds that the $60 million operating budget he expected had dwindled to $26 million, as registered in a fiscal 2009 audit.

He was replaced by George Steel, an impresario and conductor from the Dallas Opera.

____

Online:

New York City Opera: http://www.nycopera.com

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UK's Glyndebourne fest stages tainted Wagner opera (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – The founder of Britain's Glyndebourne festival loved Wagner and performed excerpts from "Die Meistersinger" on the organ, but that was before the Nazis adopted the composer's longest opera as their signature piece.

On Saturday, in its first production of "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg" and only second Wagner opera, Glyndebourne will attempt to show that a work used to stir up nationalism and anti-Semitism by the Third Reich is fitting musical fare for its well-heeled patrons, fortified for the seven-hour journey with lobster tail and rack of lamb during a long interval.

"I don't think Wagner was imparting ideas which were outspokenly fascist," conductor Vladimir Jurowski, who will lead the performance, said, confronting the issue head on.

"The fact that they (Wagner's operas) have been abused by the Nazis later on only says something about the ambiguity of Wagner's ideas," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Everyone associated with the production, staged by the world-renowned director David McVicar, is aware that a lot is riding on the artistic, as well as financial, success of what is probably the most expensive and ambitious opera produced at Glyndebourne since it was founded in 1934 by wealthy landowner John Christie and his opera-singer wife.

Although details of the staging, as is usual in these affairs, have been kept under wraps, it is known that the historical period of Wagner's tale about a song contest sponsored by an opera guild in 16th-century Nuremberg has been moved to Wagner's time, the 19th century.

In addition to the soloists, there will be some 140 people on stage, including circus performers, a full orchestra in the pit and a chorus of about 90.

These are big -- and costly -- forces for the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, which gets all its funding from sponsors and ticket sales, but the fact that all 10 performances of an opera which begins just before 3 p.m. and, with two intervals, ends almost seven hours later, are sold out is music to the ears of general director David Pickard.

To accommodate those who can't get in for love or money, the opera will be streamed on the Guardian newspaper's website for its final performance on June 26.

"This gives truth to the myth that this place is about nice, light entertainment with a picnic attached," Pickard told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"Serious operas are wonderfully suited to the sort of overall experience here at Glyndebourne, especially spending a day immersed in music and a beautiful garden."

"Honor YOUR GERMAN MASTERS"

Harder to shake are the opera's Nazi associations. It was Hitler's favorite and he was a regular visitor, before and during World War Two, to see it performed at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, the hall in northern Bavaria that Wagner purpose-built to showcase his works.

At the end of the opera, the main character, cobbler and poet Hans Sachs, sings the line that endeared it to the Nazis and has caused trouble ever since: "Honor your German masters."

Jurowski, for one, thinks the words, and the whole opera, have been taken out of context.

"He (Wagner) ...was trying to give his support to (Chancellor Otto von) Bismarck's reunified Germany and ...the idea of national identity in the 19th century in the time when Wagner was growing up was a highly liberal idea...

"But of course we know the consequences of this idea in the 20th century, and we also know about the popularity of this opera in the Third Reich. It was a piece that enjoyed greater popularity than any other work by Wagner."

Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, singing the role of Sachs, is less worried about the political and historical overtones than he is with managing what someone has figured to be 6,000 words of German -- the biggest baritone role in the repertoire.

It is the first time Finley, 51, has sung the part -- a huge departure from his recent appearance as radio personality Howard Stern in the premiere at the Royal Opera House of "Anna Nicole," based on the life of the celebrity playgirl.

"It's been one of the fuller years of my career," Finley said, adding that while it may seem like a huge leap from Stern to Sachs, the first was a supporting role while the second requires him to be on stage almost the entire time.

"But in fact it's one of those things where hopefully one gets into a groove and they're paced nicely with four days between shows," he said. "So there's enough recovery time and, one hopes, rejuvenation time, too."

(Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg" in rotation at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival from May 21 through June 26. www.glyndebourne.com)

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Hong Kong academy to offer Cantonese opera degree (AP)

HONG KONG – A Hong Kong performing arts school will offer a Cantonese opera degree in the latest effort to preserve the traditional art form designated as a key cultural heritage.

The Academy for Performing Arts said its program will combine theory and practice to prepare students for Cantonese opera careers as performers, educators or arts administrators.

The four-year degree program is the first of its kind for the art form sung in the southern Chinese dialect.

The degree would be offered starting in September 2013, the school said in a statement Monday. Depending on demand, the academy may add postgraduate degrees.

Cantonese opera performer Yuen Siu-fai welcomed the program, saying the craft was suffering a serious talent shortage. While veterans like himself have shifted their energies from performance to grooming new talents, few skilled performers are in their 20s or 30s.

"My first reaction is this is a very good thing. This is something I really hope for," Yuen told The Associated Press in a phone interview, adding that the program's success depends on the quality of its faculty and curriculum.

The Cantonese opera performers' group that Yuen helps manage, the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong, has a continuing education school for working professionals. The association also runs courses at a secondary school and hopes to expand to a second.

Performance venues have also been cause for concern. The lease for Hong Kong's leading Cantonese opera theater, the Sunbeam Theater, is due to run out in February 2012, although the Hong Kong government has promised performance space in the planned $2.8 billion West Kowloon cultural hub designed by famed British architect Norman Foster.

Yuen said, however, the solution is not hardware, but rather addressing the general disrespect for performing arts. He said he has often lost promising youngsters to parents who force them to focus on their academic studies in their secondary school years as they prepare for university admission.

The Hong Kong government said in a statement it is committed to maintaining public interest in Cantonese opera. The Home Affairs Department said it plans to spend 30 million Hong Kong dollars ($3.9 million) this financial year on Cantonese Opera performances, training and research.

A separate Cantonese Opera Development Fund has awarded HK$37 million ($4.8 million) since its founding in 2005.

The Home Affairs Department plans to fund Academy for Performing Arts courses this year but didn't say if it will back the degree program.

Cantonese opera was added to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's key cultural heritage list in 2009.

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Hong Kong academy to offer Cantonese opera degree (AP)

HONG KONG – A Hong Kong performing arts school will offer a Cantonese opera degree in the latest effort to preserve the traditional art form designated as a key cultural heritage.

The Academy for Performing Arts said its program will combine theory and practice to prepare students for Cantonese opera careers as performers, educators or arts administrators.

The four-year degree program is the first of its kind for the art form sung in the southern Chinese dialect.

The degree would be offered starting in September 2013, the school said in a statement Monday. Depending on demand, the academy may add postgraduate degrees.

Cantonese opera performer Yuen Siu-fai welcomed the program, saying the craft was suffering a serious talent shortage. While veterans like himself have shifted their energies from performance to grooming new talents, few skilled performers are in their 20s or 30s.

"My first reaction is this is a very good thing. This is something I really hope for," Yuen told The Associated Press in a phone interview, adding that the program's success depends on the quality of its faculty and curriculum.

The Cantonese opera performers' group that Yuen helps manage, the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong, has a continuing education school for working professionals. The association also runs courses at a secondary school and hopes to expand to a second.

Performance venues have also been cause for concern. The lease for Hong Kong's leading Cantonese opera theater, the Sunbeam Theater, is due to run out in February 2012, although the Hong Kong government has promised performance space in the planned $2.8 billion West Kowloon cultural hub designed by famed British architect Norman Foster.

Yuen said, however, the solution is not hardware, but rather addressing the general disrespect for performing arts. He said he has often lost promising youngsters to parents who force them to focus on their academic studies in their secondary school years as they prepare for university admission.

The Hong Kong government said in a statement it is committed to maintaining public interest in Cantonese opera. The Home Affairs Department said it plans to spend 30 million Hong Kong dollars ($3.9 million) this financial year on Cantonese Opera performances, training and research.

A separate Cantonese Opera Development Fund has awarded HK$37 million ($4.8 million) since its founding in 2005.

The Home Affairs Department plans to fund Academy for Performing Arts courses this year but didn't say if it will back the degree program.

Cantonese opera was added to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's key cultural heritage list in 2009.

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Set glitch delays Met Opera global telecast (AP)

NEW YORK – The Metropolitan Opera's live telecast to millions of listeners worldwide was delayed by 35 minutes because of a glitch in the set.

Hundreds of ticketholders stood outside the theater Saturday, waiting to enter for a noon telecast of Richard Wagner's "Die Walkuere." (dee VAHL'-kyoo-reh). The show ended and about 45 minutes behind schedule at 5:50 p.m.

Met spokeswoman Lee Abrahamian says a malfuctioning encoding sensor in one of the planks in the set had to be fixed.

The 90,000-pound set twists into different shapes, and lights and projections are used to create the effects such as water and fire.

The Met's "Live in HD" broadcasts are beamed to 1,500 movie theaters around the world, including many in Europe, where the final note was played at 11:50 p.m. Abrahamian says theaters carried the opera to its conclusion.

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French opera singer Jane Rhodes dies (AFP)

PARIS (AFP) – French-born opera singer Jane Rhodes, famous for her role as the singing gypsy Carmen, died Saturday, her husband told AFP. She was 82 years old.

Rhodes died in a Paris hospital where she was being treated for a neurological illness.

Born in 1929 in Paris, Rhodes made her opera debut at 25, with a singing voice ranging from the powerful dramatic soprano to the higher mezzo-soprano.

"Her most famous role was undoubtedly Carmen at the Garnier opera house in Paris where I myself was a conductor, in November 1959, and in the presence of (former World War II leader and French president) General (Charles) de Gaulle," said her husband, the conductor Roberto Benzi.

With her good looks, Rhodes gained fame for her role as Carmen, the irresistible and fiery character in George Bizet's opera, as well as Marguerite in Hector Berlioz's "The Damnation of Faust".

She also sang Giacomo Puccini's Tosca and Richard Strauss's Salome.

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