English Touring Opera are delighted to announce a season of lyric monodramas to tour nationally from October to December. The season features music for solo singer and piano by Argento, Britten, Tippett and Shostakovich with a bold and inventive approach to making opera during social distancing.
Conductor Oliver Zeffman has commissioned the very first opera for a socially distanced world, which is now available to watch exclusively on Apple Music. Eight Songs From Isolation has been written by eight leading composers, specifically for streaming - rather than live performance - and is the first opera written for a time when the performers were unable to meet in person.
Leading freelance musicians unite in Parliament Square to call for targeted support for colleagues in the arts and entertainment sector.
Duo Lewis Murphy (composer) and Laura Attridge (writer) have launched a charitable song project entitled Notes From Isolation. The resulting songs, featuring some of the UK's top singing talent, are being released online between August and October 2020 and can be enjoyed free of charge.
The Royal Opera House is thrilled to announce an exciting, wide-ranging new line-up for its autumn programme. For the first time, extraordinary performances will be accessible online for a global audience through livestreams and for socially distanced live audiences at our home in Covent Garden. In a global first, we present a new opera in hyper-reality, alongside repertory favourites from both artistic companies.
Some of the most famous and outstanding stars from the opera world are to take part in a very special evening from Wexford Festival Opera, including Aigul Akhmetshina, Joseph Calleja, Daniela Barcellona, Juan Diego Flórez, Igor Golovatenko, Ermonela Jaho, Sergey Romanovsky, and many more.
Following its successful launch in 2019, OperaStreaming streams nine operas on YouTube from the historic opera houses of Emilia-Romagna during the 2020-21 season, with fully-staged productions of Verdi's La traviata in October from Modena and Verdi'sOtello from Bologna in...
‘A brief history of song’ is the subtitle of the 2020 Oxford Lieder Festival (10th-17th October), which will present an ambitious, diverse and imaginative programme of 40 performances and events.
Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987. The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November.
While many of us spent lockdown at home taking it a little easier, composer Andrew Synnott wrote an opera.
Owen Wingrave is part of the new Interim Season of 19 brand new events, all free to view online between September and December 2020.
The Arts Council has awarded innovative UK charity Music and Theatre For All (MTFA) a major new grant to develop three ambitious new projects in the wake of Covid 19.
English National Opera (ENO) will reopen the London Coliseum to socially distanced audiences on 6 and 7 November for special performances of Mozart’s Requiem. These will provide audiences with an opportunity to reflect upon and to commemorate the difficulties the nation has faced during the pandemic.
The Royal Opera House is proud to continue its curated #OurHouseToYourHouse programme into the autumn, bringing audiences the best of the ROH through a new series of Friday Premieres and cultural highlights.
After six months of closure, the Royal Opera House is thrilled to be opening its doors to the public as part of Open House London weekend, giving visitors a taste of one of the world’s most famous theatres for free.
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields is thrilled to announce re:connect - an eight concert series with live socially distanced audiences at its namesake church, St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The autumn concerts will take place at 5pm & 7:30pm on two Saturdays per month with guest artists including baritone Roderick Williams, soprano Carolyn Sampson and composer-conductor-pianist Ryan Wigglesworth performing a wide range of repertoire.
Music and poetry unite and collide across centuries, from the Medieval to the Enlightenment to the present day. This year, the Oxford Lieder Festival will present a thrilling and innovative programme comprising more than forty events streamed over eight days.
The English Concert with artistic director Harry Bicket is delighted to announce a series of concerts from 1-15 October 2020. The concerts take place in historic London venues with star soloists and will be performed and streamed live to a paying audience at 7pm GMT on each performance date. The programmes include first-class vocal and instrumental works from the two pillars of the English Baroque, covering different aspects of the repertoire.
Glyndebourne has announced plans for a ‘staycation’ series of socially-distanced indoor performances, starting on 10 October 2020.
The Royal Opera House is delighted to announce two packed evenings of opera and ballet, live from our stage in Covent Garden and available to view wherever you are in the world online.
![Wadsworth Auditorium [Photo courtesy of Finger Lakes Opera]](http://www.operatoday.com/WadsworthExterior.png)
The college administration and President Denise Battles’ recent decision to defund the Finger Lakes Opera came as a shock to many and a concern to more. This decision reflects the administration’s blatant disregard for the arts and reveals a mindset that is counterproductive to the mission of the college.
Initially created back in 2013, FLO had strong support from the Geneseo administration. In the years following its formation, the company successfully staged one full-length production and one small show each summer. An incredibly valuable resource for internships, the opera company provided real-world experiences and opportunities for the college’s music majors–which are extremely hard to come by in this particular field.
Additionally, FLO offered internship opportunities for non-music majors in the areas of technical theatre, arts administration, marketing and more. Through these opportunities, FLO was able to give Geneseo students a competitive edge that prepared them for real world careers—unlike all other colleges in the SUNY system, none of which host a professional opera company. In fact, FLO would have eventually put Geneseo in the same category as private universities with similar programs.
Just this past summer, FLO developed an educational outreach program for children as well as a weeklong intensive vocal camp for high school students. Had the opera been able to continue this growth, there’s no doubt it would have doubled its internships and opportunities for Geneseo students and would have become a valuable recruiting tool for the college through its high school programs.
The main problem for the administration was the opera’s finances. Although the opera was growing financially, the college still provided a portion of the company’s funding and FLO still relied on Geneseo for the use of its facilities. The opera ran a small deficit this summer and “a feasible pathway toward financial sustainability has not materialized,” according to a statement sent by President Battles to the college community.
This statement is inaccurate, however. In actuality, the administration failed to consider all options available in order to keep FLO running at Geneseo. In a gross error on the part of the college, donors were contacted after the decision had been made to cease funding the opera. Had donors been contacted before making the final decision, the college may have been able to erase the opera’s small deficit.
The decision is also concerning in light of Battles’ recent email request, asking for proposals from students and faculty on how to generate revenue for the college. Although she requested help from the college community in this respect, Battles failed to do the same when it came to making the decision to defund FLO.
Angered and concerned, select students have repeatedly contacted and met with Battles, asking her to consider the wider impact this decision may have on both the college and local community.
The college administration acted unilaterally and showed a blatant disregard for student interests. As students at a liberal arts university, we ought to be deeply troubled by this apparent disdain for the arts, which are essential for the complete education of any individual. It was not just an opera company being questioned, but a source of solace in troubled times, a way to improve the college’s reputation and a representation of Geneseo’s views on the arts and humanities.
The mission of the college is supposedly to “advance knowledge and inspire students to be socially responsible and globally aware citizens who are prepared for an enriched life and success in the world.” But how can this goal possibly be achieved when art opportunities and programs are being cut by those whose job it is to ensure that Geneseo’s students benefit from a well-rounded, liberal arts education?
Going forward, the college community must strongly and vocally oppose further cuts to the arts at Geneseo.
Noah Chichester
This article is reprinted with the kind permission of The Lamron, the Geneseo student newspaper.