Role and house debuts
Madison Nonoa makes an exciting role and company debut this month singing Zerlina in a new production of Don Giovanni at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. The opera will be broadcast live on France Musique on 12 July.
Photo: Madison Nonoa in rehearsal with Andrè Schuen ©Jean-Louis Fernandez for Festival d’Aix-en-Provence
festival-aix.com/en/programmation/opera/don-giovanni-0
David Butt Philip made his Wigmore Hall debut this month with James Baillieu in a programme including Ralph Vaughan Williams’ House of Life, Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, songs by Alma Mahler and, 80 years since their premiere at Wigmore Hall, Benjamin Britten’s Holy Sonnets of John Donne.
Louise Alder made an unexpected house debut at Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona – jumping in at just four hours notice to sing Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare with conductor William Christie. She has also been nominated for a San Francisco Opera Emerging Star following her recent debut for the company as Micaëla, Carmen and you can vote for her until 1 August at sfopera.com/emergingstars
A new opera by Mark Anthony Turnage is always a big event and for his next work he turns to the much-loved children’s classic The Railway Children. Jessica Cale will star as Bobbie in the premiere performances at Glyndebourne, where she’ll also be making her house debut.
glyndebourne.com/events/the-railway-children/
New Recordings
Kitty Whately has released a new album of song from Paris at the turn of the 20th century with pianist Edwige Herchenroder. Their programme is mostly by female composers, setting contemporary texts and includes four world premiere recordings of songs by Hedwige Chrétien, and Marguerite Canal. The recording was featured as BBC’s Radio 3 ‘Album of the Week’ earlier this month.
chandos.net
Catriona Hewitson and Arthur Bruce appear on The Seal Woman, a ‘Celtic folk opera’ telling the legend of the Selkie, based around songs collected by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser and orchestrated by Sir Granville Bantock. This is the first full professional recording of the opera, made last year on the centenary of its first performance.
retrospectopera.org.uk/product/the_seal-woman/
Other news
Ian Tindale has announced the programme for his 2025 Shipston Song Festival, with this year’s programme drawing inspiration from John Masefield’s line ‘Only the road and the dawn’. Mezzo-soprano Angelina Dorlin-Barlow is one of this year’s festival Rising Stars and appears in a concert entitled ‘Brahms’ Drawing Room’ on Sunday 21 September.
shipstonsong.co.uk/
Francesca Lauri continues her sweep of awards, winning the Accompanist’s Prize at the Eastbourne International Singing Competition.
Kieran Rayner and Gamal Khamis give their next performance of ‘What If’, the first project to be supported by a Samling and Song residency, at Jermyn Street Theatre on Friday 4 July.
jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/what-if/
Hugo Brady has been selected as an emerging artist with Sorek Artist Management
sorekartists.com/artists/hugo-brady/
Several Samling Artists appeared on recordings shortlisted for the Opus Klassik awards, Germany’s most prestigious classical music awards. Benjamin Appl was shortlisted for Male Singer of the Year in for his album of György Kurtág songs ‘Lines of Life’; Matthias Daehling was one of the soloists on Französischer Jahrgang, a recording of cantatas by Georg Philipp Telemann that was nominated for Choral Recording of the Year and in the opera category Christopher Maltman appeared in Eine Florentinische Tragödie by Alexander Zemlinsky,
opusklassik.de/home-english
