Joyce DiDonato News

The Metropolitan Opera announced plans for its free outdoor events this summer, which will take place in the Lincoln Center Plaza and in parks throughout New York City. In a brand new initiative, the Met's Summer HD Festival will feature screenings of ten productions from the Met's Peabody and Emmy Award-winning Live in HD series in Lincoln Center Plaza on consecutive nights, beginning Saturday, August 29.

Alan Gilbert, who will become Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2009, returns to New York to lead two weeks of programs with the Orchestra. The first series of concerts ? Thursday, April 30, 2009, at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday, May 1 and 2, and 8:00 p.m., and Tuesday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. will comprise Dvorák?s The Golden Spinning Wheel; Saint-Saëns?s Violin Concerto No. 3, with Joshua Bell as soloist; and Martin's Symphony No. 4.

Eight new productions, four of which are company premieres, will highlight the Metropolitan Opera's 2009-10 season. General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine jointly announced plans that include: the Met premieres of Rossini's Armida, Verdi's Attila, Jan?ček's From the House of the Dead, and Shostakovich's The Nose; new productions of Bizet's Carmen, Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Thomas's Hamlet, and Puccini's Tosca; and 18 revivals from the company's repertory. The season is the first to be entirely planned under Gelb's leadership, in collaboration with Levine (the past three seasons were planned before Gelb became General Manager in 2006-07 but included some productions, repertoire, and casting changes made by Gelb).

Director-choreographer Mark Morris's much-lauded 2007 production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice returns to the repertoire, with Stephanie Blythe taking on one of the pinnacles of the mezzo-soprano repertory, the role of Orfeo, for the first time in her career. Soprano Danielle de Niese, an acclaimed singer of eighteenth-century music and a graduate of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, sings Euridice for the first time at the Met. Heidi Grant Murphy returns as Amor, which she performed at the production's premiere in 2007.

Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez has been forced to cancel all performances in Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of The Barber of Seville February 16-March 22 due to a throat infection, Lyric's general director William Mason announced today.

COMPANY'S Kristin Huffman writes about the NOTHING LIKE A DAME benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids this week in her weekly column, 'Actorquest!'

The Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit 'Nothing Like A Dame 2007,' presented at the Marquis Theatre, raised $300,000 for the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of The Actors' Fund of America on March 19th.

On March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre (1565 Broadway), Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS presented The 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, and BroadwayWorld was there!

On March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS presented The 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, and BroadwayWorld was there!

BroadwayWorld.com presents the sixth in a series of Broadway profiles leading up to the 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, presented by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre (1565 Broadway). 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefits the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of The Actors' Fund of America

BroadwayWorld.com presents the fifth in a series of Broadway profiles leading up to the 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, presented by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre (1565 Broadway). 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefits the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of The Actors' Fund of America.

BroadwayWorld.com presents the fourth in a series of Broadway profiles leading up to the 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, presented by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre

BroadwayWorld.com presents the third in a series of Broadway profiles leading up to the 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, presented by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre

BroadwayWorld.com presents the first in a series of Broadway profiles leading up to the 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, presented by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre

BroadwayWorld.com presents the first in a series of Broadway profiles leading up to the 12th Annual 'Nothing Like a Dame' benefit, presented by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre

The winners are currently being announced for the 2007 Laurance Olivier Awards, the UK's most prestigious theatrical awards.

In anticipation of the upcoming 12th Annual 'There's Nothing Like a Dame' benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Phyllis Newman hosted a reception in her home

Make way for the Dames! Coming March 19, 2007 at 8:00 PM at the Marquis Theatre (1565 Broadway), Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS presents The 12th Annual NOTHING LIKE A DAME benefiting The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of The Actors' Fund of America.

The nominations have been announced for the 2007 Laurance Olivier Awards, the UK's most prestigious theatrical awards. The awards will be presented on February 18, 2007 at the Grosvenor House Hotel.