Morris Robinson News

On the Los Angeles Opera website, Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex is available to stream now thru July 18th. Stravinsky based his opera Oedipus Rex on the ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Oedipus Rex, is staged with minimal movement, which works well with COVID restrictions. A narrator describes the action in English.

On June 18, 2021, I watched Los Angeles Opera’s film of Stravinsky’s 1927 opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex. Jean Cocteau, who wrote the libretto, based it on the ancient Greek tragedy Sophocles wrote ca. 429 BCE. Right now LAO is featuring it online for free.

On Saturday, we see Los Angeles Opera’s online stream of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Stravinsky based Oedipus on Sophocles’ Greek tragedy and his 1927 opera is a highly stylized, ritualistic work. A narrator describes the action throughout the course of the opera. Although the opera is in Latin, narration is spoken in the language of the audience.

Beginning today at 5pm PT, LA Opera presents a new streaming presentation of Igor Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, conducted by James Conlon, the company's Richard Seaver Music Director, and starring tenor Russell Thomas, the company's Artist in Residence, in the title role.

Los Angeles Opera’s presentation of Oedipus Rex by Igor Stravinsky is available online from June 17 to July 18, 2021. The libretto is by Jean Cocteau. The cast includes: Oedipus, Russell Thomas; Jocasta, J’nai Bridges; Creon, John Relyea; Tiresias, Morris Robinson; Narrator, Stephen Fry; Conductor, James Conlon.

Gustav Mahler’s mighty Eighth Symphony spans a universe of emotions, channelled through everything from passages of intimate reflection to overwhelming outbursts of choral and orchestral sound.

Beginning in November with Handel’s Julius Caesar in Egypt, in its first staging by the company, the season continues with the return of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, Rossini’s beloved Barber of Seville, and the Southeastern premiere of the Grammy award-winning opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, in a new production by Carl W. Knobloch Jr. General and Artistic Director Tomer Zvulun.

Award-winning actor, writer and director Stephen Fry will perform the role of the Narrator in LA Opera's premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex. 

Set for release in June 2021, Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 8 documents a landmark performance that brought the LA Phil’s centennial season to a triumphant conclusion in 2019.

This weekend, The Atlanta Opera and Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company joined forces to present their Concert for Unity, a celebration of Atlanta’s diversity through music.

Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts announces plans to  welcome audiences back with its first set of concerts for summer. Re-emerging from a one-year pandemic closure of the Filene Center and Children's Theatre-in-the-Woods, Wolf Trap will celebrate the 50th anniversary season at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts with its first live music performances since December 2019.

The Dallas Opera has announced the cancellation of two upcoming recitals in its Spring “Welcome Back” Song Series: bass Morris Robinson on Wednesday, March 31 and the duo of soprano Leah Crocetto and mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton on Saturday, April 3, due to a positive Covid-19 test by a contractor associated with these concerts.

Cincinnati Opera will return to the outdoors for its reimagined 2021 Summer Festival, Summer at Summit. The season will take place July 11-31 at Summit Park, located in the heart of Blue Ash, Ohio, and will feature internationally renowned artists, the Cincinnati Opera Chorus, and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Join co-presenters Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Washington University’s Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity, & Equity for “Belonging in Opera: Learning from Our Past, Engaging with Our Future.”

The Dallas Opera announced today that it will be launching a new, three-event “Welcome Back” Song Series in the Winspear Opera House commencing March 31, 2021.

Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced additional programs to add to the variety of offerings in its reimagined 2020/21 Season. These include a concert honoring Sir Andrew Davis; a new approach to the annual Rising Stars in Concert by The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center Ensemble and more.

After the success of its acclaimed fall offerings, now The Atlanta Opera presents an equally innovative spring lineup of live, in-person events, highlighted by the world premiere productions of new adaptations of two iconic operas.

The Atlanta Opera has now released the first three Love Letters to Atlanta. Hailed as “a series of affecting short films” (Wall Street Journal), this new video series gives individual members of the Atlanta Opera Company Players – twelve world-class singers hired for the duration of the season, all of whom are resident in Atlanta and the southeast – the chance to celebrate the Georgia capital and its inhabitants by singing a song of personal significance at an iconic Atlanta venue.

Ian Derrer, The Dallas Opera’s Kern Wildenthal General Director and CEO, announced today that extreme and ongoing COVID 19 concerns are forcing the company to cancel its March and April 2021 subscription performances, with full-scale operas in the Winspear Opera House resuming in February and March of 2022 in a brand-new 2021/2022 Season.

Los Angeles Opera has a number of excellent recitals on its website including one by baritone Craig Colclough in which he sings the Shakespeare monologues from Otello and Macbeth that Verdi set to music. Together with pianist Jeremy Frank, Colclough presents a program that also includes works by Beethoven, Wagner, Porter, and Vaughan Williams.