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Tony Award Winner Victoria Clark and
Drama Desk Award Winner Lauren Worsham
Named as Coach-Judges for
Semifinal Round of the Lotte Lenya Competition |
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Semifinalists L-R Top Row: Christine Price, Ronald Wilbur, Gaby Manuell, Conor Murphy, Valeria Bibliowicz, Ryan Wolfe, Cierra Byrd; Second Row: Tristan Tournaud, Taylor-Alexis DuPont, Jonathan Heller, Pepita Salim, Lauren Senden, Eric Botto, Rebekah Howell; Third Row: Angela Lee, Hana Abrams, Ruth Acheampong, Michael Pandolfo, Francesca Mehrotra, Katrina Galka, Piero Regis; Fourth Row: Matthew Hill, Amanda Sheriff, Ruby Dibble, Jeremy Weiss, Danielle Beckvermit, Ian Williams, Elena Howard-Scott. |
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Unique among major competitions, the Lotte Lenya Competition semifinals combines the contestants’ performances of four contrasting selections with immediate coaching feedback from the judges. The coach-judges are so essential that naming the artists chosen to serve is always an important milestone in each year’s contest. Victoria Clark, a five-time LLC judge, and Lauren Worsham, a top prizewinner of the 2009 competition, are exceptionally qualified to serve in this crucial role, and they will be working with an equally exceptional roster of talent. This year’s semifinalists were selected from a pool of 259 applicants from twenty-one countries and range in age from 21 to 32. Semifinalists will compete for the opportunity to advance to the final round, which takes place on Friday, 6 May at Merkin Hall, free and open to the public for the first time in New York City. Read more about the semifinals. Click here for free ticket page. |
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Southern Hemisphere Stars Align
for a Constellation of
Weill Productions in Australia |
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Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre, the venue for the co-production by Melbourne Opera and IOpera of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. |
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Producers in Australia are resurrecting their halls and theaters to the tune of Kurt Weill. The next two months will see two new productions open in Melbourne and another in Sydney. All three are supported by the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Grant Program. Victorian Opera’s Happy End, part of the worldwide resurgence of the work in 2022, will premiere on 23 March, directed by Matthew Lutton and conducted by Phoebe Briggs. The following week in Sydney, Red Line Productions will open its twenty-one-performance run of The Seven Deadly Sins and Mahagonny Songspiel. Director Constantine Costi has been joined by choreographer Shannon Burns in conceiving the double bill with the subtitle “A Tap Dance On The Edge Of The World.” Starting 1 May, the joint forces of Melbourne Opera and IOpera bring forth the first professional production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in Australia in more than forty years. Employing the Jeremy Sams English translation, the production by director Suzanne Chaundy is conducted by Peter Tregear. |
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Weill’s Fantaisie symphonique
(Symphony No. 2):
A Repertory Staple |
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Marc Minkowski conducts Fantaisie symphonique (Symphony No.2) at Italy’s Teatro del Maggio, the first of three performances of the symphony in one week by three orchestras in three countries. (photo: Benjamin Chelly) |
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As if to underline its emergence as a staple of the standard concert repertory, Weill’s Fantaisie symphonique (Symphony No. 2) will appear within the space of one week in March on programs in three countries. First in line is Italy’s Teatro del Maggio on 20 March led by Marc Minkowski. On 25 March, Kerem Hasan leads the first of three performances by Austria’s Baden Tonkunstler. The next day, it is the turn of the Bochum Symphoniker under the direction of Tung-Chieh Chuang. The list of conductors who have taken to the piece in recent years tells its own story: Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Lahav Shani, Dennis Russell Davies, HK Gruber, Sian Edwards, Martyn Brabbins, Marie Jacquot. |
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Celebrating the Centenary of Zaubernacht,
Weill’s First Professional Theater Work |
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Nina Kurzeja’s production of Zaubernacht in rehearsal. (photo: Peter Pöschl) |
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In November 1922, a Berlin production of the children’s pantomime Zaubernacht (“Magic Night”) launched Weill’s career in the music theater. The work’s performance materials were lost for eight decades, but then were rediscovered in a Yale University library in 2005. Choreographer Nina Kurzeja was one of the first to conjure from those materials a live performance, a much lauded production at Musikfest Stuttgart 2010. In celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the first production, Kurzeja is again teaming up with Hannover’s Arte Ensemble to offer a refreshed version of their 2010 production, with support from the Kurt Weill Foundation’s Grant Program. The new production premiered on 11 March at the historic Wilhelma Theater in Stuttgart. Further guest performances and a tour are planned for 2022, including the possibility of a performance at the world premiere venue, now the Komödie am Kurfürstendamm. |
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16 March – Die Dreigroschenoper
Staatstheater Kassel (Martin G. Berger, director; Peter Schedding, musical director). Ongoing performances, including 19, 26 March, 3, 23, 24 April, 1, 15 May, 5, 16, 24 June. 20 March – Fantaisie symphonique (Symphony No. 2)
Teatro del Maggio in Florence (Marc Minkowski, conductor). 23 March – Happy End
Victorian Opera in Melbourne (Matthew Lutton, director; Phoebe Briggs, conductor). Also 24, 25, 26 March. 25 March – Die Dreigroschenoper
Theater Kanton Zürich (Rüdiger Burbach, director; Tiff Löffler, conductor). Also 26 March. 25 March – Fantaisie symphonique (Symphony No. 2)
Tonkünstler Orchestra in Wiener Neustadt (Kerem Hasan, conductor). Also 26 March in Saint Pölten. 26 March – Fantaisie symphonique (Symphony No. 2)
Bochumer Symphoniker (Tung-Chieh Chuang, conductor). Also 27 March. 31 March – The Seven Deadly Sins, Mahagonny Songspiel
Red Line Productions in Wollomoolloo (Constantine Costi, director; Brian Castles-Onion, conductor). Ongoing performances through 23 April. 2 April – Die Dreigroschenoper
Kammerspiele der Josefstadt in Vienna (Torsten Fischer, director; Christian Frank, conductor). Ongoing performances, including 3, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 26 April. 8 April – Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra
La Verdi Orchestra Sinfonica in Milan (Maxime Pascal, conductor; Patricia Kopatchinskaja, violin). Also 10 April. 9 April – Der Lindberghflug, Airborne Symphony (Blitzstein)
Orchestra Miami (Elaine Rinaldi, conductor; Michael Yawney, stage director) 14 April – The Seven Deadly Sins
City of Sheffield Youth Orchestra (Chris Gayford, conductor; Alice O’Brien, Bianca Mikahil, choreographers; Clover Kayne, mezzo-soprano) |
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