Paweł Konik reaches finals of “Le Grand Prix de l’Opéra”

Paweł Konik | Photo by Anna Płóciennik

Paweł Konik | Photo by Anna Płóciennik

Earlier this month, bass-baritone Paweł Konik reached the final round of “Le Grand Prix de l’Opéra,” the International Voice Competition organized by the Bucharest National Opera. Konik earned a special Excellency Prize, presented by the Russian Embassy, for his interpretation of “Aleko’s Cavatina” from Rachmaninoff’s Aleko. He also performed “Vedro mentr’io sospiro” from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and “O du mein holder Abendstern” from Wagner’s Tannhäuser.

Konik, a native of Poland, is a member of the Yale Opera program, where he studies with Doris Yarick-Cross and Richard Cross. Konik also worked on his competition repertoire with YSM faculty members Douglas Dickson, Timothy Shaindlin, and Kyle Swann. During the 2015-2016 concert season, Konik appeared in Yale Opera productions of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Massenet’s Don Quichotte. Prior to coming to Yale, Konik attended the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music in Katowice. MORE

Published August 24, 2016
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[ concerts + events ]

Yale Opera presents its annual Fall Scenes November 7 & 8

Photo by Matt Fried

Photo by Matt Fried

The Yale Opera program at the Yale School of Music presents its annual Fall Opera Scenes on Saturday, November 7 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, November 8 at 2:00 pm. Each performance features a different selection of scenes from diverse operas.

A favorite of local audiences, the annual Fall Opera Scenes production will showcase the voice students of the highly selective Yale Opera program, which is directed by Doris Yarick-Cross.

This autumn’s production will also feature the work of stage director Marc Verzatt and musical directors Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin. John Carver Sullivan provides costume design, and Doug Harry is the lighting designer. MORE

Published October 13, 2015
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[ opera ]

Yale Opera presents a fresh production of La Cenerentola

20120208_Yale_Opera-0436bThe Yale School of Music and Yale Opera present a new production of Rossini’s La Cenerentola on May 2–3, 2014. In this new production, directed by Ted Huffman, the operatic retelling of the Cinderella story is full of comedy, complete with tall wigs and wide skirts. 

Douglas Dickson provides musical direction and accompaniment. The cast features the vibrant young singers of the Yale Opera program, which is directed by Doris Yarick-Cross.

The opera will be performed Friday and Saturday, May 2–3 at 8 pm. Performances are in Morse Recial Hall, located in Sprague Memorial Hall (470 College Street, New Haven). The opera will be sung in Italian with projected English supertitles. MORE

Published April 17, 2014
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Yale Opera presents a new production of Benjamin Britten’s 
The Rape of Lucretia April 27 & 28

A scene from Yale Opera's 2011 spring production.

The Yale School of Music and Yale Opera present an all-new production of Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia on Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28 at 8 pm. The performances, which feature the singers of the prestigious Yale Opera program, take place in Morse Recital Hall (located in Sprague Hall at 470 College Street, New Haven).

The creative team features stage director Vera Calabria, who has directed numerous productions for Yale Opera and worldwide, and Douglas Dickson, who will provide musical direction and accompaniment.

William Warfel provides original lighting design, and Paul Lieber is creating the evocative projections. Doris Yarick Cross is the artistic director of Yale Opera.

Benjamin Britten, one of the foremost English composers of the twentieth century, composed Lucretia a year after  his first big operatic success, Peter Grimes. Soon after, Britten wrote: “The time has come when England, which has never had a tradition of native opera, but has always depended on a repertory of foreign works, can create its own operas…” Over the course of his career, he went on to write a total of sixteen operas.

Britten was a pacifist, and in The Rape of Lucretia (1946, with a libretto by Ronald Duncan) he explores the consequences of violence. Though Lucretia is a chamber opera, with a cast of just eight singers, one commenter has written that “the pared-down textures produced an intensification of Britten’s operatic vision.”

Tickets to Yale Opera’s production are $10–$15, $5 for students. Click HERE to purchase tickets, or call the Yale School of Music concert office at 203 432-4158. MORE

Published April 10, 2012
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Yale Opera announces two new productions for 2012

Speranza Scappucci will be the first woman to conduct a Yale Opera production

The Yale Opera program at the Yale School of Music has announced two new productions for the spring semester of 2012. February will feature Mozart’s comedy Così fan tutte at New Haven’s historic Shubert Theater. In April, Yale Opera will perform Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia in Morse Recital Hall.

Speranza Scappucci will conduct Così fan tutte, becoming the first woman to conduct a Yale Opera production. Maestra Scappucci is on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera as an assistant conductor and is active internationally as a vocal coach and continuo harpsichordist.

The young Australian director Justin Way, praised for his “creative energy” and “clever and sympathetic” work, will provide stage direction. The production will feature the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale, the School of Music’s premier ensemble.

Così fan tutte will be sung in Italian with projected English translations. Performances take place February 10–12 at the Shubert Theater (247 College Street). The Friday and Saturday performances are at 8 pm; the Sunday performance is at 2 pm. Tickets are available at the Shubert Theater box office, online at www.shubert.com, or by phone at 203 562-5666.

Yale Opera’s new production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia will feature stage direction by Vera Calabria, who has worked with some of the world’s most prestigious opera houses and now also works frequently with young singers as director and dramatic coach. Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin will provide musical direction.

The Rape of Lucretia will be performed Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28. Both performances take place at 8 pm in Morse Recital Hall, located in Sprague Hall at 470 College Street (corner of Wall Street), New Haven. Tickets are available through the Yale School of Music box office in Sprague Hall, 203 432-4158, or music.yale.edu.

Published November 10, 2011
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Yale Opera performs scenes from Bellini to Berlioz

Marc Verzatt directs performances Oct. 28 & 29

The Yale School of Music presents the singers of Yale Opera in two evenings of opera scenes on Friday and Saturday, October 28 and 29. Each evening will feature a different selection of scenes from popular operas by composers as diverse as Handel, Gounod, Puccini, and more. Both performances will take place at 7:30 pm in Morse Recital Hall, located in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, corner of Wall Street).

A favorite of local audiences, the annual Fall Opera Scenes production showcases the creative talents of artistic director Doris Yarick Cross and stage director Marc Verzatt. This autumn’s production will also feature visual projections designed by students in the Yale School of Drama’s program in projection design. The projection program is directed by Wendall K. Harrington, and here each scene will incorporate the work of a different design student.

The creative team also includes costume designer John Carver Sullivan, lighting designer William Warfel, and musical directors Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin. The singers are all students in the renowned Yale Opera program.

Each performance incorporates both the comic and the tragic, including a little bit of Shakespeare. Friday, Oct. 28 will feature scenes from Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, Berlioz’s Les Troyens, and Verdi’s La Traviata. The program on Saturday, Oct. 29 will feature excerpts from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Bellini’s I Puritani, Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, and Puccini’s La Bohème. MORE

Published October 7, 2011
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Springtime in Italy: Singers from Yale Opera perform Italian art songs May 2

The Yale School of Music presents the rising stars of Yale Opera in an evening of Italian art songs on Monday, May 2, 2011 at 8 pm in Sprague Hall (470 College Street at the corner of Wall Street, New Haven).

This Liederabend (the German word for “evening of song”) will feature works in Italian ranging from the baroque to the twentieth century. The program will include music by Claudio Monteverdi, one of the first composers of opera, as well as the nineteenth-centruy composer Gaetano Donizetti and two figures that carried opera into the twentieth century: Giuseppe Verdi and Pietro Mascagni. All these composers are best known for their vocal writing, though their solo works are less frequently performed than their operas.

All the singers are students in the prestigious Yale Opera program, led by artistic director Doris Yarick Cross. Pianist Douglas Dickson is coaching the singers in the repertoire and will perform on the program.

MORE

Published April 7, 2011
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Rising stars of Yale Opera offer two evenings of opera scenes in Sprague Hall October 29 and 30

Scene from Yale Opera's production of Le Rossignol last April in Sprague Hall.

The Yale School of Music will present the up-and-coming singers of Yale Opera in two evenings of selected opera scenes. The annual Fall Opera Scenes production is an audience favorite, bringing together the creative talents of artistic director Doris Yarick Cross and stage director Marc Verzatt. In addition, this October’s production will feature the work of costume designer John Carver Sullivan, lighting designer William Warfel, and musical directors Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin.

Each evening offers a different program, though both lean toward the tragic more than the comic. Friday, October 29 will feature scenes from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Verdi’s La traviata and Falstaff, and Carlisle Floyd’s Of Mice and Men. Scenes on Saturday, October 30 are selected from Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena, and Gounod’s Faust. The performances begin at 7:30 in Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Hall, 470 College Street (corner of Wall Street) in New Haven.

The singers, all students in the renowned Yale Opera program, include Jorge Prego, Eric Barry, Andrew Brown, Jennifer Feinstein, Stephanie Gilbert, Alexander Hahn, Jihee Kim, Samuel Levine, Cameron McPhail, Lorant Najbauer, David Pershall, Annie Rosen, and Lisa Williamson. MORE

Published October 5, 2010
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YSM students perform at the Kennedy Center

kennedy-center-lobby_webFourteen students from the Yale School of Music will perform at the prestigious Kennedy Center in Washington, DC on Monday, May 25 at 6:00 pm. The concert is part of the the Conservatory Project, a series of events presenting the finest young artists from the country’s foremost conservatories.

The varied program includes solo and ensemble performances of music by Haydn, Verdi, Bizet, and Prokofiev, as well as less well-known composers such as Keiko Abe, Jorge Morel, and Robert Beaser. Solo piano, guitar, and marimba are featured, as well as vocal works, a string quartet, and a brass quintet. MORE

Published May 18, 2009
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