Cincinnati Opera Summer Festival Broadcasts
Cincinnati Opera 2009 Season Broadcasts Sunday Nights in June at 7:30pm

By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
June 6 at 7:30 p.m. on 90.9 WGUC

It’s hard to think of an opera that has received more lavish praise through the years than Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Opera aficionado Father Owen Lee praised it as “perceptive, loving, understanding, and forgiving.” Another hailed it as “perfection.” Remarkably, this masterpiece continues to charm and amuse audiences around the world more than two centuries after its premiere.

Simply put, Figaro is a sparkling comic opera based on a zany French farce. But, there are moments in the opera when the music is simply and inescapably sublime.

Cincinnati Opera’s 2009 production will be led by legendary British conductor Sir Roger Norrington, and the cast, with Nicole Cabell, Jonathan Lemalu, and Teddy Tahu Rhodes, is equally outstanding.

By Giuseppe Verdi
June 13 at 7:30 p.m. on 90.9 WGUC

Imagine everything that’s grand about Aida: an exotic setting, soaring voices, huge choruses, pageantry, and an epic love story. Well, it’s all in Don Carlo, but instead of ancient Egypt, it’s 16th-Century Spain, during the Inquisition.

Giuseppe Verdi created the opera Don Carlo at the height of his power as a composer and dramatist. He’d already had enormous success with Rigoletto and La Traviata.

Cincinnati Opera’s production features some of the greatest singers in the world, notably Angela Brown, who had a blazing success at the Met in Aida, and the world-famous, thundering American bass, James Morris. Tenor Frank Porretta, who will make his Metropolitan Opera debut this fall as Calaf in Turandot, stars as Don Carlo.

By Osvaldo Golijov
June 20 at 7:30 p.m. on 90.9 WGUC

When Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar premiered at Santa Fe Opera in 2005, the reviews were ecstatic. “The best new opera in half a century,” proclaimed Fanfare. “Among the great musical achievements of our time,” wrote The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The New York Times praised the work’s “luxuriously lyrical and sometimes tormented vocal lines.”

Ainadamar is an ancient word meaning “fountain of tears” and refers to the location where Federico García Lorca, the great Spanish poet, was slain. Reprising the roles they created, mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor is Lorca, and Dawn Upshaw is Margarita Xirgu, the poet’s muse and defender, in this tale of loss and longing.

By Georges Bizet
June 27 at 7:30 p.m. on 90.9 WGUC

The hot sun of Seville made her neck glisten beneath her dark curls. Even among scores of señoritas, she was spell-binding. Carmen, as she was known to all, saw the officer as an intriguing challenge. She approached; he melted. But in short order Carmen's attention strayed. Furious, the officer insisted she return to him, and Carmen would have to decide her fate.

Bizet's Carmen is among the most popular stage works in the world, and for good reason. With a bounty of well-known melodies, vivid characterizations, and glimpses of Spanish Gypsy life, it's one of opera's best. We're pleased to present an outstanding cast. Gorgeous Romanian mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose returns to Cincinnati to sing the role of Carmen. She's joined for the first time by tenor William Burden as her impassioned lover Don José. Met Opera star baritone Dwayne Croft is the bullfighter Escamillo.