NC Opera offers most varied season yet

N.C. Opera’s 2016-17 season, announced Tuesday night, is its boldest and most varied yet. This seventh season has an expanded schedule of four stage productions, a star tenor recital and a program of jazz standards.

In September, the company mounts its first complete Wagner opera, “Das Rheingold,” which will be semi-staged in Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh. This first part of Wagner’s epic Ring Cycle brings Alfred Walker (Wotan) and Michaela Martens (Fricka), both seen on the Met’s stage in recent seasons.

As proof that opera doesn’t have to be stodgy, Meymandi also will be the site at Halloween for “Hercules vs. Vampires,” a mash-up of the 1961 Italian movie, “Hercules and the Haunted World,” and contemporary composer Patrick Morganelli’s operatic score. The film will be shown silently while nine live singers, accompanied by live orchestra, synch to the actors dialogue.

The company completes its trilogy of Mozart operas by librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte in February with “The Marriage of Figaro.” Performances are in the intimate, acoustically warm Fletcher Opera Theater, the site of the company’s previous successes with “Cosi Fan Tutte” and “Don Giovanni.”

April 2017 brings the tuneful love triangle, “The Pearl Fishers” by Georges Bizet, to Memorial Auditorium. While not as well known as the composer’s “Carmen,” the exotic score contains many beautiful melodies and dramatic situations, as demonstrated by the Met’s highly praised new production earlier this year, which introduced it to many for the first time.

In addition to the four productions, two special events fill out the season. Michael Fabiano, considered one of the best new tenors on the operatic scene, gives a recital in Fletcher Opera Theater in March. Featured on the cover of the May issue of Opera News, Fabiano has been hailed for his visceral, exciting vocals in “Rigoletto,” “Faust” and “Lucia di Lammermoor” from New York and San Francisco to Paris and London.

Then in early 2017 (a date has not been set yet), rare Duke Ellington songs form a program by singer Candice Hoyes, whose blending of classical, jazz and soul influences have brought her acclaim in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

Tickets for the season are now on sale. For more information and to buy tickets, call 919-792-3853 or visit ncopera.org.

This story was originally published April 13, 2016 at 10:09 AM with the headline "NC Opera offers most varied season yet."