"American Idol" has legions of fans. Why not "Opera Idol?" Cincinnati Opera took this enterprising step June 24 at the Aronoff Center in Cincinnati by inviting the audience to select finalists from a field of ten idol aspirants selected in preliminary auditions earlier this month.  Six emerged from the voting.  The grand prize winner, who gets a $3,500 contract with Cincinnati Opera, will be announced at the opening performance of the Opera's season finale, Bizet's "Carmen," July 22 at Music Hall.
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James Morris as Philip II in "Don Carlo" (courtesy Cincinnati Opera)

Check out "Opera Idol" at the Aronoff Center June 24 for a look at ten singers who aspire to that title, then hear some who have already made it, including renowned bass James Morris, in Cincinnati Opera's second production of the season, Verdi's "Don Carlo," June 25 and 27 at Music Hall. 
  

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It's an anniversary year in Cincinnati: the 25th for Riverbend Music Center, 35th for the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and, a milestone shared with mankind, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.  Astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man to step on the moon, is special guest of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra June 18 at Riverbend where he will narrate the finale of Copland's "A Lincoln Portrait."  Pops conductor Erich Kunzel and Mormon Tabernacle Choir director Mack Wilberg will lead the 360-voice  Mormon Tabernacle Choir in sacred, folk, Broadway and patriotic selections.  The CCO led by music director Mischa Santora enlists "Don Giovanni" to close its anniversary season June 20 and 21 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Thanks to an anonymous gift, all remaining tickets are $10.
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Five operas set in Spain are crossing Cincinnati stages this summer.  Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" opens Cincinnati Opera's Spanish-themed summer festival June 11 and 13 at Music Hall, to be followed by Verdi's "Don Carlo" June 25 and 27, Golijov's "Ainadamar" and Bizet's "Carmen" in July.  Mozart's "Don Giovanni" closes the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra's "Spanish Legends" mini-festival June 20 and 21 at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Next season the CCO moves to Italy, with an evening of bel canto arias (to be announced) by Bellini, Monteverdi, Puccini, Rossini and Verdi.  Also on the CCO's 2009-10 roster in an all-Russian program including guest artist Roberto Diaz in Alfred Schnittke's Monologue for Viola and Strings.
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Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra music director Mischa Santora and cast member, "Master Peter's Puppet Show"

Gods, knights and scholars visit Cincinnati this weekend.  That's god as in opera divo/diva, knight as in Don Quixote de la Mancha and scholars as in a seminar on "Wagner and Cinema."
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Cincinnati Music Hall

The 2009 Cincinnati May Festival, 30th anniversary of music director James Conlon, draws to a close this weekend at Music Hall with "Hallelujah" and "Amen."  That's "Hallelujah" as in Handel's "Messiah," traditionally sung as an encore to the concluding festival concert.  However, there'll be a plethora of "Hallelujahs" this year.  The next-to-last concert May 29 opens with three of them (not all by Handel). plus works by Bach, Schubert and Mendelssohn.   And nothing really says "amen" like Mahler's Symphony No. 8, which rings down the curtain May 30.
   Meanwhile, CCM Opera Studio performs Dominick Argento's "Postcard from Morocco" May 29-31 in Cohen Family Studio Theater at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Nicholas Muni directs.
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Cincinnati Opera, ever savvy in selling its product, has done it again. Cincinnati-area singers are invited to participate in the Opera's first "Opera Idol" search, a talent hunt modeled after "American Idol," beginning with preliminary auditions June 6 at Music Hall. Winner will receive a $3,500 contract with Cincinnati Opera.
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Mahler's 8th Symphony ("Symphony of a Thousand"), a Verdi opera and a "devil-made-me-do-it" Kurt Weill are among James Conlon's choices for his 30th anniversary as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival.  The festival opens May 22 with Weill's "Seven Deadly Sins" starring Broadway diva Patti LuPone and Mozart's Requiem.  Verdi's less frequented "Luisa Miller" will have a complete performance.  The springtime festival also contrasts pagan doings by Mendelssohn with "Hallelujah" choruses by Handel (plural) and Bach's Magnificat.  Mahler's 8th will fill up the Music Hall stage to close the festival May 30, with the May Festival Chorus, Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, Cincinnati Children's Choir, a raft of vocal soloists, Conlon and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
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Jonathan Lasch as Falstaff, Katherine Giaquinto as Alice Ford in "Falstaff" photo by Mark Lyons

The subject around town this week is opera.  The opera department of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music presents Verdi's "Falstaff" in Corbett Auditorium at CCM.  Cincinnati Opera offers a preview of its July production of Osvaldo Golijov's "Ainadamar" with a panel discussion of its subject, Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.  Meanwhile, the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra Boogie Band recalls the horn bands of the 1970s with a showcase of hits by Earth Wind and Fire, Blood Sweat and Tears, Chicago, Tower of Power and others, all in authentic orchestrations by Terry LaBolt, at Northern Kentucky University's Greaves Concert Hall.
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Sharon Robinson and Jaime Laredo

Chamber music will be richly represented during the 2009-10 season in Cincinnati, with stellar offerings by Chamber Music Cincinnati and the Linton Chamber Music Series.  It will be Linton's first season under co-artistic directors Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson, who succeeded Linton founder and long-time artistic director Richard Waller this spring.  
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Erich Kunzel (photo taken in Memorial Hall, Cincinnati)

It is a week to celebrate Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel.  The famed Pops meister will be inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame May 6 at Memorial Hall in Cincinnati and May 8-10, he will close the Cincinnati Pops' 2008-09 season at Music Hall with vocalist Sandi Patty.  Also this week:  pianist Sergei Polusmiak, distinguished artist-in-residence at Northern Kentucky University, performs a blockbuster recital, you can travel back to the age of exploration, re-birth and reformation with the early music ensemble Catacoustic Consort, and hear the king of instruments performed by renowned organist Paul Jacobs at Calvary Episcopal Church.
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Neeme Järvi

Neeme Järvi's annual Summer Academy for young conductors will move this year from Pärnu, Estonia's "summer capital" on the Baltic Sea, to Leigo Farm near Otepää,  Estonia's "winter capital" in the hill country of South Estonia.  Ten conductors will coach with Järvi and conduct their own concerts with the Estonian National Youth Symphony Orchestra Chamber Orchestra August 14 and 15 on the lakes at Leigo.  Young conductors (born 1969 or after) should apply by May 15. For information, visit www.jarviacademy.ee
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Erich Kunzel, the man who put the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra on the world map, is suffering from pancreatic cancer.  Kunzel, 74, who has led the Pops since the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra created it for him in 1977, will continue with his conducting schedule as planned, CSO officials said Friday. 
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The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra has a new principal cellist, Ilya Finkelshteyn.  He succeeds CSO principal Eric Kim, who leaves the orchestra at the end of this season to join the faculty of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington.  A native of Russia, Finkelshteyn comes to Cincinnati from the Baltimore Symphony where he has been principal cellist since 2002.
(photo by Katya Chilingiri)   



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Accent09, the summer festival for college and advanced high school students held annually at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, will take place on campus from June 14-20.  Its progenitor, MusicX, now Music09, CCM's distinguished new music festival, has been re-located to Blonay, Switzerland, where it will take place in July.
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