Opera News was an American classical music magazine. It was published from 1936 to 2023 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild , a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to promote opera and also support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City. Opera News was initially focused primarily on the Met, particularly providing information for listeners of the Saturday afternoon live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts . Over the years, the magazine broadened its scope to include the larger American and international opera scenes. Published monthly, Opera News offered opera-related feature articles; artist interviews; production profiles; musicological pieces; music-business reportage; reviews of performances in the United States and Europe; reviews of recordings, videos, books and audio equipment; and listings of opera performances in the United States.
8-721: The final Editor-in-Chief was F. Paul Driscoll. Regular contributors to the magazine included its former features editor, Brian Kellow , William Ashbrook , Scott Barnes, Jochen Breiholz , Fred Cohn, Erika Davidson , Justin Davidson , Peter G. Davis , Matthew Gurewitsch, Joel Honig , Tim Page , Judith Malafronte , Mark Thomas Ketterson , Martin Bernheimer , Ira Siff, Joanne Sydney Lessner, Anne Midgette , Drew Minter, William R. Braun, Phillip Kennicott, Joshua Rosenblum , Leslie Rubinstein , Alan Wagner , Steven Jude Tietjen, Adam Wasserman, Oussama Zahr, and William Zakariasen . The magazine
16-568: A range of writers, seeking out well-known voices and cultivating young talent. In addition to his monthly column in Opera News , his own articles appeared in Vanity Fair , The Wall Street Journal , The New York Observer , Opera , and other publications. He was the author of five biographies: Can't Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell , published in 2000, The Bennetts: An Acting Family , Ethel Merman: A Life , Pauline Kael: A Life in
24-416: A year-round publication, adding monthly issues in the summer months while maintaining its bi-weekly schedule during the opera season. In 1974, Robert Jacobson became the magazine's third chief editor. Jacobson was succeeded by Patrick O'Connor (1988), who was succeeded in 1989 by Patrick J. Smith. In 1998, Smith was succeeded by Rudolph S. Rauch. Under the leadership of Rauch and executive editor Brian Kellow ,
32-552: The Fall, Winter, and Spring, but was on hiatus during the summers. As time went on, the magazine began to take on a more international scope of coverage; but it still maintained a strong interest in the New York opera scene and the Met in particular. Frank Merkling succeeded Peltz as the second chief editor of Opera News , with his first issue appearing on 14 October 1957. In 1972, the magazine became
40-497: The company's direction under Peter Gelb . However, reactions from the public led to the decision being reversed. From 2006 to 2023 the magazine annually bestowed five Opera News Awards for Distinguished Achievement. Recipients of the awards included: Notes References Brian Kellow Brian Kellow (March 1, 1959 – July 22, 2018) was an American biographer and magazine editor. As an editor at Opera News from 1988 to 2016, he commissioned hundreds of articles from
48-675: The magazine switched to a monthly publication format in September 1998. F. Paul Driscoll, the final editor in chief, was appointed in July 2003. Beginning with the June 2012 issue, the Metropolitan Opera said that Opera News would cease reviewing Met performances, following dissatisfaction among the Met leadership with the magazine's recent critiques of Robert Lepage 's production of the Ring Cycle and of
56-638: Was also available online. On August 15, 2023, the Metropolitan Opera announced that the magazine would be discontinued in November and incorporated into the British magazine Opera . Opera News was founded in 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild with Mrs. John DeWitt Peltz ( Mary Ellis Peltz ) serving as the publication's first editor. It was initially intended to be a "useful, instructive, and factual weekly newspaper of Opera in New York". Its first issue
64-511: Was published on 7 December 1936 and consisted of only one folded broadsheet. Its second year of publication saw its transformation into a 17-page magazine with advertising, with its first magazine issue appearing on 15 November 1937. Beginning with the December 1940 issue, the magazine began to concentrate much of its content on the weekly Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts . The magazine at this point offered bi-weekly issues of an expanded size during
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