Live on medici.tv Aug 30 from Los Angeles Opera: Finale of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia, presented by Rolex, the Competition for the World’s Best Young Opera Singers
For the fifth year in a row, medici.tv will partner with Plácido Domingo’s Operalia – the world opera competition – for a live webcast of its finale, this time from the Los Angeles Opera, on August 30 at 7 p.m. Los Angeles time / 10 p.m. EST. Operalia, the annual international competition for young singers founded by Domingo in 1993, has helped launch the careers of such artists as Joyce DiDonato, Joseph Calleja, Rolando Villazón, Erwin Schrott, Elizabeth Futral, Ana María Martínez, Nina Stemme, Ludovic Tézier, Stéphane Degout, Susanna Phillips, Inva Mula, John Osborn and José Cura. Every year, Operalia takes place in a different city, with LA Opera hosting this year’s competition for its third appearance in Los Angeles; previous host cities have includedParis, Mexico, Madrid, Tokyo, Milan, Moscow, Beijing and Verona. The Operalia final concert will be available for free streaming for 90 days after its initial presentation. The program can be watched via PCs and Mac computers, as well as on the go via medici.tv’s application for iOS and Android devices – the gateway for music lovers to enjoy the world’s greatest classical performances anywhere and anytime.
Each year, Operalia receives nearly 1,000 applications from young singers around the world. Of these, 40 of the most promising international competitors of all voice ranges are flown in for the preliminary rounds, with 20 continuing on to the semifinal; only 10 singers will reach the final round, which will be presented as a Gala Finals Concert with the orchestra conducted by Domingo. The international panel of 14 judges, supervised by Domingo as a non-voting member, will then select and announce the winners.
Speaking about the aim of Operalia, Domingo says: “Talent alone is not enough – it is also essential for young singers to come to the attention of those impresarios, managers, casting directors, conductors and stage directors who can further their professional careers. My purpose with Operalia is to help identify not only the best voices, but also to discover those singers whose personalities, characters and powers of interpretation show that they have the potential to become complete artists. Individuals such as these become tomorrow’s stars. This is why the jury is not exclusively made up of great singers but also includes general managers, stage directors and casting directors.”
The finale of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia is broadcast on medici.tv in partnership with Rolex. More information on the webcast.
Operalia 2014 Jury
Marta Domingo (stage director); F. Paul Driscoll (editor-in-chief, Opera News); Thierry Fouquet (general director, Opéra National de Bordeaux, France); Anthony Freud (general director, Lyric Opera of Chicago); Jonathan Friend (artistic administrator, Metropolitan Opera, New York); Jean-Louis Grinda (general director, Opéra de Monte Carlo, Monaco); Ioan Holender (artistic adviser, Metropolitan Opera and Tokyo Spring Festival; artistic director, George Enescu Festival, Bucharest, Romania); Peter Katona (director of casting, Royal Opera House, London); Christopher Koelsch (president/CEO, Los Angeles Opera); Grégoire Legendre (general director, Opéra de Québec, Canada); Joan Matabosch (artistic director, Teatro Real, Madrid); Pal Moe (casting consultant, Bavarian State Opera, Munich; Glyndebourne Festival Opera, UK; Opéra de Lille, France; Norwegian Opera House, Oslo); Andrés Rodriguez (general director, Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Chile); Helga Schmidt (intendente: Palau de les Arts, Valencia, Spain).
About Operalia
Operalia, which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year, was founded by Plácido Domingo to discover, recognize and support the most outstanding emerging young opera singers of today. Domingo is actively present throughout the competition, and although he does not vote himself, he oversees the proceedings and is committed to offering artistic and career advice to all of the participants. Participating or even winning a prize in this competition is only the beginning of a singer’s relationship with Domingo and Operalia. Since the distinguished jury is primarily composed of general directors or casting directors from important international opera houses, participation in Operalia has proven to be a vital career stepping-stone for many of these young singers.
About LA Opera
Currently launching its 29th season, LA Opera has become one of America’s most exciting and ambitious opera companies. Presenting benchmark productions of standard repertoire as well as new and rarely-staged operas, LA Opera brings together world-renowned singers, designers, directors and conductors for performances that attract the attention of international audiences and critics. Highlights of recent seasons include the Los Angeles premiere of Einstein on the Beach by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass, the world premiere of Daniel Catán’s Il Postino, the company’s first complete Ring cycles, and the first major U.S. production in four decades of Verdi’s The Two Foscari. In addition to its mainstage performances, LA Opera presents a robust variety of educational programming and innovative community engagement offerings, experienced by more than 120,000 people each season. For more information, please visit www.LAOpera.org.
Operalia 2014 Finale on medici.tv
August 30, 07:00 p.m (Los Angeles time) / 10:00 p.m. (EST)
Operalia 2014
Rolex and Culture
Final Round live from LA Opera, with Plácido Domingo
www.operaliacompetition.org www.placidodomingo.com www.losangelesopera.org
New! Medici.tv presents Live Scores
This summer, medici.tv presents an innovation on its website. This month, medici.tv introduced its Live Scores feature in partnership with Weezic: twenty masterpieces are now available in video with automatically synchronized scores appearing on the screen while the work is being performed.
New! Chromecast for HD TVs
More than 1,400 programs and 100 live events per year are available for viewing via medici.tv on HD televisions – no matter the brand – thanks to the new Chromecast feature. Chromecast is a thumb-sized media-streaming device that plugs into the HDMI port on an HD TV. Set up is with a simple app, then viewers can send their favorite online shows, movies, music and more to their HD TVs via a smartphone, tablet or laptop. Chromecast works with Android tablets and smartphones, iPhones, iPads, Chrome for Mac and Chrome for Windows. Browsing for what to watch, controlling playback and adjusting the volume can be done with any device. See here for more information on Chromecast for medici.tv.
The medici.tv application
There is a thoroughly updated medici.tvapp for Android and Apple devices that offers music lovers a free virtual seat at the greatest classical performances and one-of-a-kind events from around the world. The previous edition of the app had already been named one of the top five classical apps by New York’s WQXR, which pointed out that the app “allows you to peek inside great European concert halls.” Part of the medici.tv all-devices strategy, this new, improved app for tablets and smart phones gives users the ability to intuitively navigate through more than 1,400 HD videos, including both performances and documentaries. Available for free at the Apple App Store and Google Play store, the app gives users access to more than 100 live concert webcasts each year from top classical artists and the finest music institutions across the globe – without ads and in the ideal video quality according to your internet connection. Users can watch a live event and then watch it again whenever and wherever they want. More than 70,000 music lovers have downloaded the medici.tv app since it was first created, enjoying an enriched experience of classical music unrivaled on the web. Read more about medici.tv apps here: http://www.medici.tv/#/mobile-apps.
About medici.tv
Since its official launch in May 2008, medici.tv has gained international recognition, bringing together a community of 180,000 music and arts lovers from 182 countries. In addition to offering live concert hall events that music lovers can experience on their computers and entertainment systems, medici.tv now offers a free application (available at the Apple App Store and at Google Play for Android) that makes it possible to experience world-class artistry on iPads, iPhones and Android devices. Consumers of Samsung Smart TVs can now access the medici.tv application worldwide in 170 countries on the 2011, 2012 and 2013 models, as well as all future ones. More than 70 client universities around the world take advantage of medici.tv, including Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music.
In addition to webcasts of more than 100 live events each year, medici.tv has partnered with the world’s top artists and music institutions to offer subscriptions that give music lovers the opportunity to watch more than 1,400 video-on-demand programs. They include concerts, operas, recitals, documentaries, masterclasses, artist portraits and archival material by such legendary musicians as Maria Callas, Glenn Gould, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arthur Rubinstein, Georg Solti and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
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