Valerio Contaldo: L’Orfeo with Les Épopées 🎻 Valerio Contaldo’s month of Orfeo continues. After his first few performances at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen last week, he now sings Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Les Épopées and Stéphane Fuget, today at the Auditorium de Dijon and on Sunday in the open air of the Cour du Palais synodal in Sens. Les Épopées have made the Monteverdi trilogy a central part of their repertoire, often with Valerio at the heart of them. L’Orfeo, written in 1607 on a libretto by Alessandro Striggio, tells of the poet who descends into the underworld to bring back Euridice, on one condition: he must not look at her. Orfeo: Valerio Contaldo Euridice & Musica: Jennifer Courcier Messaggiera & Speranza: Eva Zaïcik Proserpina & Ninfa: Claire Lefilliâtre Plutone & Caronte: Frédéric Caton Apollo: Cyril Auvity Conductor: Stéphane Fuget Les Épopées Chœur de l’Opéra de Dijon 📅 11 June, Auditorium, Opéra de Dijon, 20:00 📅 14 June, Cour du Palais synodal, Sens, 20:30 Toi toi toi, Valerio!

Rodrigo Carreto: Relicário Perpétuo, world premiere ✨ Tonight at the Teatro Camões in Lisbon, tenor Rodrigo Carreto sings in the world premiere of Relicário Perpétuo, a new opera by Luís Tinoco marking the 500th anniversary of poet Luís de Camões. Rodrigo creates the role of Gerardo, a prince of Persia who collects everything that comes into his hands, unable to decide what holds value and what does not. Into his court arrives Camões himself, fighting for his place in the canon. A tragicomedy about what we keep, what we discard, and who decides. The libretto by Luísa Costa Gomes moves between Papiamentu, invented languages and seventeenth century literary Portuguese. The premiere falls on 10 June, the Day of Portugal, of Camões and of the Portuguese Communities. A new Portuguese opera, on the national day, about the national poet. Rodrigo is part of history tonight. Gerardo: Rodrigo Carreto Camões & Salomão: André Baleiro Hipócrita: André Henriques Bárbara: Mariana Fabião Catarina: Camila Mandillo Joana: Andrea Conangla Musical direction: Joana Carneiro Stage direction: Nuno Carinhas Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa Teatro Nacional de São Carlos 📅 10 June, Teatro Camões, Lisboa, 18:00 📅 11 June, Teatro Camões, Lisboa, 20:00 📅 13 June, Cine-Teatro Louletano, Loulé, 21:00 Toi toi toi, Rodrigo! ✨

Beyond the Score: Stage fright 📲 Some insights from an artistic agent In ten years of working with singers and conductors, there is a type of message I have received more times than others. Sent an hour before curtain, always with a laughing emoji: “If I’m still alive after this, see you at the after party.”💀 Or: “If I don’t mess up completely, drinks are on me tonight.”😂 It’s funny. It’s also not entirely a joke. That particular sort of pre-performance humor, self-deprecating, sent lightly, landing somewhere between laughter and genuine anxiety, is one of the most consistent things I encounter in this profession. It’s a way of naming something real without fully exposing it. Like a controlled ventilation. And it does work, up to a point. From where I stand, in the wings, in the foyer, on the other end of the phone: the pattern is consistent. The ones who perform best are not the ones who feel nothing. They are the ones who name it, speak about it openly, and have learned to channel what their body is doing into something the audience experiences as stage presence, intensity and truth. Here is a reframe: what your body experiences as fear, and what it experiences as heightened readiness, are physiologically almost identical. A racing heart, sharp focus, adrenaline. Your body is not betraying you, but it’s is preparing you. The work is learning to use that state to your advantage rather than fighting it. A few things I have seen that help: 1. Name it. Even a jokey message to your agent counts. We are here for you. Getting it out of your head and into words already reduces its grip. 2. Build a ritual. A warm-up, a breathing pattern, a routine before you go on. The nervous system responds to structure. 3. Accept it as part of the job. Every single person standing in those wings feels it. You are not the exception. You are the rule. 4. Work with a performance coach. It is one of the best professional tools available and still very much underused in our world. Have you found something that helps? Share it in the comments. 👇

Ana-Carmen Balestra: Dutch Classical Talent Finals 🌟 Today, soprano Ana-Carmen Balestra, in between her performances of La Traviata and Rosenkavalier @garsingtonopera, takes the stage at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht for the grand finale of the Dutch Classical Talent competition. Dutch Classical Talent is one of the Netherlands’ most respected platforms for emerging classical musicians. Its alumni read like a who’s who of Dutch classical music: harpist Lavinia Meijer, soprano Nora Fischer, the Van Baerle Trio, the Berlage Saxophone Quartet. The competition doesn’t just award a prize, it launches careers. Finalists perform their programme fourteen times across the country’s leading concert halls, building audiences and experience that money cannot buy. After eighteen months of coaching and touring her programme ‘Gracias a la Vida’, Ana-Carmen performs today alongside three fellow finalists. The jury decides who takes home the Award and the €10,000 prize. Whatever the outcome, reaching this final is already a mark of where she stands. 📅 7 June — 14:00 📍 Hertz, TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht Toi toi toi, Ana-Carmen! 🌹