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Fils du violoniste Isaac Stern, le plus français des chefs d’orchestre américains a une passion pour la musique et Paris. Il fête cette année les vingt ans d’Opera Fuoco, sa compagnie lyrique, pépinière de futurs virtuoses.

From the influence of his parents to his own artistic path, this five-part portrait of an extraordinary conductor reveals his intimate approach to music...

West Palm Beach, FL (August 26, 2024) – Palm Beach Opera announces the contract extension of internationally-acclaimed conductor David Stern through the 2026-2027 season with the new title of Music Director. Maestro Stern has served as Palm Beach Opera’s Chief Conductor since 2015, an appointment that was made following his impressive musical leadership of the company’s world premiere of Enemies, A Love Story by Ben Moore and Nahma Sandrow.

William Boyce, a contemporary of Handel, wrote his Seranata when Handel spent 9 months in Dublin. Based on the Song of Song of Solomon, the libretto is a delightful collection of erotic poetry from the bible, scored for two shepherds, a tenor and a soprano, chorus and orchestra.

Contrary to the claims of the reference edition, Hercules is not an oratorio. Handel always wanted it to be considered a musical drama, and thus an opera in English. In order to reinforce the dramatic tension and to give Hercules its operatic colors, David Stern proposes an interpretation based on the original manuscript and the reworkings that Handel made in 1749 and 1752.

If Verdi had spent too many summers sipping rosé wine on the French riviera he might very well had composed Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. Quintessentially gallic, this work weaves beautifully melodies into the infamous tale and evokes the melancholy aspects of the story more than the heroic.

There is a reason that Verdi’s rendering of “la Dame aux Camélias” is immensely popular today: it is a perfect opera. The story, the music, the poignancy and the romance never fade or diminish. L’amor è palpito, per sempre.

Mozart’s last opera was by no means a return to an earlier style. This Opera Seria displays all the sensibility and colors of the composer’s late period. The relationship between the singers and the orchestra is nothing short of revolutionary.

This innovative program takes selections from a wide variety of Bach’s cantatas to underline the composer’s affinity to nature. The wind, the rain and the snow all become apparent through orchestrations that paint the texts, offering us the Leipzig master’s version of the 4 seasons.

Tosca is a violent and turbulent story that exposes the kind of raw emotional content that defines verismo, the style that urges opera to connect completely to credible, real life situations.

The Tales of Hoffman bears well the name of its genre: opéra fantastique. The last work of the famed operetta composer, Jacques Offenbach, Hoffman transcends many labels and pre-conceived notions: it is serious as it is comic, dark as it is light, popular as it is introspective and abstract

Opera Fuoco celebrates its 20th anniversary ! To celebrate this anniversary David Stern has invited soloists from 4 generations of the Opera Fuoco Young Artists Program. For two decades, the company has been committed to the training and integration of young talents who have become great talents.

David Stern leads this concertante performance of Giovanni Simone Mayr’s L’amor conjugale at the Theater an def Wien, which brings together Opera Fuoco’s period instrument orchestra and four generations of its Young Artist Program. The evening presents Mayr’s charming one-act opera based on Nicolas Brouilly’s Leonora (same as Beethoven’s Fidelio) written in the late classical and early bel canto styles, resulting in a quirky combination of German and Italian opera traditions.

David Stern leads this Opera Fuoco production of Nozze di Figaro with the newest members of the Opera Fuoco Young Artists Program in a staging by Alexander Camerlo. It is a pocket-size version of Mozart’s masterpiece, bringing out its youthful and chamber music qualities all while giving the young singers the opportunity to learn these important roles at the highest musical level.

Returning to China for the first time since the pandemic, David Stern joins the MISA festival to conduct the wonderful Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and present Rino Yoshimoro, a new talent and one of the six finalists of the 2020/22 Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violon Competition. 

For the third program with NDR Hannover, David Stern will conduct the rarely produced gem of Adolph Hasse, Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra, with two of the most innovative singers of today, Sarah Hershkowitz and Fleur Barron.

Lorenzo da Ponte finally takes his long overdue place as the center of attention in the world of opera. Opera Fuoco presents a musical tour from Venice to New York through the odyssey of da Ponte’s life.

Ariodante is one of Handel’s most intriguing operas, this time with the talented singers of the Curtis Institute’s opera division - a dramma per musica staged by Omer ben Seadia and featuring Philadelphia’s Tempesta di Mare.

David Stern returns to the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston for an evening with world class fortepianist Andreas Staier, and Mendelssohn rarely performed “Reformation Symphony”.

New production touring the Netherlands: November 12th – December 12th 2022 During the run of Lady in the Dark in the early 1940s in New York, Kurt Weill was admired by the entire American musical community. The dramatist Moss Hart and the librettist Ira Gershwin opened up the world of […]

Les Grandes Voix with the sensational duo of the tenors Michael Spyres and Lawrence Brownlee.

The Palm Beach Opera presents Mozart’s most enigmatic opera, Cosi Fan Tutte, where love and friendship are intertwined and put to their greatest tests.

David Stern and Opera Fuoco have recorded Giovanni Simone Mayr’s L’amor conjugale in April 2021. This is the first recording of the full critical version of Mayr’s one act opera. The CD will be available on November 19th 2021 and the release concert is on December 12th 2021 at Levallois, […]