Opera News honours Kaufmann, Racette, Te Kanawa, Terfel and Muti at its 6th edition of the Opera Awards

Broadway stars Patti LuPone and Barbara Cook joined director Francis Ford Coppola and playwright John Guare on Sunday to present this year's Opera News Awards.

Five artists were recognized for their international musical achievements: German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, American soprano Patricia Racette, New Zealand soprano Kiri Te Kanawa, Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel and Italian conductor Riccardo Muti.

Coppola presented the award to Muti who joked, “I look like a relative of The Godfather.”

Also attending the awards ceremony at the Plaza Hotel was a robust-looking Michael Douglas, who fought throat cancer last year and declared in January that he is cancer-free after undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. Asked what he would say to people who claim to hate opera, the actor and opera fan said, “They never went!” He said he goes regularly because the staged performances “are so broad and big — this kind of dramatic art doesn't exist anymore.”

The awards were created in 2005 by Opera News, whose circulation of more than 100,000 makes it the world's most popular magazine in the field.

via NY Opera Awards Show Features Broadway Stars NPR

Photo: from left, little and large co-hosts Stephanie Blythe and Patti LuPone; Barbara Cook and Jonas Kaufmann; Renata Scotto | © Dario Acosta

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.