Joseph Calleja Is “Live from Jerusalem” in Theaters across America on July 28

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“The Maltese tenor’s beautifully rounded voice oozes old-school class – he’s shiveringly good.”– Times (London)

Music lovers across America from Albuquerque to Zanesville can see and hear Joseph Calleja on Thursday, July 28, when he stars in “Live from Jerusalem”: a special one-night event to be beamed (with a time delay) to 480 U.S. theaters. The concert will present the Maltese tenor in a program of opera arias and duets, featuring renowned soprano Renée Fleming and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. For this special occasion (honoring the legacy of the great American tenor Richard Tucker), the two celebrated singers will perform excerpts from Verdi’s Rigoletto and La traviata, Puccini’s Tosca and Madama Butterfly, Gounod’s Faust, and Massenet’s Cléopâtre. When Calleja teamed up with Fleming for a recent Covent Garden production of La traviata, the Sunday Times observed: “Fleming gets luxury support from Joseph Calleja’s elegantly phrased Alfredo… . Not to be missed if you can get a ticket.” The “Live from Jerusalem” concert marks Calleja’s first trip to Israel and his debut with the Philharmonic. It also crowns a banner week: the tenor returns to London’s BBC Proms on Sunday, July 24, as a soloist in Verdi’s Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov; the following day sees the UK release of The Maltese Tenor, his solo album that debuted at number two on the German classical charts.

Calleja’s July 24 appearance at London’s Royal Albert Hall will be broadcast live on BBC Radio Three, and then on television – BBC Four – on August 21. The tenor’s return to the BBC Proms follows a successful Verdi outing last year in Simon Boccanegra; on that occasion, as both the Guardian and the Sunday Times reported, Calleja “brought the house down”; indeed, according to Opera Today, he “almost stole the show.”

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