out there in the dark
La Cieca is putting her entire nest egg into popcorn futures, since next season opera lovers will rarely emerge from their local movie palace. The Met will do an astonishing 11 HD simulcasts during the 2008-2009 season.Â
Monday, September 22, 2008: Opening Night Gala starring the astonishingly well-preserved Renée Fleming in fully staged performances of La Traviata (Act II), Manon (Act III), and the final scene from Richard Strauss’s Capriccio. Ramón Vargas, Thomas Hampson and Dwayne Croft support milady; James Levine and Marco Armiliato share the arduous conducting duties.
October 11:  Salome with Karita Mattila baring all or, perhaps, near-all.
November 8:  Doctor Atomic. A new production of the John Adams opera starring Gerald Finley as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and Sasha Cooke as his wife, Kitty, with Eric Owen and Richard Paul Fink. Alan Gilbert conducts.
November 22: La Damnation de Faust.  Robert Lepage directs a “reconceived” version of a co-production of the Saito Kinen Festival and Opéra National de Paris. Marcello Giordani and Susan Graham star, along with the utterly ubiqitous John Relyea. James Levine conducts.
December 20:  Thaïs. Renée Fleming salutes the holiday season in the role of a pagan hooker, and isn’t that Thomas Hampson under that monk’s hood?
January 10, 2009:  La Rondine. The Met’s “Divas Gone Wild Festival” continues with Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna jerking the tears while Marco Armiliato conducts.
January 24: Orfeo. The Mark Morris dancers tread the stage once more, though they surely won’t drown out Stephanie Blythe.
February 7: Lucia. Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón are scheduled, but you might want to check back later for updates.
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March 7: Madama Butterfly. The smash hit Anthony Minghella production is telecast for the first time, with Cristina Gallardo-Domâs — one hopes in improved vocal form!
March 21: La Sonnambula.  Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez reunited for Mary Zimmerman’s sophomore directing effort, conducted by Evelino Pidò.
May 9: La Cenerentola.   ElÄ«na GaranÄa and Lawrence Brownlee should be pretty damn adorable together.
jatm2063 -- Louise ain’t no virgin by the time she sings ‘Depuis le jour …’ All that delicious trembling she is doing suggests otherwise.
Thank you Operalala! Exciting performance even if, as Tubsinger said, quite different from the Davis recording.
I always wonder what brand of opium Berlioz preferred whenever I listen to his stuff. This is great. Sure gets the heart racing in the final scenes. Thanks again!
Just read that the summer Met performances are being shelved in favor of Alagna and Gheorghiu doing an outdoor concert in Brooklyn. Now that’s something to broadcast in HD. I’d call is operapalooza except that even Gelb couldn’t get Radiohead or Kanye West to show up. The mind reels.
I’m very disappointed that the RING will not be broadcast. It would have been the last chance for most of us to see this RING production which many of us prefer to all others and it would have been nice to see it on a big screen. That said, I’m pleased with most of these choices but will be avoiding a couple of them.
danpatter: without going into the aesthetic merits of the production, I can see very strong practical reasons for not HDing the Ring. To begin with, a telecast next season would likely undercut a future telecast of the new Lepage production. Also the outgoing Ring is very old and has seen a lot of wear and tear since the 1980s. It probably needs some refurbishing for its last time in the theater, but would require much more extensive touchups to look well in HD. There is also the question of altered light levels and the removal of scrims from certain scenes necessary for a telecast.
Probably the biggest argument against an HD telecast of the old Ring is that the current technology used for the Met’s video is somewhat more intrusive and distracting to the theater audience. At least two out of the three cycles would have to include the robot cameras, altered lighting and other annoyances — basically the whole final run of the cycle would have to be compromised for the sake of the telecast.