Finally, the background to the story that rocked the operatic world earlier this summer. Peter Stein withdrew from the Met’s Boris Godunov “because he felt offended by his treatment at the United States Consulate in Berlin when he applied for a work visa and by a lack of sympathy from Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, over confrontations with bureaucracy. ” [NYT]
Per the Met’s press office, “Jane Archibald will make her Met debut as Ophélie in the Met’s new production of Thomas’s Hamlet, singing the role on April 5 and 9.”
No press release yet, but a couple of cher pubes have written to La Cieca noting that the name of Bruce Ford has disappeared from cast listings of the Met’s Armida, replaced by John Osborn.
In what is becoming the New York City Opera’s only conduit of information to the public, a Friday afternoon news dump reveals that the company has laid off 11 members of its administrative staff. The layoffs are “because of financial pressures and a lack of work caused by the cancellation of most of its season.” The startling bit here is that there was no official announcement made: NYCO’s spokesman, Pascal Nadon, finally admitted the development when directly questioned about it, according to Daniel J. Wakin. Nadon added (oh, did I mention this?) that the company has dismissed its executive director, [...]
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