Let the river run
In its Met premier, neither a talented cast nor some beautiful musical moments were enough to make Florencia feel new or vital.
Mary Zimmerman
26 pieces since 2007 — at 2 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
26
pieces
2
companies
20
years
By company
16 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Mary Zimmerman.
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In my very own private hell
No, we don’t really need another “Orpheus” opera. Or, rather, we don’t need this one.
Armida
Conducted by Riccardo Frizza; starring Renée Fleming, Lawrence Brownlee, John Osborn, Barry Banks and Kobie van Rensburg. Transmitted live on May 1, 2010.
Madness on the moors!
The new cast at the Met suggested an alliterative retitling of Lucia di Lammermoor was needed—perhaps Lost Loonies in Love or its Italian equivalent?
Italian dressing
Lucia di Lammermoor, a bloody story of a young woman’s mental degeneracy amidst feuding families, remains Donizetti’s most popular exploration of the landscape and culture of Britain.
Water, logged
So, how excited are you to read another piece about the Mary Zimmerman Rusalka?
Sleeping with the fishes
With a cast of stellar singers and uneven direction by Mary Zimmerman, Dvorák’s Rusalka debuts in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera.
The year in Corwin
New York City isn’t a bad place to live, operatically-speaking.
A dream walking
The hostile reaction to the Mary Zimmerman production of La sonnambula was well documented after the premiere in 2009.
The Bland Witch Project
The premiere of Mary Zimmerman’s production of Giacomo Gioachino Rossini’s Armida was arguably the most controversial event of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2009-2010 season. The performances represented Armida’s first run at the Metropolitan Opera and had been commissioned at the behest of mega-diva Renée Fleming. The soprano had scored a triumph in concert presentations of the […]
German, te togli al campy…
1817 was a fertile and diverse time for 26 year old Gioachino Rossini. It opened with his last true opera buffa, La Cenerentola, continued with his most important semiseria, La gazza ladra, and ended with two operas, which, although both nominally belonging to the seria genre, could not be more different from each other.
Once on that island
Our Own Gualtier Maldè (right) escaped today’s Armida dress rehearsal at the Met with his wits intact. He reports:
Happy endings
Let me take you back, Parterreians, to the spring of 2009. Shortly before the Met’s new La sonnambula opened, murmurings began to be heard, rumors began to circulate. After the open dress rehearsal, reports were filed as opera fans looked on in horror. At the première, a shell-shocked audience rained down boos on the production […]
Gentleman prefers brunettes
It’s no easy easy task to “re-review” one of the most discussed and scrutinized opera productions of the last few years. Mary Zimmerman’s mise-en-scène of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor has been extensively examined since it was chosen to inaugurate the 2007/08 season of the Metropolitan Opera, provoking very mixed reactions both from the professional critics […]
i wake up screaming
[Our Own Gualtier Malde (along with a few thousand other people) attended the public dress rehearsal of the Met’s new production of La sonnambula this morning. Here is his report.] Innocence, rustic naiveté and virginity just don’t get no respect no more. I should know, I grew up way out in central New Jersey and […]
Does a big voice need defending?
Our Own Little Stevie reflects on the Met’s new Macbeth. I’d like to admit a guilty pleasure of mine: I’ve secretly been waiting with a lot of anticipation for Maria Guleghina to sing in Macbeth and Norma this year. I have not told this to many people because it seems that the common expectation has […]