Cavalcade of stars
Back-to-back casts in the Metropolitan Opera’s revivals of Madama Butterfly and La traviata offer ample opportunity for soprano-gazing.
Michael Mayer
49 pieces since 2009 — in 4 roles, at 4 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
49
pieces
4
roles
4
companies
18
years
21 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Michael Mayer.
View all
Gild the Lily
Lisette Oropesa, Piotr Buszewski, and Luca Salsi feature in a rote revival of Michael Mayer‘s cloying production of La traviata.
Ritorna vincitrice
Elina Garanca is back at the Met for the first time since 2020 — her Amneris is, in a word, sensational.
Nilsson ratings
Christina Nilsson‘s debut enlivens the Met’s new Aïda.
Can you dig it?
I had been hopeful that 2024 would end, if not on a high note, then one that was at least in tune.
Ethiopian blends
Anticipating the first new local Aïda in thirty-six years, Chris’s Cache revisits Verdi’s popular opera in four unusually interesting in-house recordings from the Met 1961-1976.
A jewel, despite the setting
The first time I heard of Ermonela Jaho it was as the ultimate understudy. In the aughts it seemed that every time Angela Gheorghiu or Anna Netrebko or whoever canceled, Jaho was standing by.
On a par with tuberculosis
Come back, Big Clock! We need you more than ever!
Flawless!
At the Metropolitan Opera on Friday night, an otherwise undistinguished Traviata was salvaged by an astonishing performance from Aleksandra Kurzak, whose Violetta was an incontrovertible triumph.
Into the wooed
We are the elusive, the mysterious, the ever-courted Millennial Audience, Mr. Darcy to the marketing department’s Mrs. Bennet.
Jest you, jest me
Friday night’s Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera revealed once again a predictable dissonance between the performances on stage and Michael Mayer’s production.
The damned don’t cry
Michael Mayer‘s production of La traviata at the Met is so timid, so devoid of insight, so cynically pandering and gaudy that I hardly feel like it even matters what I think of the performances of the current cast.
A view to a kill
You’d want to expect that every Met retread would draw the same curiosity, the same large crowds, to Lincoln Center.
Shrieking violet
Diana Damrau‘s performance as Violetta was the work of a very ordinary artist, one susceptible to vocal flubs, poor intonation, and an all too banal approach operatic performance.
The beautiful doom is empty
The Met is on it with something something woker than woke: a noirish psychodrama of a frigid hysteric who seeks redemption via Freudian analysis!
It’s a Mantua’s world
Verdi’s Rigoletto returned to the Met Friday in the stilted “Las Vegas” production by Michael Mayer, with mostly competent singing from a good-looking cast.
For the birds
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Trick or trill
With help from the Met’s invaluable performance archive, here is a look back at just some of what you could have seen, and perhaps did see, on October 31st through the years at the Met.
Lounge act
After nearly three years and over 20 performances Michael Mayer’s “Las Vegas” production of Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera still outrages many.
the morning after
The operatives were busy over the midnight hours: “Act 3 was a mixed bag. The opening showed Villazon in much better form, with solid phrasing. The Mad Scene started out beautiful, Netrebko spinning out haunting legato. She was completely involved and engaged. Then she fell apart at the flute solo, sounding under supported and wavering […]
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
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I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
