Mounting dread
On this day in 1992 the Metropolitan Opera presented a [disastrous] new production of Elektra.
Otto Schenk
56 pieces since 2009 — at 4 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
56
pieces
4
companies
18
years
17 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Otto Schenk.
View all
Sachs appeal
Last night’s cast of Die Meistersinger at the Met, dominated by the irascible, unbeatable duo of Michael Volle and Johannes Martin Kränzle as Sachs and Beckmesser, did much to enliven Otto Schenk’s creaky, nearly 30-year-old production.
Mai Tosca alla scena…
On this day in 1968 the Metropolitan Opera presented Tosca, the first new production of this work since 1917.
La jolie fille de Perth
In tribute to soprano Christiane Eda-Pierre, who died September 5.
The sprite in you
Today’s Rusalka video overview covers filmed performances of Dvorák’s opera since 2010.
There arose such a clatter
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
Not only with words, but with lively gestures
“I will never sing the role again. It was frightful. We were a set of madwomen…There is nothing beyond Elektra. We have lived and reached the furthest boundaries in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop.”
About a boy
These days a cadre of voluble opera-goers regularly issues dire warnings that anyone about to attend this or that production at the Met should close her eyes and just listen rather than witness yet another Peter Gelb regie “atrocity.”
Let me like a soldier fall
Between them, Maria Guleghina, Marcello Giordani, James Morris and John Del Carlo have nearly 150 combined years of service on stage.
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.
Starry starry night
Although the season is less than three weeks old, Metropolitan Opera audiences may hear nothing else this season as beautiful as Peter Mattei’s “Song to the Evening Star.”
Poor wan Rusalka
The winter 2014 final run of the Met’s first/only Rusalka production (a new one is scheduled in a few seasons) seemed both a nod to the theater’s past and a hint of its future.
Wholly Grail
Certain opera productions become the stuff of legend as much for the circumstances surrounding the performance as for the musical results.
Hier bleibt Elektra
The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.
La morale in tutto questo?
Don Pasquale is one of those operas that make listeners feel very happy and gay, who, after seeing it, live happily ever after and gayer than before. It’s about a whore who needs to get laid, with an eye on the young (once and still bottom) hunk versus the older (once top, yes you guessed […]
Noch einmal!
Richard Strauss’s brilliantly disturbing Elektra was first performed at the Dresden State Opera in 1909, and arrived in America in 1910 at the Manhattan Opera House. A second American premiere, this time in the original German, was in Philadelphia in 1931 with – and this will kill you – Nelson Eddy as Orestes. Along with […]
drammy per musica
New Kid on the Plaza Drammy writes: April 9, 2009. A traditional Otto Schenk production featuring Diana Damrau as Gilda and who cares but.. Frizza conducting, Viktoria Vizin as Maddalena, Calleja as the Duke, Frontali as Rigoletto, Aceto as Sparafucile. Stellar performances from the entire cast, excepting poor Mr Frontali. The set was phenomenal – […]