To be a poet is a condition
Are today’s stars enough to sustain Andrea Chénier?
Piotr Beczala
64 pieces since 2007 — in 20 roles, at 11 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
64
pieces
20
roles
11
companies
20
years
By role
Role Andrea Chénier
Role Des Grieux
Et voila l’histoire
To mark Beverly Sills’s 90th birthday (May 25, 1929) “Trove Thursday” offers the late diva’s acclaimed Massenet heroine opposite her ideal Des Grieux, Alain Vanzo.
The Ironic Lady
Another grim narrative of the Gelb years, and one I think is generally hogwash, is that the Met has (at least in theatrical terms) lost its way entirely.
Role Don José
Star vehicles
This Carmen, in other words, was somewhat less radical than its initial image suggested.
Role Duke of Mantua
Any old palace
At the heart of this success was Quinn Kelsey’s revelatory take on Rigoletto. He was matched, vocally and dramatically, by Rosa Feola’s Gilda—a tour-de-force performance.
Role Edgardo
‘Tis new to thee
Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece Lucia di Lammermoor returned to Chicago Lyric Opera on Saturday evening.
All my Edgardos
Well that’s a terrible place to start a review, and it’s not quite fair to SFO’s Lucia di Lammermoor, but…
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 […]
Role Enrico
Someone else does the heavy lifting for a change
La Cieca introduces a new feature on parterre.com, the guest review. First up to bat is longtime print zine stalwart Little Stevie, who saw Lucia di Lammermoor last night. Take this as you will: based on this evenings performance the new Met Lucia is pretty bad. The acclaimed Ms. Zimmerman simply doesn’t know how to […]
Role Enzo
Thoughts on La Gioconda: the others
Yes, there were other Giocondas if not of quite the same distinction. Chronologically…
Role Faust
Sealing the deal
The Bayerische Staatsoper’s summer festival wound down with Lotte de Beer’s darkly effective production of Gounod ’sFaust.
Youth is wasted on the old
Piotr Beczala, Soile Isokoski and Kwangchul Youn star in this 2009 performance of Faust from the Wiener Staatsoper, idiomatically conducted by Bertrand de Billy.
Role Lenski
Through different eyes
I was reminded at the Met’s season premiere of Eugene Onegin Friday night always to expect the unexpected.
No business like snow business
Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin is his masterwork and its themes of social convention and unrequited longing surely struck a deep chord in a composer who, in late 19th century Russia, was gay and had to conduct himself carefully.
Tonight or Neva
Last night, the Met opened the 2013-14 season with a handsome, fairly conservative new production of Eugene Onegin by Deborah Warner that replaces the handsome, fairly conservative one by Robert Carsen. (The trend is clear.)
Role Lensky
Eugene Onegin
Starring Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala, Mariusz Kwiecien and Alexei Tanovitski, conducted by Valery Gergiev. From October 5, 2013.
Role Lohengrin
Erste Brautnacht
Nearly three years after the premiere of François Girard’s Lohengrin at the Met, Parterre Box looks back at the production with a duet from Piotr Beczala and Elena Stikhina.
Space oddity
In Lohengrin, populism comes to an apocalyptic end on the Bavarian stage
A hole new world
Here’s an update for those keeping up with the Lohengrin casting sweepstakes at the Met.
It might as well be Einspring
I can’t imagine anything more anxiety-inducing than being put in at last-minute to sing a role in a high-profile production at the Met.
A whiter shade of grail
It seems that François Girard has been watching a little too much Star Wars lately. His new production of Lohengrin, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera Sunday afternoon, reduced Wagner’s opera to a knockoff space opera, full of hackneyed sci-fi tropes and B-rated futurist apologue.
Tragedy tonight
In May of last year tenor Piotr Beczala and soprano Anna Netrebko sang in Lohengrin for the first time under the baton of Christian Thielemann in his home house at the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Role Loris
Sleek, unstoppable, electrifying
For me, Fedora is the perfect opera
Poison of interest
Following new productions of Tosca in 2017, Adriana Lecouvreur in 2018, and the Anna Netrebko-led Puccini orgy of 2019, New Year’s Eve at the Met has come to signify that verismo, as this school tends to be known, is still kicking.
Role Maurizio
Natural woman
I do not envy Jennifer Rowley the task of stepping into Anna Netrebko’s shoes.
A talent to a Muse
Use bodily force and get your friends to one of the next five performances of the Met’s new production of Adriana Lecouvreur. It is everything!
Role Prince
I’m never gonna dance again
A starry cast is hampered by Christof Loy‘s dour production of Rusalka in Barcelona
The sprite in you
Today’s Rusalka video overview covers filmed performances of Dvorák’s opera since 2010.
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.
Destination moon
The legend of the mermaid is ancient, and recently scientists have theorized that these legends might have arisen when humans encountered marine mammals such as whales, seals, or sea lions.
Role Radamès
Ritorna vincitrice
Elina Garanca is back at the Met for the first time since 2020 — her Amneris is, in a word, sensational.
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.
Role Riccardo
Wien disposition
Following classic recordings documenting the work of Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan. Orfeo’s 150 Years Wiener Staatsoper box moves on to new releases that are seeing their first incarnation on an officially available disc.
Role Rodolfo
Cabal me by your name
It’s fortunate that the Met’s production of Luisa Miller featured the incomparable Piotr Beczala in the role of Rodolfo.
Role tenor
And in the ‘how’
Our selected Rosenkavalier video overview closes out the 20th-century selections, crosses the millennial mark, and includes the first of our performances to depart from the opera’s prescribed 18th-century setting.
Role Vaudémont
Door to door
The Met’s planned premiere of Iolanta/Bluebeard’s Castle was cancelled due to the Great Blizzard That Wasn’t.
Role Werther
Quand votre sœur Charlotte est là!
Trove Thursday previews Massenet’s Werther—due to return next month at the Met—with a 1984 Paris performance starring two marvelous protagonists, Tatiana Troyanos and Alain Vanzo.