The highlight of the Bayerische Staatsoper’s 2014-2015 season is a new production of Manon Lescaut featuring Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufmann, directed by Claus Guth.
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I am grateful to Sony for this new release
of the Metropolitan Opera’s latest production of Parsifal and I hope I’m not the only one who discovers what a rich experience this opera can be because of it.
The last place you’d expect to find opera at all, let alone good, exciting opera, is in still-scrappy Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Cher public, I give a photograph of Jonas Kaufmann in a hoodie with a teeny birdie on his shoulder.
The experience of watching Wagner’s final opera Parsifal is frequently elevated to a spiritual occurrence, and productions have historically emphasized the religious dimension of the opera’s core themes of redemption and the dangers of temptation.
Just a reminder, cher public, that the live webcast of La forza del destino from the Bayerische Staatsoper is at noon on Saturday, with concurrent chat at La Casa della Cieca.
La Cieca is going to go out on a not very long limb here and say that Dick Johnson in La fanciulla del West is a great role for Jonas Kaufmann and may well turn out to be one of his three or four greatest.
La Cieca has been wining, dining and otherwise wooing her Met connection (pictured above) and he (or is it she?) has come across with some tidbits about upcoming seasons at Casa Gelb.
In a starling last-minute change of programming, the Salzburg Festival has canceled all further performances of the critically-reviled Peter Stein production of Don Carlos. Weltstars Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann will instead perform My Fair Lady (pictured).
We waited eagerly to hear the Munich-born Jonas Kaufmann make his role debut as Manrico at the Bavarian State Opera as well the German-Greek soprano Anja Harteros take on Leonora’s bravura difficult arias.
Before we Yanks all go our merry ways for the July 4 holiday, here’s a quick reminder of this summer’s must-see.
Here’s Jonas Kaufmann last night in Munich, singing Manrico’s scena from Trovatore
One startling upset catches the eye among the many winners (if that is the word) of the 2013 Parterre Box Awards.
La Cieca thought it would be amusing to do a bit of speculation about what’s to come as we approach the middle of the decade.
If Jonas Kaufmann isn’t quite a household name yet, it’s only a matter of time.
As with all good myths, certainly all the myths at the heart of Wagner’s operas, the juggling of symbols and archetypes and themes in Parsifal opens the piece to a great variety of interpretations.
Like the hero of Parsifal, who finds the Holy Grail after a lifetime of frustrated wandering, the Met’s audience was finally rewarded for its patience.
Wagner is becoming an important calling card for Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre.
A new CD
features the ten most gorgeous minutes recorded by a tenor in Wagner since World War II.
One quick way to warm up: Watching tenor heartthrob Roberto Alagna.
Of particular visual interest in last weekend’s Lohengrin (though not perhaps so tantalizing as Jonas Kaufmann‘s aristocratic bare feet, pictured above) is the very obvious change in the staging that was made between the antegenerale (in which Anja Harteros sang Elsa) and the telecast opening night.
This new DVD
release from EMI of the Royal Opera’s latest production of Puccini’s Tosca will no doubt be snatched up by hordes of grateful fans around the globe.
La Cieca predicts you won’t be seeing any puritans at the Met next season, except of course for the ones who slouch around during intermission hissing, “You call that a trill?”
La Cieca has been sniffing around her generally reliable (and fragrant) sources, and she thinks she has pieced together a list of the dozen operas to be featured in the 2013-2014 season of “The Met: Live in HD.”
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