“Mr. Luisi won praise replacing Mr. Levine time after time, particularly in a costly version of Wagner’s Ring cycle—though, perhaps in a sign of the situation’s delicacy, the two conductors have never met in person.”
La Cieca thinks she knows who the murderer is.
It’s up to you, cher public, to try to decide for yourself what, if anything, this bizarre story in the New York Times means.
Friday’s season premiere at the Met of Donizetti’s opera about the doomed Scottish queen proved surprisingly satisfying and a genuine success for Sondra Radvanovsky.
From the Met: “Jonas Kaufmann has canceled his performances in this season’s new production of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut due to illness.”
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Maria Agresta‘s delicately-acted, sumptuously-sung seamstress transformed what might have been just an average Wednesday night revival into something finer.
Returning after 99 years for the Met’s annual New Year’s Eve gala, Bizet’s youthful exercise in Orientalia Les Pêcheurs de Perles proved a real crowd-pleaser.
“Dmitri Hvorostovsky has withdrawn from his upcoming performances of Verdi’s Il Trovatore—February 3, 6, 9, and 13 matinee—due to his ongoing treatment for a brain tumor. Juan Jesús Rodríguez will sing di Luna in these performances, making his Met debut.” So says the Met press office.
The Met’s pilot program of octogenarian outreach looks to be a smashing success.
“By the end of next year… the axis of opera in New York may just possibly have shifted from Lincoln Center to a loft in Gowanus.”
The sound of Joyce DiDonato, Lawrence Brownlee and John Osborn nailing La Donna del Lago’s thrilling second-act trio alone made worthwhile enduring one of the ugliest, most bone-headed productions seen at the Metropolitan Opera in many a year.
Even when he’s not conducting the production, or, for that matter, even after the production is closed, Maestro Levine remains a presence on the Met’s website.
One can only pray that “three strikes, you’re out” applies at the Met. If so, we can rest easy that Jeremy Sams won’t be getting any new assignments.
The festivities begin at 1:00 PM today with La bohème.
Mireille Asselin will sing the role of Adele in this evening’s season premiere performance of Johann Strauss, Jr.’s Die Fledermaus.”
Unlike my friend Greg Freed, who entertainingly wrote of his ambivalence about seeing Il trovatore in a movie theater this season, I have embraced the Met Live in HD transmissions as a part of the modern operagoing experience.
La Cieca hears that Peter Gelb and representatives of the Met’s various unions (not pictured) have begun preliminary plans for adding regular Sunday performances to the company’s schedule.
Roberto De Biasio and Gwyn Hughes Jones will sing Pinkerton in the initial performances of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Met this spring.
On Thursday evening Jennifer Wilson “finally” made a belated, disappointing Met debut as Turandot.
Continuing coverage of the Met’s new Alban Berg spectacular.
Lilith. Pandora. Circe. Salome. “La Belle Dame sans Merci.” Carmen. Brigid O’Shaughnessy: the eternal “femme fatale” still fascinates us.
Angela Gheorghiu‘ s idiosyncratically alluring, sometimes maddening, always fascinating Floria Tosca inevitably became the evening’s unmissable raison d’être.
Don’t tell Sonya Yoncheva, but it looks like Angela Gheorghiu has stolen her costume from Otello Act 3.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
