The scene: a vocal audition, sometime in the past. A young, blond soprano approaches the podium. Her aria: “Un bel di.” She sings. Before she gets to the second “Chi sara” she’s rudely interrupted.
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Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.
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.
As if you needed an even more exciting reason to drop in for La Casa della Cieca this afternoon: last night’s Butterfly Kristine Opolais is jumping into the role of Mimi, subbing for an ill Anita Hartig for the broadcast and the HD.
The sad fact, though, is that the Met is not doing a great job or, in most cases, even a competent job at this core task.
Alan Gordon has mass emailed AGAM again, and La Cieca’s got a copy of the missive.
La bohème is such a popular romantic opera that hardly anyone ever notices that Mimì and Rodolfo undergo what in modern terms would be called speed dating.
Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.
“Union members have occupied Paris’ Opera Garnier in a protest over proposed changes to labor rules for theater workers.”
“Opera can, in fact, be something beautiful and moving even when all a performance has going for it is some really excellent singing.”
The Met’s financial challenges are not meteorological, demographic, or cyclical; they are structural.
In a slight detour from the usual all-opera-all-the-time format of parterre box, the queer opera zine, issue #44 centers on Ben Letzler‘s superb appreciation of film and cabaret diva Zarah Leander.
“The finale of Sweeney Todd left the stage of Avery Fisher Hall littered with corpses, but the evening, for all its flaws, felt vibrantly alive.”
Just in from the Met: “Daniel Sutin will sing the title role in tonight’s performance of Berg’s Wozzeck, replacing Thomas Hampson, who is recovering from bronchitis.”
This afternoon at the Met, Grigolo sold his performance like the rent was due tomorrow and he was down to his last penny.
Recently, opera showed up at both Mets, the Metropolitan Opera and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
It’s been a bitterly cold winter in NY. When it’s bitterly cold, the air is dry.
parterre box has obtained a memo sent to artists’ managers in which AGMA Executive Director Alan Gordon warns singers contracted to sing at the Met in the 2014-2105 season that due to unpromising developments in upcoming labor negotiations the company may be dark for part or all of the season.
“Matthias Goerne is stepping into the title role in tonight’s opening night performance of Berg’s Wozzeck, replacing Thomas Hampson, who has withdrawn due to illness.”
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.
“Kim Kardashian Reportedly Ditches Date at Vienna Opera Ball After Disturbing Blackface Incident”
The last place you’d expect to find opera at all, let alone good, exciting opera, is in still-scrappy Bushwick, Brooklyn.
“The Metropolitan Opera Guild invites you to join Deborah Voigt on a musical journey to the islands and shores of Croatia and Montenegro.”
Here you are, cher public, details of the Met’s (to be perfectly frank) not particularly spectacular mid-decade season.
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