Met Museum Kicks Off 2013-14 Chamber Opera Performances

CHAMBER OPERA AT THE MET IN 2013-14:

· Two World Premieres, One a Metropolitan Museum Commission

· Settings Including Egyptian, Arms & Armor, and Medieval Galleries

· Alarm Will Sound, Gotham Chamber Opera, NYPHIL BIENNIAL, Salzburg Marionette Theatre

· Composers Kate Soper & Nigel Maister, Lembit Beecher, Claudio Monteverdi, HK Gruber

Met Museum Presents offers a unique series of chamber operas this season, including an early Baroque set piece, two world premieres, and A Pig Tale presented in settings around the Museum. The two world-premiere works are the first operas ever to have their premieres at the Met Museum. One of them--I Was Here I Was I by Kate Soper and Nigel Maister, performed by Alarm Will Sound-is a commission of the Museum and inspired by one of its most iconic galleries, The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing. And the other-I Have No Stories To Tell You by Lembit Beecher, performed by Gotham Chamber Opera-is part of a unique double-bill presented in galleries of arms and armor and medieval art. The New York Philharmonic continues its collaboration with the Museum with the presentation of HK Gruber's Gloria-A Pig Tale, conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, that is part of its new NY PHIL BIENNIAL. And the Salzburg Marionette Theatre, a Met audience favorite, returns with two new productions-The Ring Cycle and Alice in Wonderland-in its 100th anniversary season.

Friday, December 13, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Saturday, December 14, 2013, at 6:30 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Salzburg Marionette Theatre

The Ring Cycle, Abridged

This two-hour version of the Ring of the Nibelung set in the present day, is the first production to music by Wagner in the Salzburg Marionette Theatre's history. This 2012 production, which features two live actors with the marionettes, is performed to the classic Decca recording of Sir Georg Solti leading the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera Chorus, and a cast including Hans Hotter, Birgit Nilsson, Kirsten Flagstad, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

"We didn't want to do anything to belittle Wagner," said director Brunner in a Deutsche Welle English feature report (see the YouTube video), "but I do think the Ring is an excellent piece to perform with marionettes. Giants appear in the piece, so do dwarves, mythical figures, dragons, and snakes. You can depict all of them much better with puppets than with real people." The Salzburg Marionette Theatre is taking the production on a world tour this season, culminating with three months in the U.S.

For the past 100 years, the Salzburg Marionette Theatre has been renowned for its compelling drama-and-music presentations utilizing the remarkably lifelike movements of its elaborately costumed, two-foot tall, string-manipulated puppets, and lavish sets. "Through the space of a performance," said the New York Times, "they manage virtually without interruption what is denied to performers of flesh and blood: the leap to the realm of pure idea, where thought and expression are one." The Salzburg Marionettes perform to recordings of 18th- and 19th-century operas made by the world's leading orchestras and singers. The company was founded by Anton Aicher; his granddaughter, Gretl Aicher, was the Theatre's recent artistic director until her death in March 2012. The company employs about 12 full-time puppeteers, all of whom have spent years developing their technique. The company has its own costume department, a carpentry department, and a puppet studio where the puppets are made. www.marionetten.at

These programs are made possible by the Brodsky Family Foundation.

Tickets: $45

Saturday, December 14, 2013, at 2:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

New, just added: Sunday, December 15, 2013, at noon in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Sunday, December 15, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Salzburg Marionette Theatre

Alice in Wonderland

This production of Lewis Carroll's timeless classic Alice in Wonderland features a newly recorded soundtrack voiced by actors in English, with 19th-century English folk songs performed on violin and piano.

These programs are made possible by the Brodsky Family Foundation.

Tickets: $60 for adults, $30 for children

Wednesday & Thursday, February 26 & 27, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. in the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Arms and Armor Court and the Medieval Sculpture Hall

Wednesday, February 26, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. HD Transmission in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Gotham Chamber Opera

Neal Goren, Conductor

Robin Guarino, Director

Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda by Claudio Monteverdi

I Have No Stories to Tell You by Lembit Beecher-World premiere

This double-bill program by New York's acclaimed Gotham Chamber Opera, conducted by Artistic Director Neal Goren, presents a 17th-century battle set piece and a brand new work, each presented in a Metropolitan Museum gallery. Gotham Chamber Opera composer-in-residence Lembit Beecher and librettist Hannah Moscovitch respond to Monteverdi's 1624 depiction of fierce battle set during the First Crusade, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, by focusing on the after-effects of war. Their 30-minute opera, I Have No Stories to Tell You, a commission by Gotham Chamber Opera for performance in the Medieval Sculpture Hall, depicts a photojournalist's return home after an extended assignment in the Middle East. She is haunted by her experiences and reluctant to discuss them with her husband, who no longer understands her. The glimpses of her life that we see over the course of a year depict her struggles and a relationship driven to the brink. Scored for a period instrument ensemble and inspired by interviews with soldiers and army psychologists, I Have No Stories to Tell You explores the effects of war on one's identity and sense of home. www.gothamchamberopera.org

Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda will be presented in the Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Arms and Armor Court. The audience will then proceed to the adjacent Medieval Sculpture Hall for the performance of I Have No Stories to Tell You. Featured singers will be mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton and baritone Craig Verm. Both productions are directed by Robin Guarino.

Instruments from the Metropolitan Museum's Musical Instruments collection will be used in the performance.

A live HD transmission of the first performance will take place in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.

These programs are made possible in part by Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich.

Tickets for performances: $175

Tickets for HD simulcast: $15

Thursday, May 29, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Friday, May 30, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

Sunday, June 1, 2014, at 2:00 p.m. in The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium

NY PHIL BIENNIAL Event

Alan Gilbert, Conductor

Doug Fitch, Designer/Director

Giants Are Small, Production

In collaboration with The Juilliard School

Gloria - A Pig Tale by HK Gruber

The popular children's book by Rudolf Herfurtner about the lovely lady pig Gloria with curly golden hair, and the envious sty-mates who consider her a deviant, combines anthropomorphic folk imagery with darker overtones about race and diet. Viennese composer HK Gruber, known for a fanciful, eclectic style in such works as Frankenstein!!, adapted the story as a chamber opera, Gloria - A Pig Tale, for five singers and 10 instrumentalists that premiered in 1994. About a 2004 production, the Hamburger Morgenpost said, "The pigsty is a parable about life, society and all of us, completely avoiding moralising undertones: a wonderful pig's breakfast.... Gruber's music sways between rustic folklore and jazz in dashing distortion."

New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert conducts this new production and continues a Philharmonic collaboration with designer/director Doug Fitch and Giants Are Small, which has included productions of Le Grand Macabre (2010), The Cunning Little Vixen (2011), and A Dancer's Dream: Two Works by Stravinsky (June 2013).

"Gruber's whimsical, child-like veneer covers up a deep and complex set of truths," commented Alan Gilbert about the work. "This production is a fantastic opportunity to work with this wonderful composer, forces from the Juilliard School, and of course with the brilliant Doug Fitch and Giants Are Small."

This event is part of the inaugural NY PHIL BIENNIAL, a two-week immersive exhibition showcasing the best of today's new music through orchestral events, guest ensembles, and concerts with small ensembles with partners across New York City. www.nyphil.org

This program is made possible in part by The C.F. Roe Slade Foundation.

Tickets: $60

Friday, June 20, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. in the Lila Acheson Wallace Galleries of Egyptian Art and at The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing

Alarm Will Sound

Alan Pierson, Conductor

I Was Here I Was I by Kate Soper and Nigel Maister-World Premiere, Metropolitan Museum Commission

Alarm Will Sound, the 20-member New York-based group led by Music Director Alan Pierson, is known for bringing vitality, intelligence, and a sense of adventure to a broad variety of musical and theatrical expression. The acclaimed ensemble performs, works with curators and educators, and conducts talks and workshops in a season-long artist residency at the Met.

Inspired by the architecture and holdings of the Met's Lila Acheson Wallace Galleries of Egyptian Art as well as the writings of Victorian adventurer and Egyptologist Amelia Edwards, I Was Here I Was I, a Metropolitan Museum commission for the Alarm Will Sound residency, takes the audience on a journey through space and time, exploring The Temple of Dendur as both a destination and an object of historical and aesthetic appropriation. A 19th-century woman sails down the Nile discovering beauty and brutality in equal measures. In ancient Nubia, two brothers drown in the Nile, setting in motion a chain of events that will see their temple saved from a similar fate millennia later and brought to the Metropolitan Museum. A contemporary tourist confronts The Temple of Dendur. Thus, generations seek to control memory and secure their place in history. The work uses spoken text, song, and both live and recorded music, and the audience travels through the Met's Egyptian galleries to experience the performance.

The work uses spoken text, song, and both live and recorded music, and the audience travels through the Met's Egyptian galleries to experience the performance. Alarm Will Sound Music Director Alan Pierson conducts.

"Alarm Will Sound brings to their performances a deep-rooted sense of discovery that stems from their creativity as composers and their appetites for all kinds of art," said Limor Tomer, the Met's General Manager of Concerts & Lectures. "Their nimbleness and their work in a variety of media make them wonderful collaborators with the Met."

Alarm Will Sound has established a reputation for performing demanding music with energetic skill. ASCAP recognized their contributions to new music with a 2006 Concert Music Award for "the virtuosity, passion and commitment with which they perform and champion the repertory for the 21st century." Their performances have been described as "equal parts exuberance, nonchalance, and virtuosity" by the Financial Times and as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the San Francisco Chronicle. The New York Times says Alarm Will Sound is "the future of classical music" and "the very model of a modern music chamber band." www.alarmwillsound.com

New Pre-Concert Cocktails: A menu of limited-edition specialty cocktails celebrating Alarm Will Sound will be available for purchase before performances in either The Petrie Court Café or The Great Hall Balcony Bar. Both inspired by and named in honor of the ensemble's first performance at the Met, "The Permanent Collection" menu will feature an assortment of classic cocktails with a modern twist. This menu will be offered throughout the year, exclusively on evenings when Alarm Will Sound performs.

Alarm Will Sound is made possible in part by the Chester Dale Fund.

Tickets: $60

Leadership support for Met Museum Presents provided by: Adrienne Arsht, Brodsky Family Foundation, Isabel C. Iverson and Walter T. Iverson, Mrs. Joseph H. King Fund, Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Fund, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Mrs. Donald Oenslager Fund, Grace Jarcho Ross and Daniel G. Ross Concert Fund, The Giorgio S. Sacerdote Fund, Estate of Kathryn Walter Stein, Xerox Foundation, and Dirk and Natasha Ziff.

Additional major supporters: Chester Dale Fund, Martha Fleischman, Martha Fling, Friends of Concerts & Lectures, The Arthur Gillender Fund, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Kaplen Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Samuel White Patterson Lecture Fund, The C.F. Roe Slade Foundation, Ann G. Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Ulrich, Clara Lloyd-Smith Weber Fund, and Anonymous (2).

• For tickets, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets or call 212-570-3949.
• Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open Monday-Saturday 11-3:30.
• Tickets include admission to the Museum on day of performance.
• 30 & Under Rush: $15 tickets for ticket buyers 30 years and younger, with proof of age, the day of the event on select performances (subject to availability). For more information, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets call 212-570-3949, or visit the box office.
• Bring the Kids!: $1 tickets for children (ages 7-16) for select performances when accompanied by an adult with a full-price ticket (subject to availability). For more information, visit www.metmuseum.org/tickets call 212-570-3949, or visit the box office.