Richard Sasanow - Page 15

In search of new audiences, the Met has followed Terence Blanchard’s FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES with the jazz musician/composer’s first opera, CHAMPION, the story of closeted boxer Emile Griffith’s rise and fall from grace. Honestly, never have I heard people whose usual venues are Madison Square Garden, Yankee Stadium and Monday Night Football on ESPN talk about how they “wanted to see the new opera at the Met.”

If we needed any further proof about how opera continues to evolve--as in “what’s an operatic experience?”--a concert at New York’s United Nations Headquarters featuring a live-and-in-person version of Paola Prestini‘s and Magos Herrera’s CON ALMA album celebrated International Women’s Day. The album--and event--were subtitled “An Operatic Tableau on Isolation.”

It took Richard Strauss only about 100 minutes apiece (with no breaks) to tell the lurid tale of SALOME and the tragedy of ELEKTRA. So why on earth did he and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal need almost five hours (including two intermissions) to tell the personal stories of an “aging” (she was really in her 30s) noblewoman, a couple of teenagers in love and a repulsive sexual predator?

It’s hard to compete with yourself — especially the ‘you’ that was at the height of your powers. I think that’s part of the problem with the place that Richard Strauss’s DAPHNE holds in the composer’s canon. Often referred to as a second- (or even third-) tier work, it has much to offer and enjoy, as the performance by the American Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein at Carnegie Hall the other night proved quite well.

Combine a supreme farceur with a stentorian voice that thrills and you get baritone Michael Volle’s portrayal of the title role in Verdi’s FALSTAFF, which breezed into town late last week for a limited run at the Met. While we’ve had dramatic singers in the role before, they were mostly from Italian repertoire; I don’t know when the last time a Wagnerian--a Wotan from the Ring, for instance--took on this role around here, but Volle did himself proud.

Soprano Angel Blue’s Violetta didn’t seem as tragic as we’re used to seeing in Verdi’s masterwork and maybe that's right. She’s lived life on her own terms and if she’s dying of tuberculosis, well, c’est la vie. (After all, the source of the piece is French: the Alexandre Dumas fils “La Dame aux Camellias”).

You’ve got to admit that the Met had a lot of guts to dedicate this season’s performances of Vincenzo Bellini’s NORMA (libretto by Felice Romani) to the memory of Maria Callas on the 100th anniversary of her birth. Hers was simply one of the most legendary portrayals of the role, by a fabled singer. Period. But Yoncheva--and her costars--pulled off the performance with aplomb and made the Met audience very happy indeed.

The Met’s new production of Richard Wagner’s LOHENGRIN showcases startlingly good singing from tenor Piotr Beczala in the title role, supported ably and nobly by soprano Tamara Wilson’s Elsa, bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin’s Telramund and bass Gunther Groissbock’s King Heinrich. And soprano Christine Goerke’s evil Ortrud nearly steals the show. With the Met’s orchestra and chorus in glorious form, led by music director Yannick Nezet-Seguin in the pit, the performance made you want to scream and yell for more.

Friday night, the Metropolitan Opera gave its second concert honoring “Ukraine and its brave citizens as they fight to defend their country and cultural heritage.” The country’s colors flew above the performance, which opened with a pretaped video message from First Lady, Olena Zelenska, along with the Ukraine national anthem. She remarked that the concert wasn’t really marking the one-year anniversary of the horrendous, illegal conflict (although, indeed, it did), but a time closer to peace for its citizenry.

Two operas in two days at Barcelona’s legendary Liceu opera house. Who could ask for anything more? Well, turns out you can, judging by the visiting ALCINA from Marc Minkowski’s Musiciens du Louvre and the Liceu’s new production of Verdi’s MACBETH by Jaume Planes. Part II: Verdi’s MACBETH

Two operas in two days at Barcelona’s legendary Liceu opera house. Who could ask for anything more? Well, turns out you can, judging by the visiting ALCINA from Marc Minkowski’s Musiciens du Louvre and the Liceu’s new production of Verdi’s MACBETH by Jaume Planes. Part One: Handel’s ALCINA

I’ve heard the opera a number of times at the Met over the years and this year’s run holds up with the most breathtaking of them. Despite the number of star performances among the magnificent ensemble currently being heard at the Met, the star of the show doesn’t have a single word to say or note to sing. It's the John Dexter production that does it.

Donizetti wrote more than six dozen operas in the course of around 30 years, so it must have been hard for him not to steal from himself. Still, it always strikes me during the overture to his great comedy L’ELISIR D’AMORE, whose run at the Met opened the other night, when I hear echoes of the oh-so-dramatic LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR, which would come just a few years later. Yet, the similar music somehow works in both operas.

A powerful double bill by Irish composer Emma O’Halloran, to libretti by her playwright uncle, Mark O’Halloran, deals with disappointment, connection and heartbreak--and what makes people tick. You know, 'the usual.'

There’s more contemporary opera in New York these days than there used to be and I’ll drink to that. But there’s nothing else that does it with the panache of the PROTOTYPE Festival, the brainchild of Beth Morrison Projects and HERE.

Musicologist Joseph Kerman is probably most widely remembered for calling Puccini’s TOSCA “a shabby little shocker.” I wonder whether he’d have something similar to say about Giordano’s FEDORA, which brought the Met audience to its feet on New Year’s Eve?

Last week, when her hours were her own--and not at the Met as Virginia Woolf in THE HOURS by Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce--mezzo Joyce DiDonato (JDD) did what any hard-working opera star would choose to do: She spent three days with five young opera singers at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Room, showing them what’s she’s learned about becoming the best professional they can be and helping them move toward the careers they dream about.

This week’s concert of Vivaldi and Handel at the Chamber Music Society (CMS)--with countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, oboist James Austin Smith and harpist Bridget Kibbey--whipped the audience into a frenzy of delight with a combination of arias, sonatas and concertos at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.

The Met gave birth to a fascinating new opera on Tuesday and it wasn’t a moment too soon to unleash composer Kevin Puts’s THE HOURS on an audience that sometimes seems doomed to die inundated by too many AIDAs, BOHEMEs and CARMENs. The world premiere production of THE HOURS by Puts and Greg Pierce was directed by Phelim McDermott. The cast was a starry one, led by soprano Renee Fleming, soprano Kelli O’Hara and mezzo Joyce DiDonato.

The Oratorio Society of New York (OSNY), under Kent Tritle, gave its second stirring world premiere by Paul Moravec and Mark Campbell with Tuesday’s outstanding performance of A NATION OF OTHERS.