Metropolitan Opera Guild Celebrates 75th Anniversary in 2011

It is a season of momentous anniversaries for the Metropolitan Opera Guild: the Guild began the season-long celebration of its 75th anniversary this fall; as publisher of Opera News, the Guild celebrates the magazine's own diamond anniversary in 2011; and the January issue of Opera News marks the 40th anniversary of James Levine's Metropolitan Opera debut (which was June 5, 1971, conducting Tosca).  The cover feature sees Scott Rose take on the difficult task of choosing 40 highlights from Levine's 40 storied years at the Met.

The Guild enjoyed its own starry tribute in December, when its annual luncheon saw the organization itself take center stage for its 75th anniversary.  The annual luncheon has been a highlight of the opera season for decades, as an unparalleled community gathering that brings top artists and passionate opera fans together to celebrate leaders in the art form.  December's luncheon at the Waldorf=Astoria's Grand Ballroom had spoken and sung tributes to the Guild by Susan Graham, Deborah Voigt, Marcello Giordani, Nathan Gunn, Brandon Jovanovich, Susanna Phillips, and the Met's General Manager, Peter Gelb.  Several of these cited the Guild's remarkable achievements in fund-raising (more than a quarter of a billion dollars for the Met Opera in its 75 years), education, audience development, and the publication of the prize-winning Opera News - founded in 1936 and now the world's largest circulation magazine devoted to opera.

Along with the tribute to maestro Levine, January's Opera News profiles American soprano Lise Lindstrom and her sometimes-bumpy road to becoming the world's leading Turandot, a role she has sung from the Met and La Scala to the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Opera Hong Kong.  The issue also includes a report on the arrival at the Met of Willy Decker's revolutionary Salzburg staging of La Traviata, as well as a tribute to the late mezzo-soprano Shirley Verrett.  Wall Street Journal critic Heidi Waleson polls a group of opera industry insiders on what they see as the 21st century's best new opera, while Hugh McDonald makes the case for operas in translation and Opera News editor-in-chief F. Paul Driscoll devotes his "Sound Bites" column to bass-baritone Keith Miller.

The January performance reviews in Opera News include the Met's new Boris Godunov starring René Pape, the New York City Opera production of Leonard Bernstein's A Quiet Place, and the Fura dels Baus production of Mahagonny in Madrid.  The magazine's critics offer up their favorite CDs and DVDs reviewed in 2010, while there are new reviews addressing archival DVDs of Levine leading Lulu and Ariadne auf Naxos at the Met, a CD of Joan Sutherland in Glyndebourne's 1960 I Puritani, and new recordings of Otello and Porgy and Bess.  Also reviewed is photographer Nancy Ellison's tribute to the Met's Otto Schenk Ring.

The Metropolitan Opera Guild sponsors many events open to the public, from lectures and interviews to backstage tours at the Met.  This 75th season has already seen a Met Mastersingers presentation with René Pape, Singers' Studio conversations with Anna Netrebko and Deborah Voigt, and interactive workshops for children revolving around The Magic Flute.  Already sold-out among this month's events is an evening of conversation on January 19 with soprano Sondra Radvanovsky.  One of her generation's most celebrated interpreters of the Italian repertoire, Radvanovsky stars on the Met stage in January in the title role of Tosca and returns in spring as Leonora in Il Trovatore.  She speaks with Opera News managing editor Oussama Zahr about the challenges and rewards of singing Verdi and verismo.  See below for more details about Guild public events.

The Metropolitan Opera Guild at a glance
For 75 years, the Metropolitan Opera Guild has provided substantial support to the Met, as well as greatly enhancing the public's appreciation of opera overall.  Since its founding by the pioneering philanthropist Eleanor Robson Belmont in 1935, the Guild has contributed more than $245 million to the Met.  The organization has one of the country's most innovative and far-reaching music education programs, which benefits more than 1,800 schools and communities.  In August 2010, the Guild received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's "Arts-in-Education" Model Development and Dissemination Program for its Comprehensive Opera-Based Arts Learning and Teaching (COBALT) project.

The Guild also publishes Opera News, the world's largest circulation magazine devoted to opera, and it produces an annual series of major public programs, including the Opera News Awards, Met Legends and Met Mastersingers series.  The sixth annual Opera News Awards will take place in New York City on April 17, 2011, at the Plaza Hotel, celebrating the achievements of five extraordinary artists who have made an invaluable contribution to the art form: tenor Jonas Kaufmann, conductor Riccardo Muti, soprano Patricia Racette, soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel.

Additional information about the history of the Metropolitan Opera Guild can be found at www.metoperafamily.org/guild/about/history.aspx.

 

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