During my first taste of the show last fall, I was certainly wowed by its technical wizardry and its talented cast, but was sadly underwhelmed by how much of the original film's stirring, emotional magic and innocent fantasy had been stripped away in favor of easy, high-camp laughs, dazzling onstage visual effects, and head-scratching staging choices. I think perhaps a small part of me had hoped that a few alterations have been enacted into the tour now that it has arrived an hour south in Costa Mesa months since that L.A. premiere. Alas, no.... the very same show (except for a cast change or two) is now playing at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Orange County through February 23.
On New Year's Eve, Tony Award-winning director Susan Stroman will make her Metropolitan Opera debut with a new production of Lehar's The Merry Widow, conducted by Andrew Davis.
The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live transmissions to more than 2,000 movie theaters in 65 countries around the world, will feature ten operas in the 2014-15 season, including all six new productions in the Met season. All ten performances, transmitted live from the Met stage, will feature the world's finest singers, conductors, and theatrical artists.
The Metropolitan Opera's 2014-15 season will feature 26 operas, three of them company premieres, in six new productions and 18 revivals showcasing the talents of the world's leading singers, conductors, and theater artists. The three operas that will have their first-ever Met performances, each staged by a director making his Met debut, are John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, conducted by David Robertson and directed by Tom Morris, opening October 20; Rossini's La Donna del Lago, conducted by Michele Mariotti and directed by Paul Curran, opening February 16, 2015; and Tchaikovsky's one-act opera Iolanta, conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Treli?ski. Iolanta will be presented in a double bill with a new staging of Bartok's one-act Duke Bluebeard's Castle, also conducted by Gergiev and directed by Treli?ski.
Segerstrom Center for the Arts presents the Orange County engagement of the first North American tour of the new stage adaptation of THE WIZARD OF OZ. The show will play at Segerstrom Hall from today, February 11 - 23, 2014.
The Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island, a hit when it premiered at the Met in 2011, returns for its first revival on February 26. New cast members Susan Graham (Sycorax) and Andriana Chuchman (Miranda) join many of the principal singers who appeared in the work's world premiere: David Daniels as Prospero, Plácido Domingo as Neptune, Danielle de Niese as Ariel, Anthony Roth Costanzo as Ferdinand, and Luca Pisaroni as Caliban. The four mismatched Athenian lovers will be sung by Elizabeth DeShong, who sang Hermia in the world premiere, joined by new cast members Janai Brugger (Helena), Andrew Stenson (Demetrius), and Nicholas Pallesen (Lysander) completing the quartet of Athenian lovers.
Nadler, a member of the Met's music staff, has conducted 49 performances with the company since his debut in 1989. Later this season, he will conduct the February 15 performance of Dvo?ák's Rusalka. He has led Met performances of Verdi's Rigoletto, Un Ballo in Maschera, Aida, Don Carlo, and La Traviata; Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia; Wagner's Tannhäuser; Giordano's Andrea Chénier; Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, Le Rossignol, and Oedipus Rex; Bizet's Carmen; Beethoven's Fidelio; Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin; Gounod's Roméo et Juliette; and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) has announced that the first North American tour of the new stage adaptation of The Wizard of Oz will play March 4 - 16 at Hobby Center's Sarofim Hall. Click your heels together and join Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion, Dorothy and her little dog Toto, as they journey through the magical land of Oz to meet the Wizard and obtain their hearts' desires. Watch out for the Wicked Witch of the West and her winged monkeys as you rediscover the real story of Oz in this fantastic musical treat for the whole family.
Segerstrom Center for the Arts has announced casting for the Orange County engagement of the first North American tour of the new stage adaptation of THE WIZARD OF OZ. The show will play at Segerstrom Hall from February 11 - 23, 2014.
Before seeing the Met's new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s DIE FLEDERMAUS, directed by Jeremy Sams, on Saturday night, I listened to the afternoon's live broadcast of Mozart's THE MAGIC FLUTE. Both were written in German and performed in English to make them more palatable to their target audiences (Broadway musical lovers and young opera-goers-in-training, respectively). But, while the Mozart had its guts cut away, to shave the running time to 90 minutes without an intermission, the FLEDERMAUS went on--and on and on--for four hours. Both had the same result--and it was not good.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's new production of The Wizard of Oz makes its anticipated South Florida premiere at Broward Center for the Performing Arts from tonight, January 7 - 19, 2014.
A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, opened at the Met on December 31,starring Broadway performers, Danny Burstein and Betsy Wolfe as the drunken jailer, Frosch, and Adele's sister, Ida, respectively.
A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met tonight, December 31, with two Broadway stars appearing. Check out the excerpt from Act II of Johann Strauss's 'Die Fledermaus' with Jane Archibald (Adele), Anthony Roth Costanzo (Orlofsky), Christopher Maltman (Eisenstein).
A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met tonight, December 31, with two Broadway stars appearing. Check out the excerpt from the Act I trio of Johann Strauss's 'Die Fledermaus.'
Andrew Lloyd Webber's new production of The Wizard of Oz makes its anticipated South Florida premiere at Broward Center for the Performing Arts from January 7 - 19, 2014. Tickets are now on sale at the Broward Center box office, on-line at www.browardcenter.org; by phone 954- 462-0222. Groups of 10+ are invited to call 954-626-7814 or 954-462-0222.
A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met tonight, December 31, with two Broadway stars appearing. Check out a first look below!
A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met tonight, December 31, with two Broadway stars appearing.
Check out the trailer for the new English-language production of Johann Strauss's 'Die Fledermaus,' directed by Jeremy Sams and featuring new dialogue by Douglas Carter Beane. The production opens New Year's Eve.
A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met on December 31, with two Broadway stars appearing. Check out a preview video below!
A new production of Johann Strauss Jr.'s New Year's Eve classic, the comedic operetta Die Fledermaus, will open at the Met on December 31. Jeremy Sams, writer and creator of the Met's Baroque pasticheThe Enchanted Island, makes his company debut as director with the new staging, which is set in Vienna at the turn of the 20thcentury. Sams also contributes new lyrics for Strauss's work, which will be performed entirely in English; Tony Award-nominated playwright Douglas Carter Beane makes his Met debut with new dialogue. Adam Fischer conducts a cast of rising opera stars and Broadway performers. The cast is led by Susanna Phillips and Christopher Maltman as the unhappily married Rosalinde and Eisenstein; Jane Archibald as Rosalinde's feisty maid, Adele; Anthony Roth Costanzo as Prince Orlofsky; Michael Fabiano as Rosalinde's former lover, Alfred; Paulo Szot as the bumbling Dr. Falke; and Patrick Carfizzi as the prison superintendent, Frank. Broadway stars Danny Burstein and Betsy Wolfe make Met debuts as the drunken jailer, Frosch, and Adele's sister, Ida. Robert Jones is set and costume designer for the production, with lighting design by Jennifer Schriever and choreography by Stephen Mear in their Met debuts.
