The Metropolitan Opera announced that Robert Rattray has been appointed the company's new Assistant General Manager, Artistic. He will begin his tenure this August, when rehearsals begin for the 2014-15 season. Rattray replaces Sarah Billinghurst, who will retire at the end of the current season after 20 years at the Met.
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 Mariottiand directed by Paul Curran, opening February 16, 2015; and Tchaikovsky's one-act operaIolanta, conducted by Valery Gergiev and directed by Mariusz Treli?ski. Iolanta will be presented in a double bill with a new staging of Bartók's one-act Duke Bluebeard's Castle,also conducted by Gergiev and directed by Treli?ski.
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.
Borodin's operatic masterpiece Prince Igor will return to the Met tonight, February 6 for the first time since 1917, in a new production by acclaimed director Dmitri Tcherniakov in his Met debut.
William Kentridge's dazzlingly innovative production of Shostakovich's shocking, unconventional opera about a beleaguered Russian official and his runaway nose airs on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, February 23 at 12 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the program at 12:30 p.m.)
The New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Opera's general manger Peter Gelb will now take over labor negotiations with the organization's 16 unions. Four years ago, Gelb had assigned the task to Joseph Volpe in an unanticipated move. Contracts are up at the end of July, and now Gelb will lead the process of reaching new agreements.
Film Society of Lincoln Cente announces upcoming events including ALEXANDER NEVSKY: Russian Heroes in Opera and Film screening and discussion and the 2014 New York Jewish Film Festival
Borodin's operatic masterpiece Prince Igor will return to the Met on February 6 for the first time since 1917, in a new production by acclaimed director Dmitri Tcherniakov in his Met debut. Ildar Abdrazakov stars as the heroic title character, a 12th-century ruler who defended Russia against invading Polovtsian forces.
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.
Maybe next time around, the Metropolitan Opera's General Manager Peter Gelb will hire film director Quentin Tarantino to do a production of Puccini's TOSCA. With its sordid story, self-involved diva and torture-happy, sex-crazed police chief--based on a Sarah Bernhardt vehicle by Victorien Sardou--this is a story that the director of “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill” could sink his teeth into.
Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys has its North American premiere at the Met tiday, October 21, in a production conducted by David Robertson and directed by Bartlett Sher. The two-act opera, which features a libretto by award-winning playwright Craig Lucas, is loosely based on true events and follows a lonely detective whose investigation of a seemingly simple crime draws her into a complex web of online intrigue. Alice Coote sings the role of Detective Inspector Anne Strawson and Paul Appleby sings Brian, the 16-year-old boy at the center of her investigations. Sher's staging, a co-production with English National Opera, premiered in London in 2011.
Nico Muhly's opera Two Boys will have its North American premiere at the Met October 21, in a production conducted by David Robertson and directed by Bartlett Sher.
The Metropolitan Opera has announced the addition of three new composers to its Met/LCT New Works Program. Matthew Aucoin, David T. Little, and Joshua Schmidt, three critically heralded young composers, have signed on to develop new operas through the program, which allows gifted composers and librettists to workshop new material for the opera and music theater stages, using the resources of the Met and Lincoln Center Theater. Nico Muhly's Two Boys, workshopped through the program, will have its North American premiere at the Met on October 21.
The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live transmissions to movie theaters, will feature 10 productions in the 2013-14 season, offering a significant portion of the Met season to opera lovers around the world.
The NY Times reports that Metropolitan Opera's Russian-themed opening night gala on Monday evening began with a protester criticizing the recent antigay laws signed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. He shouted, “Putin, end your war on Russian gays!” “Anna, your silence is killing Russian gays! Valery, your silence is killing Russian gays!”
Peter Gelb, general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, discusses the future of opera. In an article posted today in Bloomberg, he says, 'Today the notion that high art can also be entertainment is anathema to those who think that genius is not suited to accessibility and that opera presentations should be a Spartan exercise. This concept has potentially threatened opera's very existence, resulting in the staging of some operas over the last several decades that misguidedly deconstruct familiar plots, thereby depriving audiences -- particularly new ones -- of the satisfaction of being able to follow the original storylines.'
The Met: Live in HD, the Metropolitan Opera's award-winning series of live transmissions to movie theaters, will reach its widest-ever global audience in its eighth season, which begins on October 5 with a new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Met Music Director James Levine makes his highly-anticipated return to the screen with Verdi's Falstaff on December 14 and the first Live in HD performance of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte on April 26. The Live in HD series, the world's largest provider of alternative content, reaches more than 1,900 theaters in 64 countries, and offers subtitles in nine languages, including Swedish for the first time this season. To accommodate audience demand in Europe, more than 85 cinemas have been added to the HD network in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Riccardo Zandonai's masterpiece Francesca da Rimini, staged by the Met for the first time in more than a quarter of a century, airs on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, August 18 at 12 noon on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.) Check out the photos below!
Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann sings the title role in a new production of Wagner's final masterpiece Parsifal, staged by acclaimed French Canadian director François Girard in his Met debut, on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, July 28 at 12 noon on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera in two parts: Friday, August 16 at 9 p.m. and Friday, August 23 at 9 p.m.)
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