Almost 40 years ago, on short notice, the great tenor Jon Vickers (who died this summer at 90) caused a scandal when he pulled out of the premiere of the Met's still-current production of Wagner's 'Tannhauser' because he considered the opera anti-Christian. Well, nothing that exciting happened when tenor Johan Botha took the stage in the title role of the opera last week--merely some wonderful singing.
During the season two premiere of WGN America's critically acclaimed series 'Manhattan' lasst night, the network gave viewers a first-look at their upcoming drama, OUTSIDERS (premiering early 2016) with the release of a dramatic first trailer.
Faced with the demands of rehearsing and performing two large-scale operas simultaneously this fall, Met Music Director James Levine has decided to lighten his workload by removing the new production of Berg's Lulu from his schedule so that he may focus his energies completely on Wagner's epic drama Tannhäuser.
The Capitol Center for the Arts is pleased to announce that it will present 11 productions in next season's Met: Live in HD series, beginning with Verdi's Il Trovatore on Saturday, October 3, at 12:55pm. Single tickets for this series are on sale now for $26 Adults; $22 Seniors/Met/CCA Members; and $15 Students. Season subscriptions are also available at $234 Adults; $198 Seniors/Met/CCA Members; and $135 students.
It has been a very good year in New York for the Mozart of Swedish baritone Peter Mattei. He helped open the season with the Met's new production of LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, receiving a splendid reception for his performance as Count Almaviva, which brought new insights to a role that frequently gets lost in the shuffle of the large ensemble. Then came his DON GIOVANNI, which finishes up its run on Friday March 6, aptly called “commanding” by The New York Times.
According to Deadline, Gillian Alexy (ROYAL PAINS, THE AMERICANS) has signed on for the female lead in WGN America's upcoming series OUTSIDERS, created by playwright Peter Mattei.
I consider Mozart's DON GIOVANNI at the top of my list of favorite operas--the music starts to go through my head without much encouragement and gets stuck there. Yet, it's also one of the most problematic in performance, calling for a large group of A-list singers to do justice to the ripe and sometimes rollicking score--and frequently falling short. Luckily for current audiences at the Met, the cast is headed by Swedish baritone Peter Mattei, who already triumphed in Mozart at the Met this season in the new NOZZE DI FIGARO and there are enough other first-rate principals to make it work.
Alan Gilbert, music director of the New York Philharmonic, conducts Mozart's Don Giovanni with an internationally renowned cast led by Swedish baritone Peter Mattei, who is widely recognized as one of the world's foremost interpreters of the title role. South African soprano Elza van den Heever returns to the Met for the first time since her acclaimed debut two seasons ago as Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda. In Don Giovanni, she takes on the demanding role of Donna Anna, who seeks to exact revenge on the infamous rake who has killed her father. British sopranoEmma Bell returns as the lovelorn Donna Elvira and young American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey adds a new role to her Met repertory as the ingenue Zerlina. Russian tenor Dmitry Korchak makes his Met debut as Anna's patient fiance, Don Ottavio, and Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni returns as Don Giovanni's comic sidekick, Leporello, a role that won him plaudits at the 2011 premiere of this production by Michael Grandage. Czech bass-baritone Adam Plachetka makes his Met debut as Masetto, and veteran James Morris sings the role of the Commendatore, following his triumph as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg earlier this season. Sets and costume designs are by Christopher Oram, lighting by Paule Constable, and choreography by Ben Wright. At the final performance on March 6, Jennifer Check will sing Donna Elvira, and Ievgen Orlov will sing the Commendatore.
Following the final performances in his celebrated Nielsen Project and his triumphant Verdi Requiem with the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert returns to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in seven years to conduct ten performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni, from tonight, February 4 to March 6, leading Mozart's retelling of the Don Juan legend in Michael Grandage's production.
Following the final performances in his celebrated Nielsen Project and his triumphant Verdi Requiem with the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert returns to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in seven years to conduct ten performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni, from February 4 to March 6, leading Mozart's retelling of the Don Juan legend in Michael Grandage's production.
Following the final performances in his celebrated Nielsen Project and his triumphant Verdi Requiem with the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert returns to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in seven years to conduct ten performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni, from February 4 to March 6, leading Mozart's retelling of the Don Juan legend in Michael Grandage's production.
?Mozart's elegant masterpiece of marital discord, Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and staged by Richard Eyre, is the season premiere of Great Performances at the Met tonight, January 16 at 9 p.m. on PBS.
NEW YORK, Dec. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ Mozart's elegant masterpiece of marital discord, Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and staged by Richard Eyre, is the season premiere of Great Performances at the Met Friday, January 16 at 9 p.m. on PBS.
OPERA NEWS Editor in Chief F. Paul Driscoll today announced the recipients of the 10th Annual Opera News Awards. This year's honorees—Piotr Beczala, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Sondra Radvanosky, Samuel Ramey and Teresa Stratas—will be feted at a black tie gala celebration on Sunday, April 19, 2015 at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Previous Opera News Award Winners Martina Arroyo,Gerald Finley and Susan Graham are among the presenters.
Bartlett Sher's production of Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA is one of the best of the Gelb years at the Met, with its sliding-doors set by Michael Yeargan and luscious costumes by Catherine Zuber. It was great when it opened with an all-star cast--headed Diana Damrau, Juan Diego Florez and Peter Mattei--and remains sturdy even when some of the casting is a little wobbly.
Hosted by soprano Deborah Voigt, from the Grand Staircase of the Met, the special covers a wide range of operatic ground, from heartbreak to hilarity, delivered by such artists as Natalie Dessay, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Juan Diego Flórez, Jonas Kaufmann, and Anna Netrebko, along with Voigt herself. These extraordinary moments, selected from more than 75 productions, were initially seen as part of the Met's global Live in HD movie-theater transmissions, and later shared with PBS audiences as presentations ofGreat Performances at the Met.
Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro will thrill Live in HD from the Met at The Ridgefield Playhouse today, October 18.
Norwegian mezzo-soprano Ingeborg Gillebo will make her Met debut singing the role of Cherubino in this evening's performance of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, replacing Isabel Leonard, who is ill.
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.
More than most stagings of Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, the new Richard Eyre production that opened the season at the Met made it hard to remember that the miserable duo who head the household were the happy couple of Rossini's IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA.
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