Richard Sasanow - Page 30

On Broadway, when a revival loses two out of three of its stars, the production might very well be put off until another season or, at worst, the producers might pack it in. In the opera world, companies don't have that luxury, particularly at a showplace like the Metropolitan Opera. Thus, we received Richard Strauss's DER ROSENKAVALIER, which made its season debut at the Met on Friday night, offering replacements in the two key roles of Sophie and Octavian, with variable results.

Live from New York, it's soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci! Lucky for us. Antonacci is considered one of those distinctive, uncategorizable singers who show up every once in a while to excite and inspire us, but never quite find the broader acceptance they deserve. Thus, she doesn't sing at the Met and we have to hold on until performances like “Era la Notte,” which was on display twice last week at Lincoln Center's White Light Festival. To say she captivated the audience would be an understatement.

There are more famous operas than Richard Strauss's DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN (The Woman without a Shadow), but you won't find one that is more exciting when all the pieces--and there are lots of them--come together. The Met's production is one of those evenings in the opera house--not perfect but so thrilling that you forget that it isn't.

Handel wrote over 1000 da capo arias—a musical mainstay of Italian baroque operas--during his career, but none more thrilling than “Let the Bright Seraphim.” The showpiece for soprano and piccolo trumpet, which comes at the very end of the oratorio SAMSON, was a joyous crowd-pleaser at the New York Philharmonic last Friday, featuring soprano Miah Persson.Conducted by Bernard Labadie, the program also featured a new completion of Mozart's Requiem. featuring Miah Persson and Stephanie Blythe

It's easy to see why the Collegiate Chorale chose Arrigo Boito's MEFISTOFELE for its season opener at Carnegie Hall last Wednesday. The opera, which is the only one completed by the librettist of Verdi's OTELLO and FALSTAFF, can't be mistaken for any other. Besides providing a rich score and marvelous roles for three soloists--the title character (a bass-baritone), a dramatic soprano and tenor--the choral writing is gorgeous.

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.

After a triumph in Mozart's COSI FAN TUTTE at the Met, James Levine made it two in a row, as he returned with the MET Orchestra and soloist Joyce DiDonato to Carnegie Hall early this week for a concert of far-reaching styles and depth.

The Metropolitan Opera may have chosen soprano Anna Netrebko to add star-power to its new season's opening production of Tchaikovsky's EUGENE ONEGIN, but she was upstaged, figuratively speaking at least, by the thrilling performance of Polish tenor Piotr Beczala, as the poet Lenski.

It's not often that singers make their debuts on Broadway and then make a splash at the opera, but that's what happened when Paulo Szot--a Tony winner for “South Pacific”--opened in the Met's production of the Shostakovich opera THE NOSE in 2010. The exciting, intoxicating production by the South African multi-media artist William Kentridge, conducted by Valery Gergiev, is back. Happily, it will be broadcast worldwide in the Met's LIVE IN HD series on October 26, with Szot reprising his outstanding performance.

Not many opera performances start with a standing ovation before a single note is sung, but the season's first COSI FAN TUTTE on September 24 was one of those rare occasions. It marked the return of conductor James Levine after a two-year absence, leading the performance from a motorized chair at a specially constructed podium. He had the orchestra—and the audience—in the palm of his hand.

With a story that is somehow poignant despite its scatological language, ANNA NICOLE's heroine is nicer than Berg's LULU, less lucky than TRAVIATA's Violetta and more cunning than MANON's Manon (though maybe not MANON LESCAUT's). Whatever she is, Anna Nicole Smith is definitely a full-fledged operatic heroine. As portrayed by American soprano Sarah Joy Miller in the local premiere of the Marc-Anthony Turnage-Richard Thomas work about the life and times of minor celebrity Smith, this is a wildly entertaining evening. The opera, which debuted two years ago in London, opened on September 17 at Brooklyn Academy of Music, compliments of New York City Opera and BAM's Next Wave Festival, directed by Richard Jones.

Where does the Mark-Anthony Turnage-Richard Thomas opera, ANNA NICOLE, stand? “On the line of opera and musiktheatre,” said Elaine Padmore, former director of opera at the Royal Opera Covent Garden, speaking on a panel at the Guggenheim Museum's “Works & Process” event on September 8. This “obscene and marvelous show,” which debuted in 2011 at London's famed opera house, tells the story of tabloid queen Anna Nicole Smith not only through music and words but nonstop movement as well, choreographed by Aletta Collins. It will have its American premiere on September 17 as a co-production of New York City Opera and BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), directed by Richard Jones.

Two-thirds into the bicentennial year of both Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, the recordings marking the occasions keep coming. Even in a crowded field, recent disks from two of today's major singers, Russian soprano Anna Netrebko and German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, are both treats--making strong cases for the music as well for themselves as artists.

It's a slippery slope--when an orchestra commemorates the career of a famous singer, featuring other, less well-known artists. That's exactly what the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment did last Thursday at Mostly Mozart in Alice Tully Hall. In an all-Handel concert, the group remembered its long collaboration with the late, celebrated mezzo Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, conducted by Laurence Cummings. Would the concert bring the discovery of exciting talent who had yet to make their mark in New York? Would the soloists--both unknown to me--thrill us while paying homage to the person they were celebrating, in music that she made famous? I kept wondering about this before the concert began, with feelings of expectation and exhilaration.

From its earliest days, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival has included opera among its offerings, although I recall no production being quite so acclaimed as Iván Fischer's DON GIOVANNI of two seasons ago. With so much to live up to, the director-conductor's vision of Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIGARO had its work cut out for it, seen on August 13 at the Rose Theatre. More than a concert version but less than a fully staged production, this was a FIGARO that charmed the audience with some good singing and lively staging, but was somehow less than the sum of its parts.

Is Lincoln Center planning to change its summertime schedule from “Mostly Mozart” to “Basically Beethoven”? If so, they couldn't have picked a better concert to put the point across than the opening program of this year's Festival. Heard on Wednesday evening, July 31, the performance was led by Music Director Louis Langrée.

When last heard on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera, mezzo Isabel Leonard and soprano Erin Morley were a couple of nuns on their way to the guillotine in LES DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES. This time around, the two women--along with tenor Stephen Costello--kicked off the Met's Summer Recital Series at SummerStage in Central Park, and it was the audience that lost its head.

The Caramoor Festival in Katonah, NY said “Bon anniversaire, Joseph Vert”--that's “Happy Birthday, Giuseppe Verdi” in French--on Saturday night, with a performance of LES VEPRES SICILIENNES, celebrating the composer's bicentenary. It offered a fine opportunity to hear an opera that followed the composer's “big three” middle works--RIGOLETTO, IL TROVATORE and LA TRAVIATA--but hasn't really found a place in the modern repertoire. It's your 'typical' opera story--boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl, and the French are massacred, set against the 13th century occupation of Sicily by France.

It's a rare occasion when a concerto--even one as brilliantly played as violinist Lisa Batiashvili's performance of Prokofiev's First--takes a back seat to the second half of the program. But the New York Philharmonic's concert performance of Luigi Dallapiccola's IL PRIGIONIERO, conducted authoritatively yet sensitively by Alan Gilbert, was such an event. By turns thrilling, soaring and sorrowful, the 50-minute opera, written in 1948, was as exciting a night at the opera as we had this season.

The regular season just ended for the Metropolitan Opera--all that's left is a series of HD rebroadcasts on Lincoln Center Plaza and a couple of low profile concerts in New York City parks--and it's time for a look back at what kind of season it was. With seven new productions and 21 other operas in rep during a season that ran from the end of September to mid-May, the Met was nothing if not far-reaching in its repertoire. And that's the way it should be. But how did its ambitions work out?