VIDEO: Get A First Look At ELEKTRA at The Met Opera
by Alan Henry - Feb 17, 2022
Soprano Nina Stemme brought down the house when she headlined the premiere of visionary director Patrice Chéreau’s 2016 staging of Elektra. Now she returns to Strauss’s unhinged heroine, opposite one of today’s most in-demand artists, soprano Lise Davidsen, as her sister, Chrysothemis. Donald Runnicles is on the podium for one of opera’s most blistering scores, leading a cast that also includes mezzo-soprano Michaela Schuster as Klytämnestra, tenor Stefan Vinke as Aegisth, and bass-baritone Greer Grimsley as Orest.
VIDEO: Watch A New Trailer For The Met Opera's MADAMA BUTTERFLY
by Alan Henry - Feb 16, 2022
Soprano Eleonora Buratto takes on the touchstone title role of the tragic geisha, following earlier Met successes as Norina in Don Pasquale and Liù in Turandot. Tenor Brian Jagde is the callous American naval officer who betrays her, alongside mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong as her devoted maid Suzuki and baritone David Bizic as the consul Sharpless. Alexander Soddy conducts Anthony Minghella’s evocative, ever-popular staging.
VIDEOS: Get A First Look At Met Opera's TOSCA
by Alan Henry - Feb 4, 2022
Puccini's thrilling masterpiece Tosca returns to the Metropolitan Opera for 15 performances December 2, 2021-March 12, 2022. Check out video from the final dress rehearsal!
BWW Review: Radvanovsky's TOSCA a Winner for the Met
by Richard Sasanow - Dec 18, 2021
What is there to say about Puccini’s TOSCA that hasn’t been said in the last hundred-plus years since its premiere in Rome (to echo the locations in the opera)? It is a marvel of brevity, with librettists Illica and Giacosa shaving locations, characters and action from the original play, written by the French dramatist Victorien Sardou for the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt, without sacrificing its impact. It has a gorgeous score, but for a grand opera, it is also quite intimate, with the action mainly revolving around three characters who carry their emotions on their sleeves and interact like their lives depend on it.
VIDEOS: Get A First Look At Met Opera's TOSCA
by Alan Henry - Dec 2, 2021
Puccini's thrilling masterpiece Tosca returns to the Metropolitan Opera for 15 performances December 2, 2021-March 12, 2022. Check out video from the final dress rehearsal!
BWW Review: Gershwin's PORGY & BESS Returns to the Met with a Grand Bess in Angel Blue
by Richard Sasanow - Nov 6, 2021
There are so many things to like about the season’s revival of Gershwin’s PORGY & BESS, which was new in the 2019-2020 season, before Covid became the “song” that no one wanted to hear.
PORGY on the other hand, is the music that everybody can take a liking to, with its fluid combination of opera, Broadway musical and versions of spirituals and Gullah folk music that nobody ever heard before. It has been best known for its songs, which have become “standards” in the Broadway songbook. The stylistic shifts in the complex, yearning, comic score are handled mightily by the Met’s game orchestra under David Robinson.
The Met and its Orchestra Reach Agreement, Providing a Path to September Reopening
by Chloe Rabinowitz - Aug 24, 2021
A new collective bargaining agreement between the Metropolitan Opera and its orchestra, the last of the Met’s three largest unions to reach an agreement, was ratified today. To commemorate the occasion, the Met has announced two free, pre-season performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” to take place in Damrosch Park on 9/4 and 9/5.
VIDEO: Extended Clips From Met Opera's A Concert for New York
by Alan Henry - May 18, 2021
Watch as Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts members of the Met Orchestra and Chorus in the 'Lacrimosa' from Mozart's Requiem and Angel Blue sings Desdemona's 'Ave Maria' from Verdi's Otello as part of A Concert for New York at the Knockdown Center in Queens.
The Met Presents A Live Three- Day Conversation Series About Museums
by A.A. Cristi - May 17, 2021
Tomorrow, May 18, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will host a virtual, three-day, live convening during which scholars, artists, writers, performers, and activists including Sarah Lewis, (Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture and African and African American Studies at Harvard University); artist Elizabeth Colomba; Samir Meghelli (Senior Curator at the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum); Anupam Sah (Head of Art Conservation, Research, Training at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya); and artist Alexis Peskin will discuss recent shifts in how museums engage and interact with their publics in response to the ongoing pandemic and international calls for social and racial justice.
VIDEO: Watch Highlights From Met Opera's A Concert for New York
by Alan Henry - May 17, 2021
Watch below as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Justin Austin, and members of the Met Orchestra perform an excerpt from Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones as part of A Concert for New York at the Knockdown Center in Queens. May 16, 2021.
MET Keeps A Holiday Tradition Alive With A CHRISTMAS CAROL
by A.A. Cristi - Dec 3, 2020
It's no surprise that the holidays are going to look different this year, but there's one tradition that Maryland Ensemble Theatre (MET) is thrilled to keep alive with the third production in its 2020-2021 Season Of Surprises: A Christmas Carol - The Audio Experience.