Musical America Blogs

Compiled and annotated by George Loomis.

Read about: New York. Not-So-New Music.
Read about: New York. New Music.

26 September – 4 February, 2012
Metropolitan Opera: Anna Bolena.
Less than six months after making her role debut as the Boleyn Girl, Donizetti-style, in a new production at the Vienna Staatsoper, Anna Netrebko again sings her namesake queen in yet another new production at the Met and on opening night, no less. The role, which Maria Callas unearthed and polished up for audiences in the 1950s, is a slight stretch for the Russian soprano, but she rose to the occasion impressively and scored a personal triumph in Vienna. Will she enchant New York’s bel canto fanciers as thoroughly as she did their Viennese counterparts? Time will tell. Others in the cast include Ekaterina Gubanova (replacing the pregnant Elina Garanca as Giovanna Seymour), Stephen Costello (in his first important Met assignment, as Percy) and Ildar Abdrazakov (Enrico VIII). The busy David McVicar, in only his second Met assignment (his successful 2009 Trovatore was the first) directs, and the conductor is Marco Armiliato.
www.metopera.org

27 September – 17 November, 2011
Metropolitan Opera: Nabucco.
Elijah Moshinsky’s 2001 production of the opera that brought Verdi his first big success has fared better than its only Met predecessor, Günther Rennert’s from 1960-61, which vanished after a single season. It even seems to be bringing the opera a measure of popularity beyond the famous chorus “Va pensiero.” And John Napier’s revolving set with its giant walls and rocks suits the opera’s Biblical scope. The production returns after a six-year absence with its original Abigaille, Maria Guleghina, and a new Nabucco, baritone Zeljko Lucic, who can be counted on to bring a measure of interpretive subtlety to an opera in which subtlety is in short supply. Paolo Carignani conducts.
www.metopera.org

1 October – 18 February 2012
Metropolitan Opera: Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Bartlett Sher’s 2006 production of Rossini’s enduring comedy was an early popular success for Peter Gelb’s Met, a clever staging with plenty of action. Some find it over the top, but there are many witty touches, like the big anvil hanging over the singers at the frenzied close of Act 1. The production returns after an absence of one season with an attractive bel canto cast. The rising mezzo Isabel Leonard sings her first Met Rosina, Peter Mattei, the production’s original Figaro, reprises the title role, and Javier Camarena, a young Mexican tenor active at the Zurich Opera House, makes his Met debut as Count Almaviva. Maurizio Benini is the conductor.
www.metopera.org

13 October – 17 March 2012
Metropolitan Opera: Don Giovanni
Its opening-night new production of Anna Bolena received mixed reviews, but the Met seems to be banking on a big success with Don Giovanni. A total of 17 performances are scheduled, with multiple casts and even multiple conductors. James Levine was to have led the first round of performances, but he is out for the rest of the year after another physically damaging fall. Fabio Luisi, the Met’s newly appointed principal conductor, and Louis Langrée, in that order, take over the nine performances assigned to Levine, with Andrew Davis, as previously announced, leading eight more in February and March. The news about Levine shouldn’t obscure highly promising aspects of the new production, namely, the debut of Tony Award winning director Michael Grandage, in only his third opera staging, and a strong initial cast. Mariusz Kwiecien sings the title role, one for which he has justly won plaudits in Europe, and Luca Pisaroni, also in a Met role debut, sings Leporello, with Ramón Vargas as Don Ottavio. The women look at least as good, including two highly promising Met debutantes, Marina Rebeka (Donna Anna) and Mojca Erdmann (Zerlina). Barbara Frittoli sings Donna Elvira.
www.metopera.org

4 – 8 October, 2011
Brooklyn Academy of Music: The Threepenny Opera
Robert Wilson, a native of Texas, has done comparatively little work in the United States of late but remains a very busy man in Europe. His 2008 production of this Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill classic study of London’s lowlife was a creation of the Berliner Engosemble, a company that was founded by Brecht himself and that makes its New York debut with this production. From reports, Wilson’s Threepenny Opera is not one of those glacial affairs in which actors are swallowed up by the scenery, but a vital staging that brings out the work’s sarcasm and viciousness. Wilson is also said to draw on diverse traditions, such as Weimar-style cabaret, German Expressionistic cinema and even Japanese kabuki.
www.bam.org

27 October, 2011 – 9 May 2012
Metropolitan Opera: Siegfried
Based on the first two installments seen last season, many people are already writing off Robert Lepage’s unwieldy, technically overblown, intellectually slight and very expensive production of Wagner’s Ring as a major dud. Yet it soldiers on. Siegfried will probably not reflect the kind of ground-up rethinking necessary if the production’s fortunes are to be turned around, but hope springs eternal. At least Bryn Terfel will be back as Wotan, now in the guise of the Wanderer, a role requiring a more mature and considered demeanor than evidenced by the lively, good natured impersonations he projected as the younger Wotan. With Ben Heppner having withdrawn some time ago, the title role falls to Gary Lehman, a good singer who came to Met prominence three years ago replacing an ailing Heppner as Tristan. Deborah Voigt continues her first assay of the role of Brünnhilde, and if her showing in Die Walküre can be counted on, should give a game performance if not one endowed with vocal splendor. Others in the cast include Patricia Bardon (Erda), Gerhard Siegel (Mime) and Eric Owens (Alberich). Like Don Giovanni, Siegfried is a victim of Levine’s latest physical mishap, but Fabio Luisi again comes to the rescue in his first Met Wagner production (apart from filling in for Levine in two Rheingolds last spring). Siegfried gets only three performances this fall but returns in the spring as part of three integral Ring cycles.