Posts Tagged ‘the met’
Saturday, April 9th, 2011
By James Jorden I apologize for long period (two months!) of radio silence: it’s been a very busy spring season in New York, broken up by a two week vacation my traveling companion and I called the “Regietournee,” a sampling of some of the opera direction going on in Germany (and other northern European theaters.) […]
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Tags: barrie kosky, calixto bieito, doris doerrie, eurotrash, komische oper, otto schenk, regie, revivals, staatsoper unter den linden, symbols, the met
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Berlin Diary
Friday, February 4th, 2011
By James Jorden It’s not hard to guess why Peter Gelb would choose to import a recreation of the original production of Nixon in China instead of devising a new staging from scratch. It would hardly be prudent to blow a million dollars on a six-performance run of a work unlikely to be revived any […]
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Tags: Chiang Ching, english national opera, franco zeffirelli, houston grand opera, lincoln center, Mark Morris, new york city opera, peter gelb, peter sellars, ping pong diplomacy, puccini, republic of china, revivals, the met
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Nixon in Amber
Friday, January 14th, 2011
By James Jorden Garson Kanin wrote this novel a clef called Smash, a tale of a ruggedly handsome director’s trials in getting ready for Broadway a musical based on the life of a legendary vaudeville star, featuring a difficult young diva in the leading role—well, as you can see, the clef is pretty much a […]
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Tags: barbra streisand, garson kanin, karita mattila, lighting, luc bondy, montserrat caballe, regie, the met
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on The better is the enemy of the good
Friday, January 7th, 2011
By James Jorden New Year’s Eve may have marked a significant turning point for the Gelb administration at the Metropolitan Opera. The replacement of the “beloved” Franco Zeffirelli Traviata extravaganza with a lean, mean non-literal staging has garnered rapturous reviews and strongly positive audience reactions. The single reported boo for director Willy Decker’s production team […]
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Tags: franco zeffirelli, peter gelb, regie, symbols, the met, willy decker
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on Myth, Matched
Friday, December 31st, 2010
By James Jorden The opening of a new production of La Traviata at the Met tonight offers an ideal opportunity to address a fact of modern operatic life, the booing, apparently reflexive, of the director and production team at the first night’s curtain call. Now, booing and other expressions of disapproval have a long history […]
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Tags: la traviata, regie, the met, verdi
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on To boo?
Friday, December 17th, 2010
By James Jorden What makes a dedicated opera queen (well, anyway this dedicated opera queen) sad? Well, it goes like this: the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera hosts a panel discussion to introduce the company’s upcoming new production of La traviata, the first non-Franco Zeffirelli take on Verdi’s tragedy to be seen there in […]
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Tags: franco zeffirelli, la boheme, marina poplavskaya, martha stewart, new york times, otto schenk, peter gelb, pundits, regie, the met
Posted in Rough and Regie | Comments Off on The tears of a queen