Week of March 31 to April 8, 2011

This week on WSBE, RI Public Television:

Not for the faint-of-heart:

SALOME

with

Karita Mattila

WSBE (36.2) (RI Cox Cable 808) (RI Fios 478) (In Massachusetts, Comcast 294)

Saturday, April 2 —  8:00 pm; Sunday,  April 3 — 3:00 am; Monday, April 4  — 12:00 am

Duration: 120 minutes

To see Karita Mattila do the Dance of the Seven Veils, click on "Week of..." above.

A production of the Richard Strauss opera "Salome," about a wild-child princess (Karita Mattila) who performs the Dance of the Seven Veils for King Herod (Kim Bagley) in return for anything she wants---which happens to be the head of a prophet.

Synopsis:

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=81

NOTE TO PARENTS: If you are introducing opera to your children via these broadcasts, I would hesitate to recommend this one, not so much because of the partial nudity which is downplayed by the Met cameras but because of the realistically gruesome severed head which is displayed throughout the last third of the opera. You may want to tape, view it, and assess it before showing it to your children. Then again it may be no more disturbing to them than the latest vampire saga.

This commentary by Renate Stendhal of Scene4 will fill you in on the details of this daring production:

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/nov-2008/html/renatestendhal1108.html

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 Opera on WGBH on TV this week:

 Roberto Alagna is

DON CARLO

Verdi's drama about a Spanish prince whose father steals his beloved, told against the backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition.

MARINA POPLAVSKAYA as Elizabeth

Some reviews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/arts/music/24carlo.html 

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-27/heretics-fry-alagna-shines-in-don-carlo-manuela-hoelterhoff.html

http://www.theatermania.com/new-york/reviews/11-2010/don-carlo_32325.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112306731.html


Synopsis:
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=4

Approximate running time 4 hrs. 30 min. 

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This week's Met radio broadcast:

DAS RHEINGOLD

You  can listen to the Met Opera Saturday afternoon broadcasts at 1pm on Harvard Radio, 95.3 in the Boston area or live-streaming online at http://www.whrb.org/

Synopsis of Das Rheingold:

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=78 

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OPERA ON THE INTERNET WITH  

DAVE D'AGUANNO  

This Saturday, many internet radio stations will be airing the LIVE performance that will be taking place at the Met. The opera: Wagner's "Das Rheingold" featuring Bryn Terfel as Wotan, along with many of the same singers who appeared last October in the HD-transmission of this work.

Otherwise, you may want to check out the offering this week on Swedish Radio: Yes, it's another "Lucia di Lammermoor" (Donizetti) -- this time, it's coming to us from Goteborg with a cast of (mostly) Swedish singers.

(http://sverigesradio.se/p2/)

Or -- for a bit of lighter fare -- French Radio has a performance of Lehar's "Merry Widow" on tap, coming to us from Nancy/Lorraine in a performance from December 23, 2010.

(http://sites.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/accueil/)

Of greater interest to many opera-goers may very well be the broadcast this Saturday from the Vienna State Opera, which will be giving us Anna Netrebko & Elina Garanca in Donizetti's "Anna Bolena" (on ORF). This same opera, with both Netrebko & Garanca, is scheduled to open the 2011/2012 season at the Met, & an HD-transmission is slated for October 15. So, this Saturday's performance may be regarded as a kind of audio preview of what the Met will be giving us in the fall.

As a side-note, this opera is being televised later in the month in Europe. (Lucky Europeans!)

(http://oe1.orf.at/)

Enjoy!

DAVE

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Monthly Radio Broadcast from The  

SAN FRANCISCO OPERA

http://www.kdfc.com/The-San-Francisco-Opera-on-KDFC/5805657

 Click on "Listen Live"

Statue of Giuseppe Verdi, Golden Gate Park

From San Francisco: Sunday evening on KDFC:

Sunday, April 03, 2011 at 11:00 PM EDT  (8PM-PDT)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s

The Marriage of Figaro

A carnally minded count, his neglected wife, their wily servants and a young page who falls in love with every woman he sees: Mozart’s greatest comedy contains a cornucopia of wonderfully flawed and human characters who will amuse and delight you. Soprano Danielle de Niese “has a voice made for Mozart: bright, beautiful, agile and creamy” (National Public Radio). The “charismatic, vocally robust young Italian bass Luca Pisaroni…is an impulsive and charming Figaro” (The New York Times).

Music Director Nicola Luisotti conducts this perfectly cast production with glamorous soprano Ellie Dehn as the Countess and former Adler Fellow Lucas Meachem as her philandering husband. 

Synopsis:         http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=13.

Sung in Italian with English supertitles
Approximate running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes including one intermission

[Recorded Fall 2010]

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Do you think you might want 
to make the trek to Boston?

Dawn Upshaw, soprano

Friday, April 29, 2011, 8pm,

NEC’s Jordan Hall

Boston, MA

http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?organ_val=229&pid=6829205

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At the Cutler Majestic Theater

219 Tremont Street, Boston

OPERA BOSTON

MARIA PADILLA

Described by Donizetti scholar William Ashbrook as "one of the most unfairly neglected of Donizetti's mature operas," Maria Padilla is a tour de force loosely based on the life of a woman who secretly married King Pedro the Cruel of Castile. In this new production, beloved soprano Barbara Quintiliani returns to a role she triumphed in at the 2009 Wexford Festival. In her Ireland debut: "the evening belonged, thrilling and unequivocally, to Barbara Quintiliani as Maria. . . She has a remarkable range of colors at her disposal, her coloratura is superbly executed. . . She also has one of the rarest qualities: an innate understanding of how to build this music to a thrilling climax, with superb high notes" (Opera News)

Sung in Italian with English titles

Cast

Barbara Quintiliani as Maria Padilla
Adriano Graziani as Don Ruiz
Laura Vlasak Nolen as Ines
DongWon Kim as Don Pedro 
Young Bok Kim as Don Ramiro
Yeghishe Manucharyan as Don Luigi
Glorivy Arroyo as Francisca
John Salvi as Don Alfonso di Pardo

Conducted by Gil Rose
Directed by Julia Pevzner

Performances

Friday,
May 6, at 7:30 pm

Sunday,
May 8, at 3:00 pm

Tuesday,
May 10, 2010 at 7:30 pm

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BOSTON LYRIC OPERA

April 29, May 1m, 4, 6, 8m, 10, 2011 At the Citi Performing Arts CenterSM Shubert Theatre

BLO premiere and new BLO production Ah, the thrill of the chase. Over hill, over dale, girdling the Earth in 40 minutes—when the words are mostly Shakespeare, even the libretto sings. Britten gives us a stageful of sprites and mortals in a touching and very funny take: a dreamscape. Or is it a nightmare? Depends on how you feel about unrequited love, and donkeys.