Week of April 14-21, 2011

 This week on WSBE, Rhode Island Public Television:

Orfeo et Euridice

A production of Christoph Willibald Gluck's "Orfeo et Euridice," in which the grieving Orfeo (Stephanie Blythe) braves the underworld to retrieve his beloved wife (Danielle de Niese).

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

Saturday, April 16 —  8:00 pm; Sunday,  April 17 — 3:00 am; Monday, April 18  — 12:00 am

Duration: 120 minutes

Synopsis:  http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/season/production.aspx?id=11022

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This week's Met radio broadcast:

WOZZECK

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 Wozzeck

http://www.operainfo.org/broadcast/operaSynopsis.cgi?id=110&language=1

James Levine; Waltraud Meier, Stuart Skelton, Gerhard Siegel, Alan Held, Walter Fink

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

OPERA ON THE INTERNET WITH  

DAVE D'AGUANNO  

Tomorrow evening (April 14) the Met is giving us another performance of Rossini's "Le Comte Ory" in their free LIVE audio stream, which can be accessed at www.metopera.org. The same soloists will be singing the same roles which they performed last Saturday in the HD-transmission some of you may have seen -- a performance which took place within minutes of the birth of tenor Juan Diego Florez's firstborn son!

This Saturday (April 16), the Met's LIVE performance of Berg's "Wozzeck" may be heard on most internet radio stations. The performance features baritone Alan Held in the title role, with Waltraud Meier as Marie.

Those of you who would rather tune in to a performance of Wagner's "Parsifal" can check out the broadcast of that opera (from 4/8/11 in Berlin) on German Radio.

(www.dradio.de/dkultur/)

On ORF, a performance from last month of Handel's "Rodelinda" is on tap. This particular performance comes to us from Vienna, and some of you may know already that Renee Fleming is scheduled to sing the title role of this opera at the Met next season, with an HD-transmission slated for December 3, 2011.

(http://oe1.orf.at)

Fans of the late, great Swedish tenor Jussi Bjoerling may want to tune in to Swedish Radio on Saturday, when a performance of Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" will be broadcast with Bjoerling as Canio. Date of the performance: December 8, 1954!!

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

Enjoy!

DAVE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

To see and hear Dawn Upshaw sing "Chansons de Bilitis" of Debussy, click on "Week of ..." above

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

BOSTON LYRIC OPERA

April 29, May 1, 4, 6, 8, 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.