 |
To hear Our Yankee Diva sing "Figlia impura di Bolena," click here: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/liveinhd/LiveinHD.aspx?sn=watch
Joyce DiDonato's performance in the title role of Mary,
Queen of Scots, "will be pointed to as a model of singing," full of
"plush richness and aching beauty," in David McVicar's Met premiere
production. Elza van den Heever is "a vocally burnished and emotionally
tempestuous" Elizabeth (New York Times). "A luminous performance"
(AP). Matthew Polenzani sings Leicester and Maurizio Benini conducts.
Approximate runtime: 3:15
Synopsis available in English, French, German, Italian,
Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish
SYNOPSIS: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?customid=716
Scroll down for a rave review of Maria Stuarda from the New York Times.
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WSBE: (Comcast 294, Cox 808, Full Channel 109, and Verizon 478)
FAUST
Great Performances at the Met
|
Saturday, January 19 -- 8:00pm; Sunday, January 20 -- 3:00am; Monday, January 21 -- 12:00am
A production of Gounod's "Faust" updates the story to the mid-20th century, with Faust (Jonas Kaufmann) now a nuclear scientist who strikes a deal with the devil (René Pape) in order to win the affections of a young woman (Marina Poplavskaya).
DURATION: 210 MIN
DETAILS: [CC] [STEREO]
GENRE: PARENTS PICKS
synopsis: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?customid=12
To hear
Marina Poplavskaya sing “The Jewel Song,” click on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1erCXfUO6A
OPERA ON WGBH TV
THIS WEEK!
L'Elisir d'Amore
Great Performances at the Met
|
Friday, January 18 -- 8:00pm WGBH 2; Saturday, January 19 -- 2:00am WGBH 2; Monday, January 21 -- 2:30am WGBH 44
L'Elisir d'Amore
Anna Netrebko and Matthew Polenzani star in Bartlett Sher's
new production of one of the greatest comic gems in opera, as the fickle Adina
and her besotted Nemorino. Mariusz Kwiecien is the blustery sergeant Belcore
and Ambrogio Maestri is Dulcamara, the loveable quack and dispenser of the
elixir. Maurizio Benini conducts."A handsome and insightful new staging...
[Anna Netrebko's] singing is feisty and earthy one moment, poignant and
shimmering the next... Polenzani is coming into his prime...He holds back nothing
here. Over all, this psychologically charged take on Elisir is
fascinating."
DURATION: 3:02
DETAILS: [CC] [STEREO]
GENRE: PARENTS PICKS
Synopsis available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish
Synopsis available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish
SYNOPSIS: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?customid=122
For an interview with director Bart Sher, click on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqAuvGJiXYc
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OPERA ON THE INTERNET
WITH
DAVE D' AGUANNO
The big news for this coming Saturday (Jan. 19) is the
LIVE HD-transmission from the Met of Donizetti's "Maria Stuarda"
featuring Joyce DiDonato in the title role and with tenor Matthew Polenzani
(our recent Nemorino from "L'Elisir d'Amore") as Leicester. Not only
is this performance being transmitted to area movie theaters this Saturday, but
it also dominates the internet radio schedules of every station that I usually
report on in this blog.
Therefore, the only other item of interest that I wish
to call to your attention would be tomorrow night's FREE live audio-stream from
the Met of Rossini's "Le Comte Ory" with tenor Juan Diego Florez once
again singing the leading role, just as he did in the HD-transmission from a
couple of years ago.
(www/metopera.org)
Enjoy!
Dave
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I rarely include reviews but this is such
an unmitigated rave for one of my favorite artists that I simply must pass it
on. “Maria Stuarda” will be simulcast in HD this Saturday. I look forward to
seeing you there! Go to the link to see all the photos.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/arts/music/maria-stuarda-at-the-metropolitan-with-joyce-didonato.html
MUSIC REVIEW
2 Queens, 3 Lovers and One Death Warrant
‘Maria Stuarda’ at the Metropolitan, With Joyce DiDonato
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Published: January 1, 2013
Not that long ago the Metropolitan Opera’s default idea for
a New Year’s Eve gala was to dust off its production of Johann Strauss’s frothy
“Fledermaus,” with guest stars singing a favorite Puccini aria or Cole Porter
song during the party scene, and free Champagne for the audience in the lobby
after the show.
But on Monday night the Met and its general manager, Peter
Gelb, came up with a far more serious way to ring in the new year: a company
premiere production of Donizetti’s “Maria Stuarda,” the challenging bel canto
tragedy that recounts the clash between Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart
(Mary, Queen of Scots) and ends with the anguished Mary heading to the
executioner’s block. Yet if you think of a gala as a meaningful celebration,
then it was hard to imagine a better New Year’s Eve gift to opera lovers than
this musically splendid and intensely dramatic performance of “Maria Stuarda.”
The production stars the great American mezzo-soprano Joyce
DiDonato in the title role, a part that has been sung by sopranos and
mezzo-sopranos. Ms. DiDonato’s performance will be pointed to as a model of
singing in which all components of the art form — technique, sound, color,
nuance, diction — come together in service to expression and eloquence.
Directed by David McVicar, this production takes a
traditional approach, but with some vivid colors and stark imagery to lend a
contemporary touch to the period sets and costumes by John Macfarlane. In the
opening scene at the Palace of Whitehall in London, where Elizabeth’s subjects
are celebrating what they think will be her acceptance of a marriage proposal
from the king of France’s brother, the set evokes a spacious 16th-century hall.
But the wood-paneled walls and the matrix of rafters are an eerie blood red,
and the revelers are decked out in creamy white dresses and suits that look
strangely matched.
In the second scene, in a park outside the prison at
Fotheringhay Castle, where Elizabeth has had Mary confined, the trees are like
branchless sticks against grim, gray skies. Yet we see the forest through the
eyes of Ms. DiDonato’s Mary, who — allowed out to meet Elizabeth — is deeply
touched to be back in open spaces amid nature.
Mr. McVicar’s production is hardly a bold take on the opera.
But better to have something traditional than a half-baked concept. His staging
is more visually striking and imaginative than what he came up with for
Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena,” which opened the 2011-12 season, the first installment
of the Met’s planned presentation of Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy, of which “Maria
Stuarda” is the second. (“Roberto Devereux” will be next.)
This production has the right conductor in the pit: Maurizio
Benini, who has long brought a sure hand and insight to bel canto works. He
draws a supple and glowing performance from the orchestra and the chorus. Mr.
Benini understands that in Donizetti what may sound like a standard oompah-pah
accompaniment is an integral musical element that lifts a melody, provides
harmonic and rhythmic substance, and offers flexible support to the singers.
The cast is excellent. In a notable Met debut, Elza van den
Heever, a 33-year-old South African soprano whose career is rising
internationally, is a vocally burnished and emotionally tempestuous Elizabeth
(Elisabetta). Her sound, with its earthy tinge and quick vibrato, is not
conventionally beautiful. But her voice has penetrating depth and character.
She turns flights of coloratura passagework into bursts of jealousy and defiance
as Elizabeth contends with the threat that Mary, a blood relative, poses to her
reign in England.
In her final scene, in which Elizabeth orders Mary’s death,
Ms. van den Heever, in cumbersome queenly regalia, almost waddled around her
palace room, looking physically shaken by the course she could see no way
around. This may have been a bit of overacting. But I admired the rawness and
vulnerability of Ms. van den Heever’s performance. She was so committed to this
role that she shaved her head, the better to accommodate the queen’s elaborate
wigs. And her bright, intense voice sliced through the orchestra whenever the
queen’s ire was provoked.
Matthew Polenzani, who is becoming the Met’s go-to tenor in
bel canto repertory (he was wonderful as Nemorino in the company’s new
production of Donizetti’s “Elisir d’Amore,” which opened the season) brings
melting sound and appealing vulnerability to the role of the hapless Robert
Dudley (Roberto), the Earl of Leicester.
He is caught between love for the doomed Mary and entangled
feelings for the imperious Elizabeth, and early scenes in “Maria Stuarda”
suggest a typical bel canto romantic triangle. But his character fades into the
background as the story increasingly focuses on Mary’s plight. Still, in early
scenes, he must do a lot of fancy, ardent singing, and Mr. Polenzani embraced
the challenge, singing with verve, crispness and poignancy.
Matthew Rose brings a robust bass voice and dignified
presence to the role of George Talbot (Giorgio), the Earl of Shrewsbury, who is
loyal to Mary. The baritone Joshua Hopkins captures the mix of genuine concern
and political calculation that drives William Cecil (Guglielmo), Elizabeth’s
secretary of state. And the rich-voiced mezzo-soprano Maria Zifchak is touching
as Jane Kennedy (Anna), Elizabeth’s devoted lady-in-waiting.
With a libretto by Giuseppe Bardari, based on a play by
Schiller, the opera gives a very idealized portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots,
who was no slouch when it came to political machinations. A 19th-century
Italian audience of Donizetti’s day would have rooted for her as a Roman
Catholic who stands up to a Protestant queen and becomes a martyr for her
religion.
In her first scene, when Mary is given a moment of freedom
and sees the fields and the trees, Ms. DiDonato infuses her lines with a tender
mix of nobility, uncertainty and sadness. When Mary feels happy for a moment,
as in her youth, Ms. DiDonato sings the word “felice” with heartbreaking
wistfulness.
Though history tells us that Mary and Elizabeth never met,
Donizetti, following Schiller, gives them an intense scene of confrontation.
How could he resist presenting his audience with dueling divas?
At first, Mary tries to win Elizabeth’s sympathy. But soon
the two queens go at it, rivals not just for the English throne but also for
Leicester’s love. And Ms. DiDonato summons white-hot fury when she curses
Elizabeth, calling her a “vile bastard,” a phrase that contributed to the
initial problems the work faced from Italian censors.
In the last extended scene, Donizetti excelled himself.
Facing her execution, Mary confesses her sins to Talbot, then, surrounded by
faithful servants, leads a noble, prayerful chorus as good as anything in
Verdi. As Mary has a last moment with the guilt-ridden Leicester and bids Jane
farewell, the music goes on and on, with what seems like aria after aria. But
Donizetti knew what he was doing, and his inspired score carries every shift of
emotion and drama.
Ms. DiDonato is simply magnificent, singing with plush
richness and aching beauty. At a few moments, from the collective sounds of the
subdued chorus and orchestra, a pianissimo high note, almost inaudible, emerged
from Ms. DiDonato’s voice, slowly blooming in sound and throbbing richness. I
left the house not just moved but renewed, and ready to celebrate the arrival
of a new year.
“Maria Stuarda” runs through Jan. 26 at the Metropolitan
Opera House, Lincoln Center; (212) 362-6000, metoperafamily.org.
A version of this review appeared in print on January 2,
2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: 2 Queens, 3 Lovers
and One Death Warrant.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.* Elina Garanca: We mezzos get to have such fun
The dazzling Elina Garanca tells Rupert Christiansen how she’s 'addicted’ to singing – but picky about parts .
By Rupert Christiansen
In all my experience of the craziness of
opera, I have seldom been as shocked as I was when I heard who had won the 2001
Cardiff Singer of the World competition. For all of us in the audience – as
well as the television commentators and the vox pop – there was no question:
the laurel should have gone to a dazzlingly attractive Latvian mezzo-soprano
with a sturdy yet pliant voice of old-school amplitude and elegance called
Elina Garanča.
But no, the jury in its infinite wisdom
decided that she should take second place to a Romanian tenor of no more than
respectable competence. There was a gasp of consternation when his name was
announced; Garanča managed a brave, sporting smile.
A decade later, however, she can have the last
laugh. The tenor in question remains in the foothills, whereas she is at the
peak: indeed, on the showing she makes in her new album, Romantique, I would go
further and claim that in her repertory, there has been no one to touch her
since the Olga Borodina of 20 years ago.
Vienna, New York, Munich, Salzburg, Paris and
London – where she sings a recital at the Barbican next Tuesday – have all
succumbed to Garanča’s charms. With the regal glamour, stage presence and sharp
intelligence to match her vocal technique and equipment, she is a star of the
first magnitude, and there aren’t many of those around today.
Speaking in her palatial villa outside Malaga
earlier this month, Garanča shrugs with magnificent indifference when I mention
the Cardiff debacle. “Now I think it was the best thing that could have
happened for me. A good blow for my ego, because it taught me that you can’t
get everything you want exactly when you want it. And I don’t think I was ready
for what it would have meant in terms of pressure and exposure.”
Instead she went back to Germany, where she
had begun her career. She did not have to wait long for lift-off. Within two
years, she had made her debut at the Salzburg Festival under Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, and won a resident contract at the Vienna State Opera, where she
stayed for two-and-a-half consolidating years.
“You have doubts all the time. It didn’t
happen for me overnight,” she says. But you feel that she was always on track,
straining in the slips, focused and determined.
Born in Riga in 1976, she has music in her
bones – her father was a choral conductor, her mother a singer who had a
distinguished solo career in the Soviet Union – but her first love was the
theatre, and until she failed to get into drama school, she wanted to be an
actress.
“Then I discovered the fascinating business of
expressing your feelings by controlling your voice, and I fell in love with
singing. Now I’m addicted.”
But she’s picky, too, and her game plan has
been to give priority to family life with her husband, the Gibraltarian
conductor Karel Mark Chichon, and their baby daughter. Longevity is another
concern. “I’m not frightened but I am cautious. I may not want to be singing
when I’m 70, but I don’t want to stop when I am 45.”
Her appearances are meticulously rationed, and
new roles taken on slowly – next comes Didon in Berlioz’s Les Troyens in
Berlin. “In my forties, I shall start singing big Verdi roles like Eboli and
Amneris, also Saint-Saëns’s Dalila. Wagner is out of the question until later,”
she says.
At the moment, she is everyone’s Carmen of
choice – she will perform selections from Bizet’s masterpiece at the Barbican
concert – but surprisingly, she reveals that she has sung the opera on stage
only about 30 times and doesn’t want to carry on with it much longer.
“In some ways, it’s an ungrateful part. I
could just go from one Carmen to the next, but it’s an opera that doesn’t work
if it’s just about the Carmen, so I will only do it if I have the right
colleagues alongside me. As I said, I’m picky.”
She has strong views on the way the opera
world is run. New productions are something she doesn’t lightly sign up to –
“They are a two-month investment of time and that’s a big risk. At least with a
revival you know what you are letting yourself in for” – but her pet hate is a
conductor or director who will “tell you that what you’re doing isn’t right,
but won’t be able to explain what it is they want instead. I don’t want to be a
prima donna and just do it my way, I want to be challenged. But they have to
show me a reason.”
Although she is no doom-monger – “people were
saying a hundred years ago that opera was finished, but we’re still here” – it
saddens her that there are so fewer great voices around today than there were
in her parents’ generation: “Audiences seem to have a lost a sense of opera
being about singing: it’s become a much more visual experience, especially with
DVDs and cinema broadcasts.”
As yet, she’s still on honeymoon with the
press, but she’s smart enough to know that reviews cannot serve as a reliable
guide. “I sort of lost my faith in them after a performance where one critic
described my coloratura as being like Italian white spumante, while another
said it was like dark-red Bordeaux. One or the other, perhaps, but it really
can’t be both.”
So many mezzo-sopranos want to push up into
soprano territory, where the fees are higher and the frocks prettier, but Garanča
is committed to the lower vocal regions.
“There’s so much wonderful music which I still
haven’t sung. And anyway, mezzos have such fun: we get to play all the witches
and bitches!”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/9568889/Elina-Garanca-We-mezzos-get-to-have-such-fun.html
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The Met radio broadcast,
http://www.aliefpost.com/2013/01/tormented-during-a-revolution-the-stanzas-couldnt-save-this-poet/
January 19, 2013 @ 1:00pm
Donizetti's
MARIA STUARDA
Listen to the Met Opera Saturday afternoon
broadcasts on Harvard Radio, 95.3 in the Boston area or live-streaming online at http://www.whrb.org
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MUSIC REVIEW
Tormented During a Revolution: The Stanzas Couldn’t Save This Poet
‘Andrea Chénier’ From Opera Orchestra of New York
Hiroyuki Ito for The New York Times
Andrea Chénier The Opera Orchestra of New York performed this work by Giordano on Sunday at Avery Fisher Hall. The tenor Roberto Alagna starred, and the orchestra’s director, Alberto Veronesi, conducted.
By ZACHARY WOOLFE
Published: January 7, 2013
So New York got Montserrat Caballé in Donizetti’s “Parisina,” Renata Scotto in Puccini’s “Edgar,” Ben Heppner in Weber’s “Freischütz” and Renée Fleming in Boieldieu’s “Dame Blanche.”
Since 1972 the Opera Orchestra of New York has done opera in concert, scrappily but well. Unencumbered by the economics of full productions, Eve Queler, until last year the company’s director, could showcase important singers showing off far corners of their repertories.
This tradition continued on Sunday afternoon at Avery Fisher Hall, where the star tenor Roberto Alagna attempted the title role in Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier” for the first time, conducted by the Opera Orchestra’s current director, Alberto Veronesi.
As experiments go, this one did not seem too much of a reach. Chénier, a lovelorn French poet doomed by the Revolution, is of a piece with the heavier roles this once exclusively lyric tenor has tried in the last decade or so, with varying degrees of success. Giordano’s meaty, generous music, which needs both brightness and heft, seems written to show off Mr. Alagna’s best qualities: his vibrant sound and his exhilarating sense of being game for anything.
In my experience he has always been committed dramatically, no matter what the state of his voice, so his vague, distracted performance on Sunday was more disturbing than any vocal shortcomings. But it is hard to create a character or rise to heights of passion when your nose is stuck in the score.
Chénier’s expansive first aria is an “improvviso”: he fashions a poem on the fly. Uncertain of both the key and the rhythms, Mr. Alagna was forced, after a few bars, to ask Mr. Veronesi to stop and start over. His second go was more successful, albeit with further rhythmic fudges.
Mr. Alagna failed to arrive onstage at one point in the second act, missing lines. In his fourth-act aria, “Come un bel di dimaggio,” he and the orchestra were on different paths entirely. He dropped notes throughout the final duet with Chénier’s lover, Maddalena, and cracked on the final high one.
His colleagues, though hardly world-class, at least seemed to have learned their parts. Mr. Veronesi led with competence if not much excitement. As Maddalena, the soprano Kristin Lewis took a while to lose the cool edge in her voice and start to glow, but she rose to a restrained, moving “La mamma morta.”
The baritone George Petean fared best as Gérard, the love plot’s third wheel. His is not a huge voice, but it is as firm and sure as his command of verismo style. There were some gems among the supporting singers, including the tenor Nicola Pamio, the baritone David Pershall and, as the elderly Madelon, the great mezzo-soprano Rosalind Elias.
But you can’t have “Andrea Chénier” without Andrea Chénier. Though Mr. Alagna provided enough ardent, honeyed phrases on Sunday to give hope that the role may yet work for him, this outing was disappointing and unfair to his audience. You go to an Opera Orchestra of New York performance to hear major artists experimenting, not sight-reading.
A version of this review appeared in print on January 8, 2013, on page C5 of the New York edition with the headline: Tormented During a Revolution: The Stanzas Couldn’t Save This Poet
Kristine Opolais makes winning Metropolitan Opera
debut in revival of Puccini’s ‘La Rondine’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/kristine-opolais-makes-winning-metropolitan-opera-debut-in-revival-of-puccinis-la-rondine/2013/01/13/c7387682-5dbb-11e2-8acb-ab5cb77e95c8_story.html
Kristine Opolais interview: The Latvian soprano talks
about making her Met debut in Puccini's rarely heard gem La Rondine.
http://www.metoperafamily.org/news-and-features1/interviews/Kristine-Opolais/?src=nfbuc
Yannick Nézet-Séguin: Maestro With the Turtle Tattoo
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/arts/music/yannick-nezet-seguin-is-at-the-top-of-the-orchestra-game.html
New York’s Met opera Live in HD comes to Rome
http://www.wantedinrome.com/news/2001933/new-yorks-met-opera-live-in-hd-comes-to-rome.html
Rigoletto: Director Michael Mayer brings Verdi's
timeless tragedy into a compelling new setting: Las Vegas in 1960.
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/news/features/rigoletto-light-motif
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