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Simon Boccanegra
Great Performances at the Met
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Saturday, March 23 -- 8:00pm; Sunday, March 24 -- 3:00am; Monday, March 25 -- 12:00am
Simon Boccanegra
DURATION: 150 MIN
DETAILS: [CC] [STEREO]
GENRE: PARENTS PICKs
Synopsis: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?customid=176
2013-14 Live in HD
Season Preview
Piotr Beczala to Sing First Met Performances in Title Role of Gounod's FAUST, 3/21
Piotr Beczala will sing the title role in Gounod's Faust for the first time at the Met beginning March 21, opposite Marina Poplavskaya as Marguerite, a role she sang in the 2011 premiere of Des McAnuff's production. Alain Altinoglu, who led Faust at the Met last season, returns to conduct the opera, which also stars John Relyea as the diabolical Méphistophélès, Alexey Markov as Valentin, and Julie Boulianne as Siébel.
Earlier this year, Piotr Beczala starred as the Duke of Mantua in Michael Mayer's new staging of Verdi's Rigoletto. Last season, he sang the Chevalier des Grieux in the new production premiere of Massenet's Manon. He has sung four additional roles at the Met to critical acclaim: Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lenski in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Rodolfo in Puccini's La Bohème, and Roméo in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette. He has sung Faust at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, and Vienna State Opera. Next season at the Met, he will sing Lenski in the season-opening new production of Eugene Onegin and the Prince in a revival of Dvo?ák's Rusalka.
Marina Poplavskaya made her Met role debut as Marguerite in last season's new production premiere of Faust; she has also sung the role with the Berlin State Opera. Her past roles at the Met include Natasha Rostova in Prokofiev's War and Peace, Liù in Puccini's Turandot, and two leading roles in new productions of Verdi operas, Elisabeth de Valois in Don Carlo and Violetta in La Traviata. Next season at the Met, she will make her company role debut as Tatiana in the new production of Eugene Onegin.
John Relyea makes his Met role debut as Méphistophélès, a role he has sung with San Francisco Opera and Washington Concert Opera. Relyea made his Met debut in 2000 as Alidoro in Rossini's La Cenerentola, and has since sung 12 additional roles with the company, including a different Méphistophélès (in the new production premiere of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust), the title role in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Colline in La Bohème, Raimondo in the new production premiere of Lucia di Lammermoor, and Garibaldo in the Met premiere of Handel's Rodelinda. Next season, he will sing his first company performances of the Water Sprite in Rusalka.
Julie Boulianne made her Met debut in 2011 as Diane in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. Her subsequent company performances include Stéphano in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Ascanio in Berlioz's Les Troyens. Earlier this season, she sang Stéphano with Vancouver Opera, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opéra de Montreal, and Fragoletto in Offenbach's Les Brigands at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. Later this season, she will sing Romeo in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Opéra de Reims.
Alexey Markov made his Met debut in 2007 as Prince Andrey Bolkonsky in War and Peace opposite Poplavskaya as Natasha. He has also appeared with the company as Shchelkalov in the new production premiere of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Tomsky in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Marcello in La Bohème (a role he reprises at the Met next season), and di Luna in Verdi's Il Trovatore. Earlier this season, he sang both Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor and Renato in Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera at Zurich Opera. This summer, he will sing di Luna in a new production of Il Trovatore at the Munich Festival.
Alain Altinoglu, who also conducts Verdi's Otello this month at the Met, conducted his first company performances of Faust last season. He has previously led the opera at the Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, and Berlin State Opera. His other engagements this season include Prokofiev's L'Amour des Trois Oranges at Opéra Bastille, Rabaud's Mârouf, Savetier du Caire at the Opéra-Comique, Massenet's Thérèse at Montpelier Festival, and Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer at Zurich Opera. He made his Met debut leading Bizet's Carmen in 2010 and returns next season to conduct a new production of Massenet's Werther.
Read more about Piotr Beczala to Sing First Met Performances in Title Role of Gounod's FAUST, 3/21 - BWWOperaWorld by opera.broadwayworld.com
A dear friend, who knows a great deal more
about opera than I do, recently expressed dismay that the great Russian soprano
Galina Vishnevskaya passed away on December 12, 2012 with little public notice.
As I told him, I am dismayed to admit that I had never heard of her. In addition to her own renown as an opera singer, Vishnevskaya was known as the wife of the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.
When their Soviet citizenships were revoked in 1979 during an extended absence
from the USSR because of their sponsorship and work for human rights and civil
liberties, the Bolshoi erased all mention of her from their records, destroyed
her recordings, and in its frenzy of revisionism, did all it could to eradicate
her memory from the face of the earth.
You can see her sing in this rare YouTube salvaged from what little
remained. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGrbaxJRGXo
The world of opera is so immense that I am continually amazed at things that I find that I know nothing about! Another instance of this came by way of another friend who told me that there was to be a staging in Somerville of Jake Heggie’s opera Dead Man Walking, based on the book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean. I thought it was a new opera and considered skipping it because I am not such a big fan of late twentieth century opera and I was likely to face a snowstorm on my drive home.
I decided to brave the elements. It was surprisingly good. Staged by the Boston Opera Consortium (which I had never heard of) at the venerable Somerville Theater, the libretto based on Sister Helen’s book was by Terence McNally; it starred Jonathan Stinson as death row inmate Joseph De Rocher and Courtney Miller as Sister Helen. Another notable singer was Christine Teeters as Sister Rose, but they were all good and the small orchestra, squeezed in the front of the pit-less theater (which is usually used as a movie theater), and conducted by Michael Sakir was excellent. I only wish that there was another performance to recommend to you. I found myself weeping through most of it: There are few things more heartbreaking than the sorrow of parents whose children have been murdered, and in this case, the anguish of a mother whose child committed such heinous acts. I found myself thinking more of Sandy Hook School in Connecticut than of Louisiana in the eighties. The real story, however, was Sister Helen's struggle to meet the challenge to her own faith in dealing with the murderer.
Rosie’s Corner
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| Galina Vishnevskaya |
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| with Mstislav Rostropovich |
The world of opera is so immense that I am continually amazed at things that I find that I know nothing about! Another instance of this came by way of another friend who told me that there was to be a staging in Somerville of Jake Heggie’s opera Dead Man Walking, based on the book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean. I thought it was a new opera and considered skipping it because I am not such a big fan of late twentieth century opera and I was likely to face a snowstorm on my drive home.
I decided to brave the elements. It was surprisingly good. Staged by the Boston Opera Consortium (which I had never heard of) at the venerable Somerville Theater, the libretto based on Sister Helen’s book was by Terence McNally; it starred Jonathan Stinson as death row inmate Joseph De Rocher and Courtney Miller as Sister Helen. Another notable singer was Christine Teeters as Sister Rose, but they were all good and the small orchestra, squeezed in the front of the pit-less theater (which is usually used as a movie theater), and conducted by Michael Sakir was excellent. I only wish that there was another performance to recommend to you. I found myself weeping through most of it: There are few things more heartbreaking than the sorrow of parents whose children have been murdered, and in this case, the anguish of a mother whose child committed such heinous acts. I found myself thinking more of Sandy Hook School in Connecticut than of Louisiana in the eighties. The real story, however, was Sister Helen's struggle to meet the challenge to her own faith in dealing with the murderer.
To our surprise, Sister Helen Prejean herself
was there to introduce the opera, but when I ran into her during the
intermission, I only smiled because I could think of nothing to say. What must
it be like to see oneself portrayed on the silver screen by Susan Sarandon or
on the stage by a singer telling one’s own story? These thoughts left me
speechless.
Upon my return home, I looked up the opera and
found that it was not new at all! It was first performed in 2000 by the San
Francisco Opera, starring Susan Graham as Sister Helen Prejean, and Frederica
von Stade as the murderer’s mother, as well as Jay Hunter Morris as Father
Grenville, chaplain at Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola). To opera fans
everywhere, Frederica von Stade is a familiar name. To Met-HD aficionados,
Susan Graham has been seen as Marguerite in The Damnation of Faust and this
season as Queen Dido in Les Troyens. Last season, Jay Hunter Morris thrilled
Met audiences with his portrayal of Siegfried in Wagner’s Ring Cycle where the
Texas native sang for four solid hours in German!
I am not embarrassed by this ignorance.
It is not possible to know everything and in music, I am an amateur, not bound
by my profession to encyclopedic knowledge of the genre. I do my best to learn
and to pass it on to you.
If you want to learn more about opera, do what
I do, read (lots of good articles below); listen (to recordings, radio
broadcasts); and attend opera performances and/or HD broadcasts. If you love
gossip about the opera stars, you can find dozens of opera blogs on-line, some
focused on La Scala or the Met, and others still arguing, thirty-five years
after her passing, if Maria Callas’ voice got better or worse when she lost
weight.
Opera isn’t the cheapest hobby around but
neither is baseball. A single ticket to the cheap seats at Fenway is about
fifty dollars, and that doesn’t count transportation, beer or peanuts. You can
see two Met-HD broadcasts for that price, and have enough left over for a small
box of popcorn, at least for the one performance. You won’t find anyone asking for bequests to
support the Red Sox but the queen of the arts needs all the help she can get,
so as you figure out your charitable contributions, send a check or go online
to pledge to our local provider of opera on Saturday nights, RI Public
television
https://ecom.ripbs.org/ic/fundraise/pledge_form
and to the Met, mother of us all. http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/support/index.aspx?nav=top
https://ecom.ripbs.org/ic/fundraise/pledge_form
and to the Met, mother of us all. http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/support/index.aspx?nav=top
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Rolando Villazón
Have a look at Rolando's interview with ATV and Traviata co-star Marlis Petersen, with whom he's performing at the Wiener Staatsoper. Click here to watch: http://bit.ly/ATVvillazon
![Have a look at Rolando's interview with ATV and Traviata co-star Marlis Petersen, with whom he's performing at the @[88166200716:274:Wiener Staatsoper]. Click here to watch: http://bit.ly/ATVvillazon](https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/s480x480/544145_10151308651221883_668909382_n.png)
Workplace romance always in the air at Lyric Opera
By Kara Spak kspak@suntimes.com
March 13, 2013 4:09PM
March 13, 2013 4:09PM
Singers Sam Handley and Amanda Majeski are among at least 14 married or engaged couples working at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. These couples are living the Lyric Opera's "Long Live Passion" slogan in their off-hours. | Rich Hein~Sun-Times Media
Love that lasts forever. Love betrayed. Love worth dying over. Love worth living for. Love that starts as friendship. Love that kills. Love that lasts beyond death.
Night after night on the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s stage, cast and crew create musical tributes to love in its many forms including the most twisted and torturous.
Behind the scenes at Lyric Opera, though, love is also in the air.
And it’s largely the monogamous, married kind.
Lyric Opera is home to at least 14 married or engaged couples or long-term life partners....
READ THE ARTICLE: http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/entertainent/18810337-421/workplace-romance-always-in-the-air-at-lyric-opera.html
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene
Here are some fun facts you might not know
about the composer and librettist of the San Francisco Opera's new opera, “The Gospel of Mary
Magdalene,” premiering this June. Mark Adamo– unlike most composers today –
composes and writes the libretto of all his operas, all four of which have been
commissioned by our very own General Director David Gockley, and Mark’s “Little
Women” is the most frequently performed new opera of the past 20 years! Ahem…you
can still buy tickets for his newest work at http://sfopera.com/magdalene
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OPERA ON THE INTERNET
WITH
DAVE D' AGUANNO
This coming
Saturday (March 23), most internet radio stations will be carrying the Met
broadcast from March 12, 1977, of Verdi's "La Forza del Destino."
(Has it really been 36 years since that broadcast??) With Leontyne Price in the
role of Leonora, & Placido Domingo as Don Alvaro, I don't need to report
that this was, indeed, a memorable afternoon at the Met!
There's even more
Verdi on tap for this Saturday, with his ever-popular "La Traviata"
to be heard on German Radio, in a performance that took place on December 5 of
last year in Naples.
Placido Domingo
goes into baritone-mode as he sings the title role in Verdi's "Simon
Boccanegra" in a Vienna State Opera performance from last month.
For non-Verdi fare,
you can tune in to ORF (Austrian radio) if you'd like to take advantage of a
rare opportunity to hear Chabrier's comic opera "Le Roi Malgre Lui"
-- a Wexford Festival performance from October 28 of last year.
More French opera
comes to us via the Belgian station Klara in a broadcast from Barcelona of
Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann." Rumor has it that a video of this
may become available, which would definitely be worth checking out, since it
features soprano Natalie Dessay as Antonia, and the young tenor Michael Spyres
in the lead. Spyres, IMHO, is a tenor you may be hearing a lot more of in the
future!
In a more
"modern" vein, there's Prokofiev's "The Love for Three
Oranges" which was recently performed in Amsterdam and which will be
broadcast this Saturday on Radio 4 (the Netherlands).
Then again, you
might want to kick-start your opera weekend by tuning in tomorrow night (Thursday,
March 21) to the Met's free LIVE audio-stream, when Gounod's "Faust"
can be heard, with tenor Piotr Beczala in the title role. After his dazzling
performance in the Met's recent HD-transmission of Verdi's
"Rigoletto" it would seem that Beczala is on something of a roll!
Enjoy!
Dave
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The Met radio broadcast,
March 23, 2013 @ 12:00pm
Giuseppe Verdi's
LA FORZA DEL DESTINO
_by_Jack_Mitchell.jpg)
starring
LEONTYNE PRICE
from March 12, 1977
Listen to the Met Opera Saturday afternoon
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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Some interesting articles
2013-14 Live in HD Season Schedule
Analysis: The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 Season
James Levine Plans Met Opera Return in May
Listen to host Naomi Lewin's Analysis of Levine's
Planned Comeback
The Perceived Delicacy of the Female Conductor
Reports of the Death of Opera Have Been Greatly
Exaggerated
SF Opera Announces the Adler Fellows
2013 Opera Awards finalists
The master voice at 90
Former tenor Paul Asciak will turn 90 tomorrow. The
Sunday Times classical music critic Albert Storace caught up with him.
Music of Vivaldi Boosts Mental Vitality
Classical Music Boosts Heart Transplant Survival in
Mice
Classical Music an Effective Antidepressant
Struggling to Reconcile Conflicting Beliefs? Listen to
Some Mozart
May I See Your Violin's Passport, Please By Hoyt Smith
The Classical Pianist With 55 Million YouTube Hits
A discovery for the CD of the Week! The Salon music of
the Vienna-based cellist and composer, August Noelck. Below,
the distinctive roof tiles of Vienna's St. Stephen's
Cathedral
The Art of Jason Wu
Not Your Average Backup Singer or Accompanist
Matthew Polenzani and Natlie Dessay Head SF Opera's
Tales of Hoffmann
Musical Meds
GREAT NEWS!! At least for our German friends .......
Bayerische Staatsoper has just announced their 2013/14
season and yes, Joseph Calleja is bringing his wonderful Hoffmann to Munich in
February 2014!!
Vintage Youtube: Leonard Bernstein Conducts Haydn
Without Baton or Hands
Titanic bandmaster's violin found, says auction house:
Wallace Hartley's violin was believed lost in 1912 disaster
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Now playing at
The Showcase Cinemas, Warwick 1200 Quaker Lane, Warwick, RI
12:20 2:40 5:00 7:50 10:10pm
Cinema World Lincoln Mall 16 - 622 George Washington Highway, Lincoln, RI
10:45am - 1:00 - 4:25 - 7:05 - 9:20pm
Not opera but a movie about elderly opera singers--
Quartet |
| Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith |
Lifelong friends Wilf and Reggie, together with former colleague Cissy, are residents of Beecham House, a home for retired opera singers. Every year on Giuseppe Verdi's birthday, the residents unite to give a concert to raise funds for their home. But when Jean Horton, a former grande dame of the opera fallen on hard times, also Reggie's ex-wife, moves into the home to everyone's surprise, the plans for this year's concert start to unravel. As old grudges threaten to undermine past glories and theatrical temperaments play havoc with the rehearsal schedule, it becomes apparent that having four of the finest singers in English operatic history under one roof offers no guarantee that the show will go on.
Release date: January 11, 2013 (USA)
Director: Dustin Hoffman
Running time: 98 minutes
Screenplay: Ronald Harwood
Cinematography: John de Borman
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NO OPERA ON WGBH TV
THIS WEEK!
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