Week 8 at the Met

There are multiple highlights during Week 8 at the Met. Renée Fleming appears in two productions with one of them also featuring Cecilia Barotli and Sir Bryn Terfel. Luciano Pavarotti stars in a historic production of La Bohème. There is also an opera by Kaija Saariaho from 2000 and a rarely performed opera based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

All productions can be found at the Metropolitan Opera’s website. Each opera becomes available at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT on their respective dates and will remain available for streaming for 23 hours.

Here is the complete list of productions for Week 8 at the Met:

Monday, May 4 – Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro

Conducted by James Levine, starring Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Susanne Mentzer, Dwayne Croft, and Sir Bryn Terfel. This production dates back to 1998.

Bernard Holland, reviewing for the New York Times said of this production, directed by Jonathan Miller, “One cannot say enough about the septet ending Act II and the final ensemble of Act IV: episodes in which theater and music merged as they rarely do, and where each player was made exquisitely aware of every other. Mozart operas move on the wheels of their ensembles, and Mr. Miller — with no coups de theatre and many acts of self-effacing care — made them turn.”

Tuesday, May 5 – Thomas’s Hamlet

Conducted by Louis Langrée, starring Marlis Petersen, Jennifer Larmore, Simon Keenlyside, and James Morris. This production took place in 2010.

French composer Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas is not the best known of opera composers. Over a two-year period he wrote the two operas for which he’s best known: Mignon and Hamlet.

Of Hamlet, many critics ultimately found that perhaps Thomas was biting off more than he could chew by taking Shakespeare’s play as the basis for this opera. But George Loomis, writing for The Classical Review said of this production, “…it is safe to say that many who witnessed the premiere of the Metropolitan Opera’s fascinating new production of Hamlet on Tuesday evening found the experience closer to watching the Shakespeare play than they ever thought possible. Thomas may have been audacious in his choice of subject, but he also took his musical-dramatic task seriously.”

Wednesday, May 6 – Saariaho’s  L’Amour de Loin

Conducted by Susanna Mälkki, starring Susanna Phillips, Tamara Mumford, and Eric Owens. This production took place in 2016.

L’amour de Loin tells the story of a troubadour who has a pre-determined idea of what perfect love would be. But he is convinced he will never find it. Once he’s told by a newly-arrived pilgrim that his love does indeed exist, he becomes hopeful. Simultaneously a lovelorn countess is told of a man whose view of love is just what she’s desiring. Can love work between the two?

Kaija Saariaho’s opera, with a libretto by Amin Maalouf, had its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in August of 2000. This production marked the first opera written by a woman to be staged at the Met since 1903. With Mälkki conducting, it became the first opera written by a woman and conducted bya woman as part of the Met Opera Live broadcasts. At the time, Mälkki was only the fourth woman to conduct performances at the famed opera house.

Thursday, May 7 – R. Strauss’s Capriccio

Conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, starring Renée Fleming, Sarah Connolly, Joseph Kaiser, Russell Braun, Morten Frank Larsen, and Peter Rose. This production dates back to 2011.

When Fleming decided to do the role of the Countess in this opera by Strauss in 2011, it was the first time she had performed the full opera at the Met. Anthony Tomassini of the New York Times was impressed. “The role suits her ideally at this stage of her career, and she sang splendidly. The performance over all, sensitively conducted by Andrew Davis and featuring a winning cast, made an excellent case for this Strauss curiosity, his final opera, which had its premiere in Munich in 1942 in the midst of World War II.”

As the Countess, Fleming must make one decision that resonates in a second way. Does she prefer words or music? And by extension, does she prefer the poet or the composer that make up the love triangle in this opera.

Friday, May 8 – Puccini’s La Bohème

Conducted by James Levine, starring Renata Scotto and Luciano Pavarotti. This production took place in 1977.

This 1977 production of Puccini’s beloved opera was actually the first Live at the Met broadcast. That it starred two of the biggest names in opera at the time probably had something to do with La Bohème being the first of what became hundreds of broadcasts. Pavarotti made his Met Opera debut in 1968 in La Bohème.

The inclusion of this particular production is part of the Met Opera’s Viewer’s Choice.

Saturday, May 9 – The Opera House

Rather than show another opera production, the Met Opera is showing this 2017 documentary. It’s a fascinating look at everything it took to build the Met at Lincoln Center in the 1960s. By extension, Susan Froemke’s film also looks at what life was like, both politically and artistically, at the time. Amongst the people contributing to the documentary was soprano Leontyne Price.

May 9th would have been the final performance of the 2019-2020 Met Opera season.

Sunday, May 10 – Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci

Two commonly paired one-act operas from 2015 close out the week in performances: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci. Both operas are conducted by Fabio Luisi.

Cavalleria Rusticana stars Eva-Maria Westbroek, Marcelo Álvarez, and George Gagnidze. 

Pagliacci stars Patricia Racette, Marcelo Álvarez, and George Gagnidze.

There was controversy surrounding these two productions when David McVicar’s productions replaced the long-performed productions by Franco Zeffirelli. Alex Ross, writing for The New Yorker made the case for the new productions as a way for the Met Opera to continue to grow and evolve.

For those relatively new to opera, these two one-act productions are easy ways to explore the art form. There is well-known music, but there is more. Pagliacci is not just a commonly performed opera, it is also one that is referenced in countless films and television shows. But don’t count out Cavalleria Rusticana. If you’ve seen either Raging Bull or The Godfather III, you’ll recognize this opera, too.

Those are your choices for Week 8 at the Met. What would you like to see in Week 9 or 10? Let us know.

Photo: Tamara Mumford, Eric Owens and Susanna Phillips in L’Amour de Loin. (Photo by Ken Howard/Courtesy of Met Opera)