There are four productions being made available this week and one of them will be performed live. All productions will be available for 24 hours for free. The archive films being shown become available at 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT. The live performance on Thursday will take place at 12:00 PM EDT/9:00 AM PDT.

Each opera has a unique link taking you to its event page.

Here is the line-up for Vienna State Opera: April 27th – April 30th:

Tuesday, April 27th: Beethoven’s Fidelio

Conducted by Peter Schneider; starring Klaus Florian Vogt, Anja Kempe, Evgeny Nikitin, Stephen Milling and Valentina Nafornita. This Otto Schenk production is from the 2015-2016 season.

The only opera ever composed by Ludwig van Beethoven had its premiere in 1814 in Vienna. This was the third version of the opera.

Beethoven went through several librettists and made multiple changes until the opera we all know was finally presented to the world.

Leonore gets a job in a prison disguised as a man who goes by the name Fidelio. She’s there because her husband, Florestan, has been imprisoned by a political rival, Don Pizarro. Even with a burgeoning relationship with Rocco who runs the jail, Leonore might not have time enough to rescue her husband as Pizarro is set on executing Florestan just as an investigation into prison cruelty is launched.

Wednesday, April 28th – Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde

Conducted by Peter Schneider; starring Peter Seiffert, Iréne Theorin, Albert Dohmen, Tomas Konieczny and Petra Lang. This David McVicar production is from the 2014-2015 season.

Richard Wagner wrote the music and the libretto for Tristan and Isolde. Gottfried von Strassburg’s novel, Tristan, from the 12th century, serves as his inspiration. The opera had its world premiere in Munich in 1865.

It is a bit of oversimplifying to say that the story in Tristan und Isolde is about two lovers whose passion for each other is so strong, it can only truly thrive in the afterlife. But frankly, in a nutshell, that’s the essential premise. But don’t be mistaken, this is pure drama and glorious music.

Thursday, April 29th – Gounod’s Faust – LIVE PERFORMANCE (starts one hour earlier)

Conducted by Bertrand de Billy; starring Juan Diego Flórez, Nicole Car, Adam Palka and Étienne Dupuis. This is a Frank Castorf production.

Charles Gounod’s Faust had its world premiere in Paris in 1859. The libretto was written by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré who used both Carré’s play Faust et Marguerite and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, Part One as inspiration.

This oft-told story is about a man who sacrifices his soul to the devil, Méphistophélès, in order to maintain his youth and the love of Marguerite. 

But you know what happens when you make a deal with the devil…it’s not going to end well.

Friday, April 30th – Mozart’s DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE

Conducted by Adam Fischer; starring Jörg Schneider, Olga Bezsmertna, Hill Fahima, Thomas Tatzl and René Pape. This Moshe Lesier and Patrice Caurier production is from the 2017-2018 season.

Mozart’s opera premiered in September 1791 in Vienna a mere two months before the composer died. It features a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder.

Prince Tamino is asked by the Queen of the Night to free her daughter Pamina from Sarastro. Tamino, however, is impressed with Sarastro and the way his community lives in the world and wants to be a part of it. Both alone and together Tamino and Pamina endure multiple tests. If they succeed, what will happen to them? To the Queen of the Night?

I hope you enjoy Vienna State Opera: April 27th – April 30th

Photo: Peter Seiffert and Iréne Theorin in Tristan und Isolde (Photo Courtesy Wiener Staatsoper)

The post Vienna State Opera: April 27th – April 30th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Indirectly celebrating this natal day are multiple options that fall under the category of a line from Hamlet, “The play’s the thing.” Beyond the Shakespeare options are five other plays.

If you want funky jazz, contemporary classical music, operas from Europe or modern dance, I’ve got that for you as well. They’re all so good, I can’t make one of them the top pick.

In As You Like It, these famous words are said, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” So in this spirit of this weekend’s Academy Awards, the nominees for great players in Best Bets: April 23rd – April 26th are:

THEATER: Neat – Manhattan Theatre Club – Now – April 25th

Charlayne Woodard’s one-person show Neat opened at New York City Center in a Manhattan Theatre Club production in 1997.

Lawrence Van Gelder, writing for the New York Times, said of Woodard’s play, “Ms. Woodard sings, she dances, but most of all she tells good stories, bringing them to life in ways that are poignant.”

Woodard revisits the work in this prevention as part of MTC’s Curtain Call series. The great thing is you can see this wonderful play and performance for free. All you have to do is register. But act quickly, the run ends on Sunday, April 25th.

DANCE: Digital Program 5 – San Francisco Ballet – Now – May 12th

Three archival performances make up this program from San Francisco Ballet. They include 7 for Eight from 2016 and Anima Animus and Snowblind from 2018.

Helgi Tomasson is the creator of 7 for Eight which is set to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. David Dawson is the choreographer of Anima Animus which is set to music by Ezio Bosso. Cathy Marston is the choreographer of Snowblind which uses music by Amy Beach, Philip Feeney, Arthur Foote, and Arvo Pärt.

Tickets are $29 and allow for 72 hours of access to the program.

PLAY READING: Two Sisters and a Piano – New Normal Rep – Now – May 23rd ART IN AN EMAIL

Playwright Nilo Cruz is best-known for his Pulitzer Prize winning play Anna in the Tropics from 2002. Three years prior to that success he premiered Two Sisters and a Piano.

The play tells the story of two sisters under house arrest in Cuba in 1991. One sister is an author and the lieutenant keeping track of their case has fallen in love with her. The other is a pianist who finds her piano tuner falling head over heels for his client.

Cruz has directed a new reading of Two Sisters and a Piano with Jimmy Smits (Anna in the Tropics); Florencia Lozano (Rinse, Repeat), Gary Perez and Daphne Rubin-Vega (both of whom appeared in Two Sisters and a Piano at The Public Theater.)

In A.D. Amorosi‘s review of this reading for Variety, he says, “Cruz’s playful poetic language, even at its most harshly politicized, and his easy direction allow his actors a delicious freedom. Even when its characters are not free, enclosed in one cramped apartment with nothing but mangoes, rice and the occasional rum shot (and despite the virtual limitations of a laptop’s viewing screen), Two Sisters and a Piano is as open as a Havana landscape, with all of its flavors, scents and sensory overloads at full tilt.”

Tickets are $25 with $10 tickets available for students.

PLAY: The Royale – Private Reels: From the LCT Archives on Broadway on Demand – Now – May 16th

Real life boxer Jack Jackson (the first African-American world heavyweight champion) serves as the inspiration for the story of Jay “The Sport” Jackson in Marco Ramirez’s 2016 play The Royale. (He was also the inspiration for The Great White Hope).

The story is told in six rounds.

Rachel Chavkin, Tony Award-winner for Hadestown, directed this production. Starring are McKinley Belcher III (the 2020 revival of A Soldier’s Play), Khris Davis (Sweat), Montego Glover (Tony nominee for Memphis), John Lavelle (Catch-22) and Clarke Peters (Five Guys Named Moe).

As Ben Brantley said in his rave New York Times review, “…the great subject of The Royale, which has been given such original and graceful theatrical form, is the selfish single-mindedness required of champions, and the repercussions such a focus has when it’s exercised by a black man in a white man’s world.” 

There is no charge to watch The Royale, but you will have to register with Broadway on Demand.

THEATER: An Iliad – A Noise Within – Now – May 16th

Easily one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I’ve had seeing a play was when I attended Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson’s An Iliad at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. It’s a powerful work that is inspired by Homer’s Iliad.

This play, specifically called An Iliad because it isn’t the Iliad, calls for just one actor and a cellist and that actor has to be completely on top of his/her game.

A Noise Within is offering streaming performances of An Iliad with co-founder Geoff Elliott and actress Deborah Strang alternating performances. Joining them as both composer and cellist is Karen Hall. Julia Rodriguez-Elliott directs.

The link in the title will take you to the website so you can see which actor is performing in each performance. Tickets, which are $25 for an individual and $40 for a family, must be reserved a minimum of two hours before each performance.

To see what Denis O’Hare had to say about the show, check out my 2014 interview with him here.

OPERA: Jules Massenet’s Manon – Wiener Staatsoper – April 22nd – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM

Conducted by Frédéric Chaslin; starring Nina Machaidze, Juan Diego Flórez and Adrian Eröd. This Andrei Serban production is from 2019.

Massenet’s opera was composed in 1883 and had its world premiere in January of 1884 in Paris. The libretto is by  Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille.

They based the opera on the 1731 Abbé Prévost novel, L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut.

A young woman from a small town has an intense desire to lavish herself with all the riches and pleasures life has to offer her. But life doesn’t always work out the way we want. Sounds like a story that could be written today.

This is the first of Vienna State Opera’s productions I’ve included in our listings. Very much like the Metropolitan Opera, they offer a different production each day. There is no charge to watch the productions, but you do need to register on their website. Each production will be available for 24 hours.

MUSICAL: A Letter to Harvey Milk – Now – April 25th

The creators of this musical, Jerry James, Laura I. Kramer, Ellen M. Schwartz and Cheryl Stern were inspired by a short story of the same name by Lesléa Newman. A Letter to Harvey Milk opened off-Broadway in 2018 at the Acorn Theatre in New York.

The setting is San Francisco in the mid 1980s. Harry, a kosher butcher who has retired and is also a widower, is given an assignment to write a letter to someone who is dead. He chooses California politician Harvey Milk – the first openly gay politician elected in California who was later assassinated by Dan White in 1978. But why?

Members of the original cast has reunited for this streaming production. They include Adam Heller, Julia Knitel, Cheryl Stern who are joined by Michael Bartoli, Jeremy Greenbaum, Aury Krebs and Ravi Roth. Evan Pappas directs.

Tickets range from $10 – $50 with proceeds going to The Actors Fund and HIAS. All tickets purchased will allow viewing of the musical through Sunday, April 25th at 11:59 PM EDT/8:59 PDT.

SHAKESPEARE: Shakespeare Sonnet Slam – Gingold Theatrical Group – April 23rd – 6:00 PM EDT/3:00 PM PDT

Happy Birthday William Shakespeare. You don’t look a day over 450. The Gingold Theatrical Group is celebrating by holding a virtual open mic where Shakespeare’s sonnets or other material based on or inspired by the Sonnets will be performed. Everyone is invited to participate and you have three minutes to give it your all.

Joining in this celebration are Stephen Brown-Fried, Robert Cuccioli, Tyne Daly, George Dvorsky, Melissa Errico, Alison Fraser, Tom Hewitt, Daniel Jenkins, John-Andrew Morrison, Patrick Page, Maryann Plunkett, Tonya Pinkins, Laila Robins, Jay O. Sanders, Renee Taylor, Jon Patrick Walker and more.

You’ll have to come up with your own take on the Sonnets, but this is a free party! You can find the Shakespeare Sonnet Slam on Gingold Theatrical Group’s Facebook page.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL MUSIC: Sonic Shift – Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra – Premieres April 23rd at 9:30 PM EDT/6:30 PM PDT

Composer Jessie Montgomery has curated this new episode of LA Chamber Orchestra’s Close Quarters series. On the program are works by composers Marcos Balter, Anna Meredith and Alyssa Weinberg. Each work explores the progression from acoustic music to electronic and electro-acoustic music with an emphasis on the wind section.

Will Kim provides the visuals that accompany the performance which is lead by Christopher Rountree of Wild Up! Nadia Sirota is the music producer.

This is the first of two Close Quarters episodes curated by Montgomery. I recently interviewed her about working with LACO. You can read that interview here.

There’s no charge to watch this performance. Donations are encouraged.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Neave Trio – Asheville Chamber Music Series – April 23rd – April 25th – Art in an EMAIL

Pianist Eri Nakamura, cellist Mikhail Veselov and violinist Anna Williams are the members in Neave Trio. Following on the heels of their 2019 album Her Voice, which featured female composers, their concert this weekend as part of the Asheville Chamber Music Series will also showcase female composers.

On the program is the Trio No. 1, Op. 33 by Louise Farrench; Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio and Cécile Chaminade’s Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 11.

Perhaps none of these composers is familiar to you. They aren’t to me. But Neave Trio’s passion for this lesser-known music makes this concert utterly compelling.

There are three performances: Friday, April 23rd at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT; Saturday at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT and Sunday at 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT.

You can watch this concert for free, but donations are encouraged.

JAZZ: Sun Ra Arkestra – SFJAZZ – April 23rd – 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

The name Herman Poole Blount probably doesn’t mean anything to you. But if told that was the birth name of Le Sony’r Ra who would later become known as Sun Ra, you might have a better idea who he was.

Experimental, free and avant-garde jazz was his specialty. It was always performed best by the Sun Ra Arkestra.

After Sun Ra’s death in 1993, alto saxophonist Marshall Allen starting leading the ensemble. As he does in this concert at SFJAZZ from 2017.

To get a sense of what might be in store for you in this Fridays at Five concert, here are some of the songs being performed: Space Loneliness, Saturn, Angels and Demons at Play and Space is the Place. It’s going to be trippy.

And you can take that trip for $5 (which offers one full month of digital membership or $60 (which includes a one year digital membership.)

There is an encore showing on April 24th at 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT.

PLAY: Romeo and Juliet – Great Performances on PBS – April 23rd – Check Local Listings

You don’t expect just some stand-up sonnets for Shakespeare’s birthday, do you? Of course not. Let’s throw in some tragedy. As in the tragic love story of them all – Romeo and Juliet.

The National Theatre created this film which maneuvers its way from rehearsal into and around the Lyttleton Theatre. The cast are stuck in a theater that has shut down and act out the story of the Capulets and the Montagues.

Starring as the title characters are Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley. The cast also includes Fisayo Akinade, Ella Dacres, Deborah Findlay, Tamsin Greig, Ellis Howard, Lloyd Hutchinson, David Judge, Adrian Lester, Lucian Msamati, Alex Mugnaioni, Shubham Saraf and Colin Tierney. Simon Godwin is the director.

As with any show on PBS, I’d advise checking your local listings for exact airdate and time in your part of the country.

OPERA: Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte – Wiener Staatsoper – April 24th – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT

Conducted by Adam Fischer; starring Benjamin Bruns, Olga Bezsmertna, Íride Martínez, Markus Werba and Annika Gerhards. This Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier production is from 2015.

Mozart’s opera premiered in September 1791 in Vienna a mere two months before the composer died. It features a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder.

Prince Tamino is asked by the Queen of the Night to free her daughter Pamina from Sarastro. Tamino, however, is impressed with Sarastro and the way his community lives in the world and wants to be a part of it. Both alone and together Tamino and Pamina endure multiple tests. If they succeed, what will happen to them? To the Queen of the Night?

MONOLOGUES: Whispers International – April 24th – 2:00 PM EDT/11:00 AM PDT

As you know, there was a massive blast in Lebanon on August 4th of last year. Almost 200 people were killed and over 6,000 people were injured.

Whispers International was created to raise money for the victims and to help in the rebuilding of the area around the blast site.

British playwrights Geraldine Breenna, Mike Elliston, Kim Hardy, Angela Harvey, John Jesper and Kate Webster have made their writing available to a company of Lebanese actors to perform.

Those actors are Nadine Labaki, Georges Khabbaz, Nada Abou Farhat, Talal El Jurdi, Bernadette Houdeib, Rita Hayek, Badih Abou Chacra, Dory Al-Samarany, Bshara Atallah, Sany Abdul Baki, Josyane Boulos, Agatha Ezzedine and Hagop Der Ghougassian 

Tickets are £13.52 which at press time equals approximately $18.75.

OPERA: Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel – Weiner Staatsoper – April 25th – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT

Conducted by Christian Thielemann; starring Ileana Tosca, Daniela Sindram, Adrian Eröd, Janina Baechle, Michaela Schuster, Annika Gerhards

The Grimm brother’s fairly tale about a brother and sister who are lured to a house with sweets and candies only to find a witch who wants to eat the duo is the basis for this opera that had its debut in 1893 in Weimar. Richard Strauss conducted the premiere. A second production the next year in Hamburg was conducted by Gustav Mahler. Adelheid Wette, Humpderdink’s sister, wrote the libretto.

Hansel and Gretel has the distinction of finding much of its popularity not just through opera houses, but on the radio. It was the first opera broadcast on the radio in Europe when a 1923 Covent Garden production was heard over the airwaves. Eight years later in 1931, it became the first ever opera broadcast in its entirety by the Metropolitan Opera.

The opera is commonly seen and heard during the Christmas season. An odd choice, but librettist Adelheid Wette did soften some of the harsher elements found in the original Grimm tales for her brother’s opera.

CABARET: Mandy Gonzalez – Seth Concert Series – April 25th – 3:00 PM EDT/12:00 PM PDT

With the upcoming film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, it’s a great time to check in on one of the musical’s original cast members: Mandy Gonzalez, who originated the role of Nina.

Gonazalez is an insanely talented singer and actress.

I saw her in In the Heights. She’s also appeared in Wicked, Lennon, Dance of the Vampires and as Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton.

I’ve also seen her perform her cabaret act and it is impossible to express the amount of pure joy that comes out of her when she’s singing. (And she does a killer version of Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.)

She is Seth Rudetsky’s guest in his concert series this weekend.

Tickets are $25 and you can watch the live performance at 3:00 PM EDT or the replay of the concert at 8:00 PM EDT. Whichever you choose, you will certainly have a good time.

IN PERSON: DANCE: Uniting in Movement – American Ballet Theatre – Segerstrom Center for the Arts – April 25th – 1:30 PM PDT

You could be ambivalent about the Academy Awards and go see a rare live performance of ballet in Costa Mesa. ABT has been creating a program of three different works that were filmed this week. On Sunday, they are opening up Segerstrom Center for the Arts for a limited number of people to see the performance live.

The works are Let Me Sing Forever More by choreographer Jessica Lang and set to the recordings of Tony Bennett (clearly the title comes from Fly Me to the Moon); La Follia Variations by Lauren Lovette set to music of the same name by composer Francesco Geminiani and Indestructible Light by Darrell Grand Moultrie which is set to music by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Neal Hefti and Billy Strayhorn.

Hefti, by the way, composed the theme for the television series Batman.

At press time the only available tickets were $80 each. There are Covid-protocols in place for this performance.

For those willing to wait, Uniting in Movement will be available for streaming through Segerstrom Center for the Arts from May 12th – May 26th for $25.

CHAMBER MUSIC: Argus Quartet: noise/Silence – Five Boroughs Music Festival and The Noguchi Museum – April 25th – 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT (Art in an email)

Cellist Audrey Chen, violinists Clara Kim and Gioncarlo Latta and violist Maren Rothfritz make up the Argus Quartet. Though they perform music from across all eras of classical music, they seem to excel in contemporary works.

This concert was filmed at one of my favorite museums in New York, The Noguchi Museum. It is being presented by the Five Boroughs Music Festival. The Argus Quartet will perform works by composers John Cage (String Quartet in Four Parts); Dorothy Rudd More (Modes for String Quartet), Rolf Wallin (several selections from Curiosity Cabinet) and Paul Wiancko (Vox Petra).

The concert will be available for free streaming on the Five Boroughs Music Festival YouTube channel through December 31st.

OPERA: Bizet’s Carmen – Weiner Staatsoper – April 26th – 1:00 PM EDT/10:00 AM PDT

Conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada; starring Anita Rachvelishvili, Piotr Beczala, Erwin Schrott and Vera-Lotte Boecker. This Calixto Bieito production is from 2021.

Georges Bizet collaborated with librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy on this immensely popular opera. It was based on Propser Mérimée’s novella of the same name. 

When Carmen was first performed in Paris in 1875 it was considered both shocking and scandalous. 

Set in Seville, Spain, Carmen is a gypsy who has caught everyone’s eye. A soldier, Don José, plays coy and gives her no attention. Her flirtation causes troubles for both when Don José’s girlfriend, Micaëla arrives. Tensions escalate between the two women and after a knight fight, José must arrest Carmen. When she seduces him it sets off a series of events that will not end well for the gypsy woman.

PLAY: Measure for Measure – Goodman Theatre – April 26th – May 9th

Here’s another opportunity to celebrate the bard. But this isn’t going to be your standard production of a Shakespearean play.

Director Robert Falls has transported this play from Vienna to New YOrk City circa the late 1970s (or as I like to describe it, before Disney moved into Broadway).

The story is still the same. Claudio is sentenced to death under an arcane law invoked by Angelo who has taken over for the Duke who has left rather than have to deal with morality issues in (originally Vienna). Claudio’s crime? Getting his girlfriend, Juliet, pregnant.

The Duke returns in disguise and becomes aware of the decisions Angelo has been making. Deception, bargains, bartering, love and death are all on the table in this fairly convoluted play.

Justin Hayford, in his review for the Chicago Reader, had mixed feelings about the production:

“It’s rare for one of Shakespeare’s plays to be ripped from its original setting, transplanted across centuries and continents—and still end up feeling vital, urgent, and utterly contemporary. At least for a while. If Falls and his stellar cast could maintain that vitality past intermission, they’d have a masterpiece on their hands.”

Nonetheless, I think the concept sounds interesting and worth checking out. What else are you going to do on a Monday night? (Of course, I have another option for you…)

Tickets are free, but require registration.

AUDIO PLAY: Brother, Brother – New York Theatre Workshop – Live Premiere April 26th – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT Art in an email

New York Theater Workshop is offering up a twist on audio plays. This will feature visuals, but not of the performers. Rather, artists Ibrahim Rayintakath​ and Liang-Hsin Huang have created imagery that will accompany Aleshea Harris’ play.

Brother, Brother tells the story of two brothers sharing a bicycle while making their way through Appalachia. They are actors headed to Tennessee. They start getting followed by a mysterious man in a maroon suit. At this moment the dreams they have for their future are confronted by the acts from their past.

Starring in this audio play are Amari Cheathom (terrific in August Wilson’s Jitney), André De Shields (Tony Award-winner for Hadestown), Gbenga Akinnagbe (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Owen Tabaka (Ratatouille: The Tik Tok Musical). Shayok Misha Chowdhury directs.

Tickets are $10. Brother, Brother will remain available for streaming through July 25th.

Those are my Best Bets: April 23rd – April 26th. But a few reminders (and a preview):

MasterVoices has debuted the 3rd part of Myths and Hymns, a series of short films set to Adam Guettel’s song cycle. For details about the series, go here. For my interview with MasterVoices Artistic Director Ted Sperling, go here.

Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Gala 2021 is available for streaming through Sunday. For details about the program and how to get tickets, go here.

Carnegie Hall’s Voices of Hope series continues with multiple new shows available for free viewing. For details go here.

The Metropolitan Opera streams Philip Glass’ Satyagraha on Friday (highly recommended); Beethoven’s Fidelio on Saturday and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites on Sunday (also highly recommended). For details and previews go here.

Here’s a preview of next week at the Met where the theme is City of Light (all the operas take place in Paris). Monday’s opera is, what else, La Bohème by Puccini.

That truly is the full and complete list of Best Bets: April 23rd – April 26th. Enjoy your weekend!

Photo: William Shakespeare (By BatyrAshirbayev98/Courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

The post Best Bets: April 23rd – April 26th appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The week begins and ends with two different operas telling the story of Cinderella – both of which star Joyce DiDonato as the title character. There’s also the first-time streaming of the Met’s 1986-1987 season production of Puccini’s Turandot with Eva Marton, Leona Mitchell, Plácido Domingo and Paul Plishka. (Wait until you read what Donal Henahan had to say about this production!)

Since the Met is re-running productions as the bulk of their weekly streaming schedule, I’m going to mix in interviews with the performers and creators in place of clips to avoid the redundancy of showing the same few clips available. Let me know your thoughts!

All productions become available at 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST and remain available for 23 hours. Schedules and timings may be subject to change.

The Met is heavily promoting their Met Stars Live in Concert series and the planned resumption of performances in the 2021-2022 season, so you’ll have to go past those announcements and promos to find the streaming productions on the Metropolitan Opera website. 

If you read this early enough on April 12th, you’ll still have time to see the 2017-2018 season production of Verdi’s Luisa Miller which concludes From Page to Stage week.

Here is the full line-up for Week 57 at the Met:

Monday, April 12 – Massenet’s Cendrillon

Conducted by Bertrand de Billy; starring Kathleen Kim, Joyce DiDonato, Alice Coote and Stephanie Blythe. This Laurent Pelly production is from the 2017-2018. This is an encore presentation of the production previously made available on June 27th, September 10th and December 22nd.

Charles Perrault’s 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale serves as the inspiration for Massenet’s opera. Henry Caïn wrote the libretto. The world premiere of Cendrillon took place in 1899 in Paris.

You may recall that The Royal Opera made its production of Cendrillon available for streaming in late May. This is the same production with Joyce DiDonato and Alice Coote playing the roles of “Cendrillon” and “Prince Charming.”

Zachary Woolfe, in his New York Times review, praised DiDonato for the child-like wonder she brings to the role. 

“Ms. DiDonato does sincerity better than anyone since Ms. von Stade. At 49, she can still step on stage and, with modest gestures and mellow sound, persuade you she’s a put-upon girl. She experiences the story with an open face and endearing ingenuousness, a sense of wonder that never turns saccharine. In soft-grained passages, she is often simply lovely.”

Tuesday, April 13 – Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta / Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle

Conducted by Valery Gergiev; starring Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczała in Iolanta; Nadja Michael and Mikhail Petrenko in Bluebeard’s Castle. This Mariusz Trelinsk production is from the 2014-2015 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on June 9th and November 9th.

Iolanta was the last opera composed by Tchaikovsky. It featured a libretto by his brother Modesto and is based on a Danish play. The opera had its world premiere in 1892 in Saint Petersburg. It was on a program that also included The Nutcracker.

Set in France in the 15th century, Iolanta tells the story of the title character who is blind, but doesn’t know she is blind. Her father, King Rene, brings a doctor who believe he can cure her blindness, but only if she is made aware of it. The King refuses to take that chance. However, when a Count visits and falls in love with Iolanta, he reveals her condition to her. Furious the King vows to execute the Count. What will Iolanta do? What can she do?

This marked the first time Iolanta was performed at the Metropolitan Opera. The second half of the program was Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle.

The Hungarian composer wrote the opera in 1911 and made modifications in 1912 and 1917 before its world premiere in Budapest in 1918. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs based on a French folktale written by Charles Perrault.

Bluebeard’s Castle tells the story of Bluebeard who arrives at his castle with Judith who insists on their being more light in the castle. Bluebeard initially resists, but relents and one-by-one seven doors are opened throughout the castle. What Judith finds as each room gets opened leads to a startling conclusion for the unsuspecting woman.

These two operas are not commonly performed on the same program. Director Trelinsk explained his reasoning to the New York Times in an interview prior to opening night of his productions.

“Judith continues the story of Iolanta. We feel that the happy ending is not an end at all — that often, our addictions are stronger than us. There’s the classic repetition compulsion, where many years later you realize you have to leave normal life in order to relive your childhood trauma.”

Wednesday, April 14 – Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte

Conducted by James Levine; starring Golda Schultz, Kathryn Lewek, Charles Castronovo, Markus Werba, Christian Van Horn and René Pape. This revival of the 2004 Julie Taymor production is from the 2017-2018 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on June 28th, October 1st and March 4th.

Mozart’s opera premiered in September 1791 in Vienna a mere two months before the composer died. It features a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder.

Prince Tamino is asked by the Queen of the Night to free her daughter Pamina from Sarastro. Tamino, however, is impressed with Sarastro and the way his community lives in the world and wants to be a part of it. Both alone and together Tamino and Pamina endure multiple tests. If they succeed, what will happen to them? To the Queen of the Night?

Anyone who has seen Taymor’s work for such shows as Juan Darién and The Lion King knows that she regularly employs puppets and wildly inventive staging. 

Alex Ross, writing for The New Yorker about the original 2004 production said, “The Met stage has never been so alive with movement, so charged with color, so brilliant to the eye. The outward effect is of a shimmering cultural kaleidoscope, with all manner of mystical and folk traditions blending together. Behind the surface lies a melancholy sense that history has never permitted such a synthesis—that Mozart’s theme of love and power united is nothing more than a fever dream. But Taymor allows the Enlightenment fantasy to play out to the end.”

Thursday, April 15 – Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel

Conducted by Thomas Fulton; starring Judith Blegen, Frederica von Stade, Jean Kraft, Rosalind Elias and Michael Devlin. This revival of Nathaniel Merrill’s 1967 production is from the 1982-1983 season. This is an encore presentation of the production previously available on August 23rd.

The Grimm brother’s fairly tale about a brother and sister who are lured to a house with sweets and candies only to find a witch who wants to eat the duo is the basis for this opera that had its debut in 1893 in Weimar. Richard Strauss conducted the premiere. A second production the next year in Hamburg was conducted by Gustav Mahler. Adelheid Wette, Humpderdink’s sister, wrote the libretto.

Hansel and Gretel has the distinction of finding much of its popularity not just through opera houses, but on the radio. It was the first opera broadcast on the radio in Europe when a 1923 Covent Garden production was heard over the airwaves. Eight years later in 1931, it became the first ever opera broadcast in its entirety by the Metropolitan Opera.

The opera is commonly seen and heard during the Christmas season. An odd choice, but librettist Adelheid Wette did soften some of the harsher elements found in the original Grimm tales for her brother’s opera.

Friday, April 16 – Dvořák’s Rusalka

Conducted by Mark Elder; starring Kristine Opolais, Katarina Dalayman, Jamie Barton, Brandon Jovanovich and Eric Owens. This Mary Zimmerman production is from the from the 2016-2017 season. This is an encore presentation of the production previously available on July 31st.

Rusalka was Antonín Dvořák’s ninth opera and was based on fairytales. Poet Jaroslav Kvapil wrote the libretto. Rusalka had its world premiere in Prague in 1901.

In essence, this is the same story told in Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. A water sprite, Rusalka, tells her father she has fallen in love with a human prince and wants to join him in his world. He asks her to see a witch who gives her a potion to join the prince, but there are conditions: Rusalka will no longer be able to speak and she loses the opportunity to be immortal. More importantly, if the Prince does not stay in love with her, he will die and Rusalka will be damned for all eternity. This is definitely not a Disney version of the story.

Zimmerman’s production was a certified hit. The director won a Tony Award for her production of Metamorphoses and critics raved about both the look and approach to Dvořák’s dark opera. She didn’t shy away from the darker aspects of the story.

Saturday, April 17 – Puccini’s Turandot FIRST SHOWING

Conducted by James Levine; starring Eva Marton, Leona Mitchell, Plácido Domingo and Paul Plishka. This Franco Zeffirelli production is from the 1986-1987 season.

Puccini’s opera had its world premiere in 1926 in Milan. The libretto was written by Guiseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. The composer died two years before its premiere and the opera was completed by Franco Alfani.

Set in China, Turandot tells the story of Prince Calaf who has fallen in love with the title princess. She, however, isn’t very interested in him. In order for any man to marry Turandot, he is required to correctly answer three riddles. Should any answer be wrong, the suitor is put to death. Calaf is successful, but Turandot remains opposed to their marriage. He strikes a deal with her that will either lead to their marriage or his death. 

I’m normally loathe to print harsh comments from reviews of these productions. However, sometimes the comments are so entertaining, I have to make an exception.

If you’ve been reading Cultural Attaché’s opera previews, you know my fondness for the late Donal Henahan of the New York Times. He certainly didn’t mince words in his review of this production:

“Two decades have elapsed since the Metropolitan Opera opened its new house at Lincoln Center with a production of Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra so ornately designed and overbearingly directed by Franco Zeffirelli that the night went down as an unforgettable fiasco. Since then, Mr. Zeffirelli has gone from excess to excess, most recently giving the Met such glittering shows as his inflated Boheme and his elephantine Tosca, both of which seem to delight Met audiences with their extravagance. In fact, Mr. Zeffirelli’s is one of the great excess stories of our time.

“The newest Zeffirelli, his Turandot, had its premiere Thursday evening and proved to be one of the few operas in the standard repertory that precisely suit his massive style. Turandot can be something more than a gelid fairy tale held together by gaudy pageantry, but Mr. Zeffirelli chooses here to stress razzle-dazzle rather than any emotional substance. As a result, this version of Puccini’s last, unfinished opera has the emotional impact of a night at the Ice Capades.”

Sunday, April 18 – Rossini’s La Cenerentola

Conducted by Fabio Luisi; starring Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez, Pietro Spagnoli, Alessandro Corbelli and Luca Pisaroni. This revival of Cesare Lievi’s 1997 production is from the 2013-2014 season. This is an encore presentation of the production previously available on April 26th.

Gioachino Rossini’s opera of the Cinderella story is based on Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon. The libertto, by Jacopo Ferretti, was based on two previous libretti for operas based on the same story: Charles-Guillaume Étienne’s libretto for Nicolas Isouard’s 1810 opera Cendrillon and Francesco Fiorini’s libretto for Stefano Pavesi’s 1814 opera, Agatina o La virtú premiata. La Cenerentola had its world premiere in 1817 in Rome.

The story is exactly what you expect. After being relegated to chores around the house by her Stepmother and her Stepsisters, Cinderella dreams of going to the Prince’s ball. They mock her before leaving themselves for the event. Cinderella’s fairy godmother appears to make her dream a reality, but only if she returns by midnight.

Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times saw Javier Camarena performing the role of the prince and focused much of his review on the fact that Camarena took over the first three performances for Flórez who was ill. As much as he loved Camarena’s performance, he was also enamored with DiDonato:

“La Cenerentola,” Rossini’s version of the Cinderella fairy tale, is Cinderella’s show. The Metropolitan Opera has a dazzling, plucky and endearingly poignant Cinderella in the superb American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who triumphed Monday night when the company’s 1997 production, which gives this 1817 classic a 1930s look, returned to the repertory.”

That’s it for Week 57 at the Met. I hope you enjoyed the fairy tales being told this week.

At press time I don’t know what the theme will be for Week 58. Enjoy the operas! Enjoy your week!

Photo: A scene from Turandot. (Courtesy Met Opera Archives)

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Amongst the great performers are Hildegard Behrens, Renée Fleming, Mirella Freni, Susan Graham, Marilyn Horne, Jessye Norman, Leontyne Price, Patricia Racette, Golda Schultz and Beverly Sills. One of this week’s productions was directed by two-time Tony Award winner Julie Taymor.

All productions become available at 7:30 PM EST/4:30 PM PST and remain available for 23 hours. Schedules and timings may be subject to change.

The Met is heavily promoting their Met Stars Live in Concert series and the planned resumption of performances in the 2021-2022 season, so you’ll have to go past those announcements and promos to find the streaming productions on the Metropolitan Opera website. 

If you read this column early enough on March 1st, you might still have time to catch the 2014-2015 production of Il Trovatore by Giuseppe Verdi that concludes Dmitri Hvorostovsky Week at the Met.

Here is the full line-up of Week 51 at the Met:

Monday, March 1 – Donizetti’s Don Pasquale

Conducted by Nicola Rescigno; starring Beverly Sills, Alfredo Kraus, Håkan Hagegård and Gabriel Bacquier. This John Dexter production is from the 1978-1979 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on July 4th.

Gaetano Donizetti’s opera had its world premiere in Paris in 1843. The composer collaborated with Giovanni Ruffini on the libretto. It was inspired by the libretto Angelo Anelli had written for Ser Mercantonio, an opera by Stefano Pavesi from 1810.

Ernesto is Don Pasquale’s nephew. He wants to marry Norina, but Don Pasquale wants to choose his nephew’s bride. Others conspire against Pasquale and trick him so that ultimately Ernesto and Norina can marry.

With her role as Norina in this production of Don Pasquale, Beverly Sills gave her final performance at the Metropolitan Opera. This was a new production of the opera and was apparently created with Sills in mind.

Harold C. Schonberg, writing for the New York Times said of Sills’ performance, “The role of Norina did not tax Miss Sills’ vocal resources as much as some recent ones she has attempted. It would be idle to claim that she could handle everything in the part, but she paced herself well, avoided elaborate cadenzas or interpolations, and tried to project a clear line. Her work Thursday night was a triumph of experience and professionalism.”

Tuesday, March 2 – Verdi’s Falstaff

Conducted by James Levine; starring Mirella Freni, Barbara Bonney, Marilyn Horne, Susan Graham, Paul Plishka, Frank Lopardo and Bruno Pola. This revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1964 production is from the 1992-1993 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on July 24th, October 23rd and February 16th.

Two of Shakespeare’s play served as the inspiration for Verdi’s Falstaff: The Merry Wives of Windsor and sections from Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. Arrigo Boito adapted the plays to create the libretto. Falstaff had its world premiere in 1893 at La Scala in Milan. This was Verdi’s final opera and only his second comedic opera.

Simply put, Sir John Falstaff tries everything he can to woo two married woman so he can assume their husband’s vast fortunes. He’s rather bumbling in his efforts and the machinations in place to thwart his endeavors leave him with nothing short of a major comeuppance.

Edward Rothstein, writing for the New York Times, seemed to thoroughly enjoy the production. And he was very pleased with Plishka’s performance as the title character:

“Mr. Plishka gave the role an almost touchingly human quality. In the astonishing first scene aria, in which Falstaff declares his ambitions, mocks the idea of honor and praises his belly, there were few mannerisms or exaggerations. Mr. Plishka played it straight; he was a Falstaff almost enticingly full of himself. His voice was not often handsome (why should it have been?) but it was large, weighty and in character.”

Wednesday, March 3 – Wagner’s Die Walküre

Conducted by James Levine; starring Hildegard Behrens, Jessye Norman, Christa Ludwig, Gary Lakes, James Morris and Kurt Moll. This revival of the 1986 Otto Schenk production is from the 1988-1989 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available June 30th, October 8th and February 14th.

This is the second opera in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (also known as The Ring Cycle.) It had its premiere as a stand-alone opera in 1870 in Munich. The first performance of the entire cycle was at Bayreuth six years later. Wagner wrote the libretto as well as the music.

The son of the god Wotan is a fugitive named Siegmund. When he finds himself taking refuge at Sieglinde’s house, the two fall passionately in love. But Sieglinde is married and in order for her and Siegmund to be together Siegmund must defeat her husband in a battle to the death.

This production marked the first time Norman sang the role of Sieglinde at the Metropolitan Opera. She earned rave reviews. What disappointed Donal Henahan is his New York Times review were the very things that make this film possible.

“The most objectionable feature of the evening, however, was also a technological one. Television cameras worked away throughout the performance from positions at either side of the stage and at the foot of both aisles, distracting what surely must have been hundreds of people seated in line with brightly lighted monitor screens. The machines, one learned, were rehearsing for a later Walkure telecast and making ‘scratch’ tapes that might be needed as backups. This, mind you, from a company that will not employ supertitles because they detract the audience’s attention from the stage.”

With this production you’ll get to see the end result of that distraction.

Thursday, March 4 – Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte

Conducted by James Levine; starring Golda Schultz, Kathryn Lewek, Charles Castronovo, Markus Werba, Christian Van Horn and René Pape. This revival of the 2004 Julie Taymor production is from the 2017-2018 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on June 28th and October 1st.

Mozart’s opera premiered in September 1791 in Vienna a mere two months before the composer died. It features a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder.

Prince Tamino is asked by the Queen of the Night to free her daughter Pamina from Sarastro. Tamino, however, is impressed with Sarastro and the way his community lives in the world and wants to be a part of it. Both alone and together Tamino and Pamina endure multiple tests. If they succeed, what will happen to them? To the Queen of the Night?

Anyone who has seen Taymor’s work for such shows as Juan Darién and The Lion King knows that she regularly employs puppets and wildly inventive staging. 

Alex Ross, writing for The New Yorker about the original 2004 production said, “The Met stage has never been so alive with movement, so charged with color, so brilliant to the eye. The outward effect is of a shimmering cultural kaleidoscope, with all manner of mystical and folk traditions blending together. Behind the surface lies a melancholy sense that history has never permitted such a synthesis—that Mozart’s theme of love and power united is nothing more than a fever dream. But Taymor allows the Enlightenment fantasy to play out to the end.”

Friday, March 5 – Britten’s Peter Grimes

Conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles; starring Patricia Racette, Anthony Dean Griffey and Anthony Michaels-Moore. This John Doyle production is from the 2007-2008 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on May 14th, September 1st, November 13th and December 9th.

Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes had its world premiere in London in 1945. The libretto was written by Montagu Slater who based it on a poem in The Borough by George Crabbe.

In Peter Grimes, the title character is facing intense questioning after his apprentice has died. The townsfolk believe him to be responsible, the coroner rules he was not. Shortly afterward, Grimes recruits another apprentice, John. Ellen, the only person in town who believes Grimes, later finds herself questioning Grimes when she finds that John has intense bruising on his neck. Word spreads quickly about the boy’s injuries and the people in town want an investigation. What follows is tragic on multiple levels.

The title role was written by Benjamin Britten for his partner, Peter Pears. In the mid 60s, Jon Vickers’s performance has been considered definitive for quite some time.

John Doyle, best known for his minimalist productions of Stephen Sondheim musicals, made his Met Opera debut with this production of Peter Grimes. Griffey, having sung this opera a few times before this production, finally found his way into a lead role at the Met.

Anthony Tommasini, writing in the New York Times, found some unique qualities in how Griffey tackled the part: “Mr. Griffey, even though his voice has heft and carrying power, is essentially a lyric tenor. And it is disarming to hear the role sung with such vocal grace, even sweetness in places. Every word of his diction is clear. You sense Grimes’s dreamy side struggling to emerge. The moments of gentleness, though, make Mr. Griffey’s impulsive fits of hostility, his bursts of raw vocal power, seem even more threatening.”

Saturday, March 6 – Dvořák’s Rusalka

Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; starring Renée Fleming, Emily Magee, Dolora Zajick, Piotr Beczała and John Relyea. This revival of Otto Schenk’s 1993 production is from the 2013-2014 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on April 13th, November 19th and January 17th.

Rusalka was Antonín Dvořák’s ninth opera and was based on fairytales. Poet Jaroslav Kvapil wrote the libretto. Rusalka had its world premiere in Prague in 1901.

In essence, this is the same story told in Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. A water sprite, Rusalka, tells her father she has fallen in love with a human prince and wants to join him in his world. He asks her to see a witch who gives her a potion to join the prince, but there are conditions: Rusalka will no longer be able to speak and she loses the opportunity to be immortal. More importantly, if the Prince does not stay in love with her, he will die and Rusalka will be damned for all eternity. This is definitely not a Disney version of the story.

Zachary Woolfe, in his New York Times review, asked a question about this opera and relied on Nézet-Séguin to answer it:

“Dvorak’s Rusalka, about a water nymph doomed by her love for a human prince, is a fairy tale. But is it polite and placid, or savage and strange?

“There’s disagreement about the answer at the Metropolitan Opera, where a decidedly mixed revival of the work opened on Thursday evening. The conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a prime candidate to replace James Levine someday as the Met’s music director, offered a clear vote for savage. He led a fierce orchestral performance, bringing out the symphonic sweep in Dvorak’s score and underlining its most cutting details.”

His comments about Nézet-Séguin proved to be accurate, didn’t they?

Sunday, March 7 – Verdi’s La Forza del Destino

Conducted by James Levine; starring Leontyne Price, Giuseppe Giacomini, Leo Nucci and Bonaldo Giaiotti. This John Dexter production is from the 1983-1984 season. This is an encore presentation of the production that was made available on June 18th and 19th, November 6th and February 2nd.

This frequently performed Verdi opera had its world premiere in 1862 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The libretto is by Francesco Maria Piave, based on an 1835 Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino by Ángel de Saavedra.

Leonora is the daughter of the Marquis of Calatrava. She falls in love with Don Alvaro, but her father is dead-set against their getting married. A tragedy befalls all three leaving Leonora to find solace in a monastery.

This was one of Price’s greatest roles throughout her career. Bernard Holland, writing in the New York Times, raved about her performance.

“This was truly Miss Price’s evening. There were some jolting shifts of register, and Miss Price must protect her fragile upper notes with tender care; but her dramatic presence on stage and the overall impact of her singing went far beyond matters of technique. ‘Madre, pietosa Vergine’ had a stunning muted eloquence, and ‘Pace, pace, mio Dio!’ at the end had a sonorous beauty and power of communication that this listener – and I think everyone else in attendance – will think back upon for many years to come.”

That’s all for Week 51 at the Met. Next week’s theme will be Verismo Passions and will include two first-time streaming productions.

Enjoy the operas and enjoy your week!

Photo: Beverly Sills in Don Pasquale (Courtesy Met Opera Archives)

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From my perspective two productions stand out as highlights this week. The first is Tuesday’s streaming production of John Adams’s Doctor Atomic. The other is Sunday’s Julie Taymor directed production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

All productions are available by going to the Met Opera website. Each production is scheduled to become available at 7:30 PM EDT/4:30 PM PDT for a period of 23 hours. As we learned last week, schedules are subject to change.

Here is the line-up for Week 15 at the Met:

Monday, June 22 – Verdi’s La Traviata (this is the production originally scheduled to conclude Week 14 at the Met)

Conducted by Nicola Luisotti; starring Sonya Yoncheva, Michael Fabiano and Thomas Hampson. This is a revival of the 2011 Willy Decker production from the 2016-2017 season.

La Traviata is one of the world’s most performed operas. Verdi collaborated with librettist Francesco Maria Piave on this opera inspired by a play (La Dame aux camélias) that was itself inspired by the novel fils by Alexandre Dumas. The opera had its world premiere in 1853 in Venice.

Like many good love stories, this one does not end well. Violetta (Yoncheva) is in love with Alfredo Germont (Fabiano). His father (Hampson) demands that she give up on her one-true love and that leads to devastating consequences.

Zachary Woolfe raved about Yoncheva in the New York Times after seeing this production.

“Ms. Yoncheva is now the one I’d seek out, no matter what she does. (And she does most everything: This “Traviata” comes in the wake of both Bellini’s mighty “Norma” and a Handel album.)

“A few years ago, Ms. Yoncheva had an essentially slender soprano focused enough to penetrate the vast Met. Now she fills the opera house more easily, with a tone that’s simultaneously softer and stronger, less angled and more rounded. New strength in the lower reaches of her voice anchored “Addio del passato,” the final-act lament of the doomed courtesan Violetta.”

This is the second production of La Traviata shown by the Metropolitan Opera during these streaming productions. The previous production, starring Natalie Dessay in 2012, was also a revival of the 2011 production.

Tuesday, June 23 – John Adams’s Doctor Atomic

Conducted by Alan Gilbert; starring Sasha Cooke, Thomas Glenn, Gerald Finley, Richard Paul Fink and Eric Owens. This Penny Woolcock production is from the 2008-2009 season.

This John Adams opera had its world premiere in 2005 in San Francisco and features a libretto by Peter Sellars. The main source of inspiration for the libretto was declassified government documents from individuals who worked at Los Alamos on the development of the atomic bomb.

Act one of Doctor Atomic takes place approximately one month before the first test. The second act takes place the morning of that test in 1945. At the center of it all is Robert J. Oppenheimer (Finley).

In his review for the New York Times, Anthony Tomassini said of Adams’s score: “This score continues to impress me as Mr. Adams’s most complex and masterly music. Whole stretches of the orchestral writing tremble with grainy colors, misty sonorities and textural density. Mr. Gilbert exposes the inner details and layered elements of the music: obsessive riffs, pungently dissonant cluster chords, elegiac solo instrumental lines that achingly drift atop nervous, jittery orchestral figurations.”

Wednesday, June 24 – Saint-Saëns’s Samson et Dalila

Conducted by Sir Mark Elder; starring Elīna Garanča and Roberto Alagna. This Darko Tresnjak production is from the 2018-2019 season.

The biblical tale of Samson and Delilah serves as the inspiration for Saint-Saëns’s opera. With a libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire, Samson et Dalila had its world premiere in Weimar in 1877. Franz Liszt, who previously served as the Music Director at Weimar, was instrumental in getting the opera its world premiere there.

When the governor of the Philistines, Abimelech, belittles the Hebrews into believing that they are helpless to his power and that of the temple of Dagon. Everyone believes him except Samson, who leads a rebellion against Abimelech and kills him. He meets Dalila who tells Samson that his accomplishments have wooed her and that she’s in love with him. Though others try to warn him about Dalila, he succumbs to her charms. But is she truly in love with Samson or does she have other ideas in mind?

This production marked the Metropolitan Opera debut of director Tresnjak who is best known for his work on Broadway with such shows as A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder (for which he won a Tony Award) and the musical Anastasia. He directed LA Opera’s award-winning production of John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles.

Thursday, June 25 – Massenet’s Manon

Conducted by Maurizio Benini; starring Lisette Oropesa, Michael Fabiano and Artur Ruciński. This is a revival of the 2011-2012 Laurent Pelly production from the 2019-2020 season.

Massenet’s opera was composed in 1883 and had its world premiere in January of 1884 in Paris. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille. They based the opera on the 1731 Abbé Prévost novel, L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut.

A young woman from a small town has an intense desire to lavish herself with all the riches and pleasures life has to offer her. Sounds like a story that could be written today.

The main attraction of any production of Manon is the performance of the soprano singing the title role. Oropesa certainly didn’t disappoint.

Joshua Barone, writing for the New York Times said of Oropesa’s performance, “With a voice by turns brightly crystalline and arrestingly powerful, she persuasively inhabits the role of this chameleon coquette. When she blows a kiss at a crowd of men in Laurent Pelly’s often stylized production, their heads whip backward, as if feeling a sudden gust of wind. The audience can’t avoid catching a bit of the gale, too.

“Ms. Oropesa’s performance, her first at the Met since winning its Beverly Sills Artist Award as well as the prestigious Richard Tucker Award this spring, is alone worth the price of admission.”

This is the second production of Manon programmed by the Metropolitan Opera. The 2011-2012 production, with Anna Netrebko as Manon, was streamed on May 24th.

Friday, June 26 – Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore

Conducted by James Levine; starring Kathleen Battle, Luciano Pavarotti, Juan Pons and Enzo Dara. This John Copley production is from the 1991-1992 season.

Gaetano Donizetti’s opera had its world premiere in 1832 in Milan. The libretto, by Felice Romani, was based on Eugène Scribe’s libretto for Daniel Auber’s Le philtre.

Poor Nemorino doesn’t have anything to offer the love of his life, Adina. Sergeant Belcore is also in love with Adina, but she spurns his offer of marriage. Knowing that Adina has read the story of Tristan and Isolde, Nemorino asks Dr. Dulcamara for the same love potion that Tristan used to win over Isolde. Will this elixir of love truly works its magic?

Edward Rothstein, in his review for the New York Times had mixed feelings about certain performances and elements of the production, but he singled out Battle for praise. “Ms. Battle can send a note out into space, sustain it there, playing subtly with its shape and dimension, then call it back into her throat and gently bring it to a close so one awaits the next moment of sensuous sound. When Adina realizes that she really does love this slightly clumsy peasant, Ms. Battle’s sighs of recognition soared. Donizetti might have preferred a lighter timbre, but he would certainly have recognized his elixir in use.”

Saturday, June 27 – Massenet’s Cendrillon

Conducted by Bertrand de Billy; starring Kathleen Kim, Joyce DiDonato, Alice Coote and Stephanie Blythe. This Laurent Pelly production is from the 2017-2018.

Charles Perrault’s 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale serves as the inspiration for Massenet’s opera. Henry Caïn wrote the libretto. The world premiere of Cendrillon took place in 1899 in Paris.

You may recall that The Royal Opera made its production of Cendrillon available for streaming in late may. This is the same production with Joyce DiDonato and Alice Coote playing the roles of “Cendrillon” and “Prince Charming.”

Zachary Woolfe, in his New York Times review praised DiDonato for the child-like wonder she brings to the role. “Ms. DiDonato does sincerity better than anyone since Ms. von Stade. At 49, she can still step on stage and, with modest gestures and mellow sound, persuade you she’s a put-upon girl. She experiences the story with an open face and endearing ingenuousness, a sense of wonder that never turns saccharine. In soft-grained passages, she is often simply lovely.”

Sunday, June 28 – Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte

Conducted by James Levine; starring Golda Schultz, Kathryn Lewek, Charles Castronovo, Markus Werba, Christian Van Horn and René Pape. This revival of the 2004 Julie Taymor production is from the 2017-2018 season.

Mozart’s opera premiered in September 1791 in Vienna a mere two months before the composer died. It features a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder.

Prince Tamino is asked by the Queen of the Night to free her daughter Pamina from Sarastro. Tamino, however, is impressed with Sarastro and the way his community lives in the world and wants to be a part of it. Both alone and together Tamino and Pamina endure multiple tests. If they succeed, what will happen to them? To the Queen of the Night?

Anyone who has seen Taymor’s work for such shows as Juan Darién and The Lion King knows that she regularly employs puppets and wildly inventive staging. When Alex Ross, writing for The New Yorker about the original 2004 production said, “The Met stage has never been so alive with movement, so charged with color, so brilliant to the eye. The outward effect is of a shimmering cultural kaleidoscope, with all manner of mystical and folk traditions blending together. Behind the surface lies a melancholy sense that history has never permitted such a synthesis—that Mozart’s theme of love and power united is nothing more than a fever dream. But Taymor allows the Enlightenment fantasy to play out to the end.”

That’s the complete line-up for Week 15 at the Met. Enjoy your operas and have a great week!

Photo: Markus Werba as Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. (Photo by Richard Termine/Courtesy of Metropolitan Opera)

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