My top pick is:

JAZZ: ABIDING MEMORY – Phillip Golub – Endectomorph

In Vijay Iyer’s liner notes for this impressive album he writes, “Let’s call this the New Brooklyn Complexity, for its particular amalgamation of high-modernist compositional knowhow and cutting-edge improvisational expertise, it’s rough-and-tumble small-group flair and its chamber-music transparency, a type of artistry trained both in classrooms and in clubs, equally adpeted at nested tuplets and fiery grooves.”

I couldn’t have said it better or even in those terms. What I will say is that this is a stunning album that is worth repeated listening so that you can discover more and more layers to this incredibly layered and thoughtful music. Put it on, tune out the rest of the world and listen with an open heart and an open mind and you will create your own abiding memories of hearing Golub’s music.

Here are the other albums I’ve selected for New In Music This Week: June 21st:

CHAMBER MUSIC: SYNTHESIS: THE STRING QUARTET SESSIONS – Ryan Truesdell – ArtistShare

What do you get when large ensemble jazz composers are asked to write string quartets. Would the end result be predominantly classical? Lean heavily into jazz? Become something unique.

First and foremost, this recording is unique – in all the best possible ways. The composers did provide a mix of music that encompasses both classical and jazz influences with some more overtly classical and others more overwhelmingly jazz. But it’s all fascinating.

Truesdell composed for the album as did Joseph Borsellino III, John Clayton, Alan Ferber, Miho Hazama, John Hollenbeck, Christine Jensen, Asuka Kakitani, Oded Lev-Ari, Jim McNeely, Vanessa Perica, Rufus Reid, Dave Rivello and Nathan Parker Smith.

Amongst my favorites are Playground for String Quartet 1. Copycat and Playground for String Quartet 2. Ropes & Ladders by Oded Lev-Ari; Truesdell’s Suite for CIarinet and String Quartet which features Anat Cohen and John Clatyon’s Tidal Wave.

Synthesis proves that labels/genres are best used as marketing tools and not to describe music. 

CLASSICAL MUSIC: GABRIEL FAURÉ – Renaud Capuçon/Orchestrre de Chambre de Lausanne – Deutsche Grammophon

French composer Gabriel Fauré’s Violin Concerto isn’t part of the standard repertoire given that only the first movement was completed. That work launches this 71 minute exploration of Fauré’s work and makes one wish that the composer had completed the work.

Capuçon also performs the composer’s Masques et Bergamasques, Pelléas et Mélisande Suite and more. Fauré’s very popular Pavane is performed in a version for orchestra as is Berceuse arranged for violin and orchestra.

This is a great look at Fauré’s career with beautiful playing by Capuçon.

CLASSICAL MUSIC: VERDI: Inno Delle Nazioni; Quattro Pezzi Sacri – Riccardo Chailly/Orchestra Del Teatro Alla Scala, Milano – Decca

Fans of Verdi’s operas will certainly recognize the name Arrigo Boito as the librettist who wrote the libretti for Falstaff and Otello. His first collaboration with the composer was on Inno delle nazioni which was composed and debuted in 1862 as part of the 1862 International Exhibition in London. 

Tenor Freddie De Tommaso joinsed the Coro Del Teatro Alla Scala Di Milano for this recording of this nearly 14-minute work.

Also on the album is the composer 4 Pezzi Sacri (Four Sacred Pieces). These were written over a period of 11 years and began around the same time that Verdi was composing Otello. 

These are not the most commonly recorded or performed of Verdi’s work. I was much more impressed with the 4 Pezzi Sacri, but this impressive recording is a welcome reminder of Verdi’s non-opera works.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: JULIUS EASTMAN Vol. 4 – THE HOLY PRESENCE – Wild Up – New Amsterdam

This is the fourth year in a row that Los Angeles’ Wild Up has released an album of Julius Eastman’s music. Each year their dedication to Eastman’s music becomes more and more important.

That work continues with The Holy Presence.  The opening track is astonishing and eye-opening. Our Father finds Davóne Tines singing two vocal parts accompanied by Wild Up. It starts strongly and becomes more impressive as the recording goes on.

Pianist Richard Valitutto performs Piano 2 before Tines returns to sing Prelude To The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc. 

These three tracks are the warm-up for The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc which showcases the work of cellist Seth Parker Woods who performs ten cello tracks that are multi-tracked and combined to a staggering result.

There’s so much music of Eastman’s yet to be discovered. I can’t wait to see what next year’s Wild Up recording of his work will offer.

CONTEMPORARY CLASSICAL: BETWEEN BREATH – Scott Wollschleger – New Focus Recordings

Composer Wollschleger was commissioned to write music for four different artists. Those artists have recorded each of those commissions for this album that is not for those who don’t want to be challenged by music.

The album opens with Violain(Parts I and II) composed for violinist Maya Bennardo and violist Hannah Levinson who performed  as andPlay. That is followed by the title track performed by pianist Anne Rainwaiter with trombonist William Lang. 

Mezzo-soprano Lucy Dhegrae and pianist Nathaniel LaNasa perform Anyway, where threads go, it all goes well and the album closes with Secret Machine no.7 performed by violinist Miranda Cuckson.

Fans of contemporary classical music will find a lot to admire on this album. 

JAZZ: CHARLES MINGUS EPITAPH – BigBand of the Deutsche Oper Berlin/Randy Brecker – Euro Arts Music International

In 1989, a decade after the death of Charles Mingus, his epic composition Epitaph was rediscovered.  It’s a mammoth work that runs over two hours and requires a large ensemble.

Amongst those who recorded this work in 1989 was trumpeter Randy Brecker. He revisits this work in this incredible recording from the 2022 Musikfest Berlin which celebrated the centennial of Mingus.

 I didn’t know that Deutsche Oper Berlin could swing or that they had a BigBand (that’s the way they spell that ensemble). But they can. Listeners are more than rewarded by spending 136 minutes listening to this album.

JAZZ: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY – Michael Eckroth Group – Truth Revolution Recording Collective

I truly feel like this New In Music This Week: June 21^st has something for everyone – particularly jazz fans. Eckroth is on the piano on this album that is multi-cultural in the best possible ways.

Musical influences from Cuba and Puerto Rico meet up with traditional jazz that finds Eckroth supported by some incredible musicians to play his music. Seven of the eight tracks on the album were written by Eckroth.

They include Alex “Apolo Ayala” on bass, Peter Brainin on tenor saxophone; Mauricio Herrera on percussion; Matt Hilgenburg on trumpet; Carlos Maldonado on percussion; Joel Mateo on drums; Alex Norris on trumpet; Edward Perez and Raul Reyes on bass.

No two jazz albums on this week’s list find themselves mining the same terrain. Eckroth’s album is a joyful excursion to two incredible islands rich with music.

JAZZ: WANDERING TALK – Orlando le Fleming & Romantic Funk – Whirlwind Recordings

This is jazz that dabbles in music with a  funky side. Music that is both free flowing with improvisation while sometimes maintaining a groove that is undeniable. This is a brisk 37-minute album, but one that will make your commute more enjoyable, your daily tasks less irksome and put some pep in your step as day turns to night.

Joining bassist/composer le Fleming on this album are Tom Cawley on piano and keyboards; Philip Dizack on trumpet; Nathaniel Facey on saxophone and James Maddren on drums. Chris Martin of Coldplay and his daughter Nadia are special guests for one track. 

Not every track is funky, but we all need to pace ourselves, right? Wandering Talk has the perfect balance to make all this talk wonderful.

JAZZ: INVISIBLE CINEMA – Aaron Parks – Blue Note Records Classic Vinyl Reissue Series

This vinyl release marks the first time pianist/composer Parks’ Invisible Cinema has been released in that format. It’s a great opportunity to revisit this remarkable album from 2008.

Drummer Eric Harland, guitarist Mike Moreno and bassist Matt Penman joined Parks for this album.

It has been quite a few years since I last listened to Invisible Cinema, but as soon as I heard Travelers, the track that opens the album, it was like coming home. 

This two-LP set also includes two tracks that had previously only been released in Japan:  Memory of a Flameand an alternate take of Travelers.

If you aren’t a vinyl collector, I urge you to check out this album. If you are, I bet you can’t wait to hear Invisible Cinema!

JAZZ: SEPTEMBER NIGHT – Thomasz Stanko Quartet – ECM

This live recording of the late Stanko and his musicians dates from 2004 and was recorded in Munich. The trumpeter/composer is joined by bassist Slawomir Kurkiewicz , drummer Michal Miskiewicz and pianist Marcin Wasilewski as he had often been up until the last year before he passed away.

All of the songs are, in some way or another, theatrical which is also the name of the last track on this incredible album. This music feels like it would be right at home in movies like Body Heat or Double Indemnity.

Stanko composed six of the seven tracks on this nearly hour-long album. Kaetano is credited to all four musicians. He was well-known as a free jazz musician. That style is fully on display here but it is performed in such an understated and beautiful way that this is an album I will be returning to over and over again.

VOCALS: DON’T COMPROMISE YOURSELF- THE VERY BEST OF MARY BRIDGET DAVIES – Mary Bridget Davies – Center Stage Records

Davies was a 2014 Tony Award nominee for her performance in A Night With Janis Joplin.  There’s a reason she was cast in that show as she has the perfect rock/blues voice which is showcased in this two disc set.

The first disc has 13 tracks and includes Piece of My Heart, Stay With Me/Cry Baby and the title track. The second disc that has studio recordings of a few of the same songs that appear on the first disc.

On that second disc is Master of Disguise which finds Davies asking “which one is the shadow, which one is me?” These two discs prove that yes, Davies can rock with the best of them, but she can also take things down a few notches and be equally impressive.

This is truly a fun album.

VOCALS: PARTING GIFT: THE SONGS OF GERALD GINSBURG – Various Artists – PS CLASSICS

Composer Ginsburg is not someone with whom I was familiar. Chances are you aren’t either since it wasn’t until his death in 2019 that most of his songs were discovered. Most of them are less than 3 minutes, but they are little gems. 

That they are makes it easy to understand why such artists as Victoria Clark, Jason Danieley, Jordan Danica, Telly Leung, Kelli O’Hara and Elizabeth Stanley have recorded them for this collection. All the artists are accompanied by a 17-piece orchestra.

Ginsburg set poems by Byron, Cummings, Hughes, Millay, Shelley and more for these 23 songs.  The album is released digitally today with a CD scheduled for release on July 12^th.

That’s all for New In Music This Week: June 21st.

Enjoy the music!

Enjoy your weekend!

Main Photo: Part of the album art for Abiding Memory

The post New In Music This Week: June 21st appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The Norwegian singer made her debut at The Met in a 2019 production of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. She’s also appeared there in the operas Ariadne auf Naxos (which I saw and was astounded by her performance), Elektra and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. This season she will appear in Verdi’s La Forza del Destino.

Before that happens she will be one of just a few select artists to give a recital at those hallowed halls at Lincoln Center on Thursday, September 14th. She will also perform a recital at the BroadStage in Santa Monica on September 17th. Pianist James Bailieu will accompany her at both concerts.

Last month I spoke with Davidsen about her approach to recitals, how the world has changed for opera singers and the responsibility of accepting those keys that Gelb has offered her. What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You told Jeff Linden of PBS’s Morning Edition last year that you realized it would be easier for you to take on roles because you didn’t have to be yourself. Essentially that you just could be the character and some of your fear went away. In a recital you don’t get that opportunity unless you create a world where you are a persona apart from yourself. So how do you approach recitals?

It’s a very good question because you don’t have the props, the sets, the dresses. You don’t have the other colleagues. So there’s a lot of information and role characteristic things that are not there. But I do think that I have created my world for each number that I do. Each aria, each song, there is sort of a little world that is my world. My hope is that some of it will go to you as an audience member. Maybe you know the song, maybe don’t know the song, maybe you will get completely different pictures. But there’s room for us to explore all these smaller songs – smaller in terms of length rather than a three-hour opera. 

When you were accepting your Opera News Award earlier this year, you talked about how music allows you to express yourself in ways that words could not. What does a recital and the repertoire that you choose to perform tell us about who you are?

In recital I’ll talk in between to present the songs. So I think already there the audience gets to know a bit more of me. I will bring some Grieg songs, some Sibelius to these recitals. There’s a different part of me than when you hear an Ariadne or Tannhäuser or a Verdi. It’s something else you get to know. The bigger arias that will be where people think obviously this is the Lise we’ve heard before. So I think it’s presenting different sides of me or different parts of what I do, rather than sharing the main emotion in a way. 

But is there part of of putting the repertoire together for a recital that you think not only does this music speak to each other, but this helps me tell a story about who I am at this moment as I’m performing?

I think there is an aspect. The BroadStage and the Met concert [are] both a mix. There are certain arias that I would like to do because I think about the space and the piano. You have to think about that as well. The pianist is lost with these long chords that don’t really sustain in a piano. Then there’s how we build it up, what what suits each other, what’s a good contrast in all of this. I always think, what can I bring that they haven’t heard before? What can I bring that it will be a surprise? All of these things have to be taken in.

I saw a video where you performed I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady, which I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear you singing. What inspires a choice like that?

That is a simple inspiration because it is about what can I do to lighten my repertoire? My opera roles are filled with drama. There is not so much operetta in my repertoire. I think the audience, when they hear that in a concert, it is to sort of clear the air a bit like, oh what a light little tune or fun maybe. Also, I think we need that. We need something to sort of clear it up a bit before we dig into something even more serious.

When Peter Gelb says, “Every major dramatic soprano role that she wants to do is hers as far as I’m concerned” and offers you the keys to the Met, that’s pretty heady to be told at any point in one’s career. What kind of pressure do you feel when when the head of a Met is saying such glorious things about you?

One part is unbelievably overwhelming. It’s big, big, big words. It’s a responsibility I’m not sure I can carry. But on the other hand, it’s a responsibility I would like to carry. It’s a job that I would like to have because I really love being at the Met. So if those two things can come together, then it’s kind of the perfect match. Both him and me can only see what the future holds in a way and plan accordingly.

You have so much attention on you right now which gives you tremendous opportunities. Given that a lot of people describe the time we’re living in now is a golden age for new opera, how much do new contemporary works interest you as you move forward in your career?

It interests to me quite a lot. But in terms of what I feel I can do, I still focus on the more classical, ultra-traditional operas, because I do believe I have a voice that suits that repertoire. That said, I do believe that when I’ve sort of settled some of these roles, then I hope I’ll get to do modern opera and work with a composer because it must be amazing to do a whole new opera that is made for you in your time. There’s a completely different way of communicating with the composer. You don’t have to say, Why did you write this? It means you can actually go and ask and I think that is amazing.

Is there an opera that you have so many questions that you would love to have a chance to talk to the composer? Would you like to talk to Wagner before tackling Tristan und Isolde if that were possible?

I think I’ve always liked to have a chat with them. I think the thing is both Wagner and Strauss are very specific in their writing. I think Verdi is even more interesting because there’s so much tradition. There’s so much this is how it used to be done and we don’t really know how much truth there is in that. Sometimes I wonder if they do this, why do they do it?

Renata Scotto just passed away. In 1978 she did an interview with the New York Times and she said, “I have two Renata Scottos, one working and one private. The private one doesn’t remember the artist because I really need to relax my head and have fun.” That was nearly 45 years ago. Does being an opera singer today require that same duality? 

I think that is the same. It’s just in a different way than it was for her. I think in today’s time we are even more exposed to our audience. With social media we’re connected in a completely different way, and that has its pros and cons. It’s brilliant because I can communicate with people on the other side of the world. I can get messages from people. I can give advice to young singers. There are so many good things, but I think it also requires an even stricter strategy in how to protect yourself. It’s all out there and how much do you want to be out there, How much do you want to be private or personal? And I think that is a balance I worked a lot on to find and I still do. 

In 1960, another Norwegian soprano, Kirsten Flagstad got a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. Most people today probably walk around or walk on her star and have no idea who she is because opera isn’t embraced in 2023 the way it was in 1960. Do you think it would be good if if opera was embraced the way it was in 1960? Do you think that’s even remotely possible? 

I have no idea if it’s possible. I think the world has so much to offer right now. We have so many paintings and art forms available to us that to go back and be such a high percentage of what people used to do, I think is really, really hard. I don’t know if I’m naive, but I really hope that there will be a time where [there] will be even more people listening to opera. If we can manage to open our doors a bit more and make sure that it’s reachable for everyone, that is my number one wish for this art form. 

I come from a house where we didn’t know what opera was, but we thought it was not for us. We didn’t listen to it. True to my education, to my work, my family now goes to opera and they say they love it. There’s a completely different way of listening. In a time where we search for yoga or mindfulness or meditation, I want to say, “Hey, we’re already there. Just come in.”

There’s so much to look at. There’s so much to take in. Turn your phone off. When we let go of the fact that we have to know everything all the time, that’s when we are able to take in new experiences. That’s what I’ve said to friends or family that don’t normally go to the opera. It’s okay if you’re bored for a couple of minutes. You can look at those sets. You can look at an orchestra of 100 people that are playing. And we’re all there for you. There’s so many things. Eventually you will know more and, maybe as an audience member, demand more. Lean back and let the music speak.

If there was anything about this time in your life, in your career, that you would like to bottle up and have as a reminder 15, 20, 25 years from now, what do you think it would be?

It will be the fact that I have so many wonderful audience members that come to my concerts. The fact that people travel to see me sing. I wish I can sort of take that in, not just in a bottle, but, I wish I understood that because it’s pretty surreal.

Why? 

I don’t know. Can’t you find someone where you are? I don’t really grasp that. But of course, I travel to see people, too. So it’s not really connected. If I zoom out, I can say,” Oh, how about that repertoire? You like that?” Then you travel to do it. But when people come from Australia to hear you, that is for me. There’s so much love in that and I wish I could take that in and keep that because it’s this dedication beyond. It’s really, really impressive.

Both photos of Lise Davidsen ©James Hole/Courtesy BroadStage

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This is Willis-Sørensen’s third production of Otello. She has sung in a wide range of operas from Puccini to Wagner to Beethoven. She recorded the final aria from Otello for her album Rachel, which was released last year. Two months ago she released her second album, Strauss: Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss.

I recently spoke with Willis-Sørensen about Otello and her various experiences with it, the present-day resonance the opera has and the experience of performing Otello with a Black singer in the title role. What follows are excerpts from my conversation with Willis-Sørensen that have been edited for length and clarity. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel.

How much does the philosophy expressed in Bird Set Free by Sia, where she says, “Sing for love, sing for me,” resonate with you as you’re preparing yourself before going on stage?

I love that song. My daughter actually showed it to me. It’s so beautiful. “I don’t care if I sing off key. I found myself and my melodies. I sing for love. I sing for me. I let it out like a bird set free.” That’s what it feels like to me when I’m singing. There’s this incredible freedom of expression. Everyone is sitting there looking at me and it’s like I’ve been given the platform to express myself. It’s just the most incredible feeling.

To me there’s something more valuable in expressing something honest than in doing it perfectly. I’ve been varying degrees of toxic perfectionist all my life. With singing the best performances I’ve ever given, I would never say they are the ones that were the most technically perfect. It’s more the ones where I accessed something very real and shared it with the audience. That’s where I feel the most rewarding fulfillment.

Can you tell when you’re in a good production versus when you’re in one that isn’t working as well?

Yes. I’ve been wrong a couple of times, to be fair. I mean, no one’s perfect! But generally when the story is discernible, it’s legible – so to speak from the audience perspective – it’s going to be a good production. If it is not, then it’s going to be a concert with some weird, confusing nonsense happening in front of the audience. Which is not my favorite, obviously, given that I described it that way. It’s hard. I don’t envy a director the task of trying to coordinate all of those multitudinous moving parts.

This is your third production of Otello. How much does a production itself influence your approach to the role?

I’m finding that each nuance that I learn from an old production sort of informs the next one. It’s only my third. But it seems if you are asked to look at something from a different perspective, potentially it enriches your viewpoint on the role. Then depending on the flexibility of the director or the amount of time, you can really hone something.

I think it’s never identical. There are no two performances that are identical. The first production was very traditional. I think making a role debut in a production like that is a gift because you’re just doing the show, you’re just telling the story as well as you can, which is always ideal for a role debut.

The second production that I did was very modern in Munich and the take on the character was so different. I find that the strength of presentation from the second has informed this third one significantly. This is more traditional, but I think that my telling from day one has become a lot stronger than it was previously. 

LA Opera conductor James Conlon is a passionate fan of Verdi’s. Are you that passionate about Verdi as well? 

Absolutely. I’m in a very fortunate position where I get to sing a wide variety of repertoire, probably wider than is normal to do you could argue. But Verdi is certainly, if not my absolute favorite, then somehow among the top two favorite composers to sing. It’s just written in such a grateful way and the characters are always really interesting to play. I just love it. It suits my throat. I find singing Verdi feels very physically satisfying. Very often you die in the end, which is nice in a weird way. I mean, it makes you really think about your own mortality to die on stage. It makes you more grateful to be alive, but also the act of doing this somehow…I don’t know. I almost recommend it as a therapy, enacting your own death physiologically and then trying to lie there. 

Let’s talk about Desdemona’s death. The audience is led to believe that Desdemona has been killed. Then she seems to come back to life to sing her final passage in the opera before she does die. How do you navigate something like that to make it the serious moment it needs to be?

She’s dead. She’s not dead. Wait, is she dead? I know it’s very strange. It’s not very logical. Maybe it wasn’t common knowledge that it takes 3 to 5 minutes to choke a person. But I think [Otello’s] just knocked her unconscious. Clearly something is physically wrong enough that ultimately she dies from it. But she comes two for a second after the fact.

After the physical struggle, I don’t want to think. I want it as absolutely clean as possible. So that’s what I’m trying to focus on during those moments. Then I just try to not breathe visibly for the rest of the show.

Sonya Yoncheva said in 2015 about this role, “Desdemona is a strong woman who knows exactly what she’s doing. The only thing that escapes her is the level of craziness attained by Otello. I personally think she’s very brave. Her greatest strength is her love for Otello. She defends her love, her man, to the very end.” History has not really viewed the character that way. She is viewed more as a tragic victim. Where do you find her?

I think she’s strong in that she marries Otello against her parents wishes. She’s somehow emotionally healthy enough to believe she didn’t have a poor relationship to her parents. She didn’t escape them to marry Otello. They didn’t want her to marry him. She was so in love that she made this decision to stand by him and run away with him. That represents some kind of chutzpah, right? Who does that? 

But her love for Otello is so big. His specificity, his difference from all the other men she’s interacting with, I think is part of what contributes to that. She is a tragic victim. I just don’t see her as weak because I think it’s too easy to say that only weak people become the victims of abuse. I don’t think in the real world that’s how that plays out. When your tenderness is taken advantage of by another person, in whatever way, that could basically happen to anyone. It takes so much to be able to stand up to an abuser if they are someone you love.

So I think it’s a very relevant story. We have to feel like it’s a terrible mistake, it’s a terrible misunderstanding, and that Otello has done something very wrong. 

I also think there’s something even more topical than that, which is the whole idea that lies take on a truth of their own. If you repeat something often enough, you get a huge percentage of people to believe you. Social media is a hotbed of complete and utter falsehoods. 

It’s enough just to have an accusation. That’s enough to ruin you. Just the accusation. There doesn’t have to be any proof. There doesn’t have to be any investigation as soon as an accusation is made. That is another part of the story that’s really relevant.

I have three little children: a nine-year-old daughter and twin sons who are almost eight. My son was saying to someone, “It’s okay if you like something and I like something different. We can both like different things and still be good friends.” We can have divergent opinions and not be accusing one another of stupidity. That’s a beautiful notion that I’m trying really hard to teach my children. I think that’s really missing in public discourse.

What was once acceptable in opera for this role is no longer acceptable. Your other Otellos were not Black performers/singers. Creatively does it make a difference to see Russell Thomas, a Black man as Otello, singing opposite you? Do you think it’s important that that continue to be what is done on opera stages?

I have loved working with all of the Otellos that I’ve worked with. They have been very impressive and interesting storytellers. I think that Russell also is an incredible storyteller. I think he has experience to access in order to tell this role in a different way based on being an actual Black man. So when he talks about being a Black man among white people – I think they water down for the supertitles – but it’s something that he is able to tell in an different way. He’s very passionate and he’s a wonderful colleague. Singing with him is a joy.

I’m not entitled to have an opinion on the controversy because I am a white woman. But I do think that what differentiates opera from other art forms is the singing. At any given time in the world there may be five men who can do the role of Otello. So to make their skin color be requisite, we will just never get to do the piece.

I think Aida is the same. There are actually a few really wonderful African-descent singers who could sing either really well and they should do it. For that reason, I’m nervous about undertaking that task myself, even though it’s been offered a couple of times, because I don’t want to be part of the controversy.

It just doesn’t have an easy answer. In the productions I’ve done where we altogether ignored it, it’s fine. We’re still telling a story about jealousy. It just becomes not an issue of race. So I guess you can see much more clearly the issue of the racial dynamic, if the tenor is actually Black. So I think that it’s worthwhile doing either way. But this does definitely make this particular production of Otello extra special. 

Verdi wrote in a letter he sent in 1871 to Giulio Ricordi, “I deny that either singers or conductors can create or work creatively. This, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.” If you had the opportunity to either refute or concur with Verdi, what would you tell him?

I tend not to agree with that because, and I always say this, if there were only one right way of doing it, just record it and be done. But we do it again and again. The beauty of the live experience is one thing. But I think the diversity of experience with different casts, I felt that myself in different casts, every singer brings themselves into what they’re doing. I would argue you have to work creatively.

But on the other hand, maybe what he meant, which I do agree with, is that you follow what is written on the page and you will make magic. We don’t have to create magic. We get to make the magic that Verdi already wrote down on the page. I do think his articulations, the expressive markings, the tempi, the dynamics, there’s room, of course, for rubato, there’s room for naturalistic interpretation. But most of that information is already on the page. When you follow those guidelines in a naturalistic way, you tend to do better than if you go rogue and ignore them.

To see the full interview with Rachel Willis-Sørensen, please go here.

Main Photo: Russell Thomas and Rachel Willis-Sørensen in LA Opera’s “Otello” (Photo by Cory Weaver/Courtesy LA Opera)

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Moore is playing the title character in this Francesca Zambello production that is the first Aida to be performed at LA Opera in over 15 years. She’s very familiar with the part having first performed it in 2009. Moore made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the role in 2012 as a last-minute substitute for Violeta Urmana who was sick.

Since then, in addition to Aida, she’s regularly performed the role of Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly and was seen in the Met Opera productions of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Terence Blanchard‘s Fire Shut Up In My Bones. Italian operas are her passion, but as you’ll see from this interview, her jazz background earlier in her life has been the gift that keeps on giving.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation earlier this week that have been edited for length and clarity.

You’re 13 years into singing this part and 10 years after your Met debut as Aida. What’s your relationship to Verdi’s opera today?

When I first started doing the role, I didn’t know if that was really for me vocally. I thought my voice was a bit light for it. So as the years went on, I started getting more [performances] added. I was doing it all over the world. The more I did, the deeper I fell into the character. By about 2016 my voice caught up with where I should be vocally with the character.

Every time I do it I find something new. I tend to put my own stamp on it and try to break away from the traditional way of doing it and singing it and provide the audience with something they’re not used to hearing. I feel like such a staple like this is done mostly one way for so many years. Every time I go out on the stage, even within a production – even within one performance – I like to spice it up and do something that’s more Latonia.

What have you learned or discovered about the character in that time?

Aida, you really hear about who she really is and her struggle and things like that. But one thing that I’ve learned about a character like hers is she’s a lot more like her father than I ever thought. She’s very much an outsider. The more I delve into the text and the way I’m singing and the way I’m saying words, it’s becoming a lot more visceral than it ever was before. She’s the daughter of a warrior, she’s been trained to fight, she knows how to do it. She’s an animalistic person by nature, but has been forced to seem like something submissive. She actually is not and I think that I’ve embraced more of the power of a person like that. 

In previous interviews you’ve discussed your concern that you were only being cast in Aida because you are Black. Do you still feel that way?

I still believe that, especially initially, it was definitely the color of my skin, because vocally I was not right for Aida when I first started doing it. The people who hired me knew that, but they didn’t care because they wanted someone Black. I started to wrap my head around the fact that maybe I was being cast for Aida because I was appropriate for the role was four years after my Met debut. I was just like, you know what? I’m a pretty good Aida. This actually fits now, but it didn’t before. Maybe it took having a couple kids for my voice to settle into it a a little more and then make it a bit deeper of a sound for Aida.

Do I still think that people cast me because I’m Black? Yes. I think that’s why I’m here in L.A. I don’t think that it was only because I’m a good Aida. I think they wanted to cast a good Black Aida. And hopefully that’s what they got. But yes, that’s the factor here because I’m Black and I think that continues to be. I think that for many companies, especially in this climate, they’re just like we have to cast the Black Aida because, you know, we don’t want any pushback for it. You know, casting a white Aida right now in the climate here in America, it’s dicey.

Does that become limiting for you and the roles you can play?

This is where I’ve become a bit up in arms with the casting, because I see where they’re coming from. You know, it’s like they have to have a Black Aida. But does that mean that I can’t be Madame Butterfly anymore? That it has to be an Asian one? Because my whole reason for getting into the business was so I could be someone Japanese. I could be a Venetian. I played Leila in The Pearl Fishers, a Sri Lankan. That’s what I love about an art form like this that is so exotic and I can transform into anything. So when people are saying, yes, we should cast a Black Aida, you know, that doesn’t sit right with me because it feels like where I’m then limited.

The moment everyone is waiting for in Aida is o patria mia. What’s your approach before and during the singing of this aria?

Any soprano that sits there and says they’re not thinking about it; I think one of two things about that. Either one, they have done therapeutic things to change their mindset or two, they’re lying to try to convince themselves that it’s not torture. Every single soprano, and this is for everybody that’s about all these sopranos, we all know y’all are thinking about it, too. Surely Maria Callas, when she got there, started thinking and you can hear it. You can hear the people start thinking about it. You can’t completely throw caution to the wind because there’s a lot riding on it. What’s giving everybody so much anxiety about it is exactly what you said – the expectation. It’s that everybody’s waiting on you to stick the landing. To this day it will always terrify me. Always. I’m not going to sit here and pretend Oh, no, I’ve mastered it. No, no, no. I’m going to go to my grave having never mastered that part of it.

I do feel like one difference between the way I used to think about o patria mia and now. Now I’m not so focused on whether or not I stick the landing. Either it’s going to happen or it’s not, but I have to use this character to my advantage no matter what. A lot of times people are expecting it to sound like something off a recording that they heard. Can she do it like Leontyne Price? Can she do it like Zinka Milanov? I’m never going to be able to do it like them. However, you know what I am able to do that maybe not a lot of people are able to do is convince you that I am that person doing it. Even if I crash and burn and bust all over the high C it’ll still be Aida doing it, not Latonia. So that’s one thing that I had to retrain my brain about it. No matter what I end up doing, if she’s going to bust a note, she’s busting it because Aida wanted to.

How would you compare the joy that you get in singing a classic role like Aida or singing Madama Butterfly to the opportunity to sing new work like Fire Shut Up in My Bones?

I’ve always thought of myself as an Italian soprano, one that just focuses mostly on Italian opera. However, I have a big jazz background and I switched to opera while I was in college. But jazz is really my focus. I don’t particularly like singing in English, but what was so appealing about these works, like Fire Shut Up in My Bones and the upcoming Champion, is that they are jazz operas. And this goes for Porgy and Bess, too. It goes back to me saying that Leontyne was beamed down for the planet to sing Aida. That’s what she was here for. I feel like the reason I started in jazz and came into the opera the way I did was for the work that I’m doing right now on Fire Shut Up in My Bones and stuff like Porgy and Bess, Champion and whatever comes in that vein.

I love Italian opera. I’ll never give it up if I can help it. But some people fit right in the pocket of something. I’m the one that fits in the pocket of being the soprano in these Black jazz operas. I guess I find myself on the planet at the right place, right time. I feel like it’s what I was meant to do.

On your Instagram account earlier this year, you quoted Charles M. Blow’s memoir that served as the inspiration for Fire Shut Up in My Bones. You quoted, “I would have to learn to accept myself joyfully, fully as the amalgamation of both the gifts and the tragedies of fate as the person destiny had chosen me to be.” So today, Latonia, in 2022, who is the person destiny has chosen you to be? 

I’m a beautiful example of somebody that may be viewed as an underdog, but an example of somebody that no matter what you look like, no matter what you’ve gone through or what you said, you still persevere. I feel like I’m here to be an example to other people.

I hope that every other kid like me sees what I’m doing and knows that they can do it, too. I feel like my place in a business like this is to show you that what you look like as a person will never matter more than what it is you can create as an artist. I’m simply put here to create and make art for people, to encourage them, to hear them, to show them that they can do it. Yes, you can have children. Yes, you can go up there and you can look like anything and transform into something else. Yes, you can go up and help the youth and you can help them lift up into a great career.

I feel like I’m a very good example in this business of what perseverance can really get you. I’m the sort of person that is like if you streamline your energy toward what you want and you believe it with unwavering faith, you’re going to make your mark. Period. But it has to be unwavering faith. Be patient and don’t care how long it’s going to take. It’ll happen.

There are six performances of Aida at LA Opera from May 21st through June 12th

All photos of Latonia Moore in LA Opera’s production of Aida by Cory Weaver. (Courtesy LA Opera)

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“I’ve always seen all those nuances and everything that’s written on the page and I’ve tried to do them as best I could. But then in French what’s amazing is that it just works,” he said during a recent Zoom call. “It makes more sense. In Italian you had to make sense of it and in French it already makes sense. It makes it easier to sing, but it also makes it easier to understand, not just for us, for the audience. Things are clearer. The text is clear. The intentions are clearer.”

Verdi’s opera tells the story of Don Carlos of Spain (Matthew Polenzani) and Élisabeth de Valois (Sonya Yoncheva) who are betrothed to one another. They have never met. Don Carlos sneaks away to meet this unknown woman. They fall in love. However, their happiness is quickly ruined when Carlo’s father, Philippe II (Eric Owens), announces that he’s in love with her and she is to be his bride.

Even though she is now his stepmother, Don Carlos tries multiple times to woo Élisabeth away from his father.

With the Spanish Inquisition ongoing, the affairs of all three and the appearance of a mysterious monk lead to murder plots, revenge, unrequited love and thievery.

Verdi’s opera debuted in 1867 in Paris in French. Three months later it was performed in London in Italian. That version is the one most commonly performed.

This Saturday’s performance is the last opportunity for audiences to see Dupuis as Don Carlos’ best friend, but it’s also the performance that is being made available around the world as part of Met Opera Live in HD series.

Don Carlos is Verdi’s longest opera, but Dupuis finds much to like in these lengthy works even though they might be a bit convoluted.

“I think that’s a little point, isn’t it? Let’s make this as long as complicated as we can,” he says rhetorically. “You have to understand it from going back in time when they were writing them. These people had nothing like we do to to change their minds and just turn on a machine in their living room. So when they finally got the time to dress up and go to the opera it was a six hour long business. Every opera needed to have a minimum of five acts and a ballet. The only problem when Verdi wrote it was that the opera was too long. The people would have to catch the last train. So you have to shorten it enough so that people had time to go and catch the last train. But he had written even longer than what we’re doing.”

Dupuis counts himself amongst those who are usually most comfortable when opera hues primarily to the way fans and audiences usually see them. But with Don Carlos he thinks there is a great argument for performing Verdi’s work in the original French language.

“We like things the way we know them,” he says. “It is assembled this way, conducted this way, stage like that. And so it’s really hard for anyone to come up with something new. What’s interesting is that in this case we’re not changing what Verdi wrote. We’re using what Verdi wrote. What the French triggers is perhaps the sense that you’re hearing it for the first time. It allows you to re-hear it for the first time to possibly re-experience that first-time experience of the initial moment you actually heard this. But I know it’s not easy for everybody to open up their mindset to that.”

To make his point he brings up an example of his first aria in the opera which he describes as being a bit on the boring side…until it is sung in French.

“My first aria can be very boring. It might still be, I don’t know, but it’s two verses of the same music. The entire goal of this aria is to convince the Queen to have a meeting with Don Carlos. That’s all I’m doing. But I never understood how every word is carefully chosen so that it would make sense for the Queen to accept this invitation. So it’s very interesting how I get to play with those words so much better in the French. Even though I do speak Italian, when I sing the Italian it’s an inversion of the lines. It’s so intricate to be fitting the music that I feel like I’m losing this sense that the whole time my character is talking on a second degree. That’s lost in the translation because they had to make every word fit the the musical line. Instead of fitting the music on the words it did the opposite and it didn’t allow them to have these layers of understanding.”

One of the best known arias in Don Carlo is Dieu, tu semas dans no ames. To be performing an opera that features an aria about devotion to liberty at a time when the world is crisis adds additional meaning to Don Carlo for Dupuis.

“Every word that I say just made more sense. It already made sense in a generic context of war. But if you think of my character as this guy who is following the army. He goes to Flanders and he sees what the king and most importantly, the church, the Inquisition, he sees what they’re doing to those people because they’re not of the same religious belief. They’re Protestants and so the only response that they have is we kill everyone that doesn’t think like of us. And boom! Immediately we’re like, wait, is that what Putin was saying? This country right next to us they don’t think like me. Therefore, I must crush them like this. It seemed to me that that’s exactly what was happening.”

A different language and a new awareness are just two factors that allow Dupuis to try to achieve perfection in this production and in his art. Verdi said, “I have striven for perfection, it has always eluded me, but I surely had an obligation to make one more try.” Dupuis completely agrees with the composer.

“I don’t think perfection is achievable, but I think it’s a great goal. I think the people that have obsessed a bit too much about it definitely either changed careers or drowned in their careers. I think one of the hardest things to do is to strive for perfection and then have the humility to recognize that you did your best.”

One of Dupuis’ best attempts at that was in Jake Heggie‘s opera Dead Man Walking in Montreal.

“It was by far the most successful show I’ve ever been in opera. Not one review, not one person had anything bad to say about it. But it wasn’t perfect and I know it wasn’t. What was great about it though is that there was emotion. People lived something. They experienced something. Did we go to the theater for a reason? Do we live something that made us interested in going back? I think that’s what we should strive for, but I don’t think perfection is attainable. And I think that’s OK.”

There is so much more to my conversation with Etienne Dupuis. To see the full interview, please go to our YouTube channel here.

Main photo: Etienne Dupuis (Photo by Dario Acosta/Courtesy of the artist)

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I hadn’t necessarily planned on discussing politics with mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, but it was inevitable that during our conversation earlier this week the subject would arise. One of opera’s most highly-acclaimed mezzo-sopranos, the Latvian-born Garanča is deeply concerned about what’s going on in neighboring Ukraine. She’s also thinking about the presence of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s music in her upcoming recital at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica on Tuesday, March 15th.

“Particularly today the Russian political situation is difficult and artists are very often challenged nowadays: is the Russian music allowed to be performed?” she pondered during our conversation. “We kept it because this program was announced long before the disaster that’s going on at this very moment happened. I was thinking the music per se is not at fault, and the literature and art per se is not at fault. Latvia has a lot of rooting into this music and this wide soul. We are sentimental and we are melancholy some times. I find that Rachmaninoff particularly has written incredibly beautiful [music] for a mezzo-soprano voice. So why not? I will try then to to give the feeling of how I see Rachmaninoff.”

Garanča, who will be accompanied by Malcom Martineau on piano, has conquered many of the major roles for mezzo-sopranos including Dalila in Samson et Dalila, Margueritte in La Damnation de Faust, Kundry in Parsifal and, of course, the title role in Carmen.

When asked if there’s any role she’s terrified of doing she revealed her nerves of steel and that her dream role will soon become a reality.

“I think I’m too old to be terrified. No, I’m not terrified. I still would like to do Amneris [in Verdi’s Aida] which has been my dream role. Regrettably up to now it still hasn’t happened. Hopefully it will happen in 2023 in January. I’m curious about somebody like Azucena from Il Trovatore because I think it will be very interesting to play. I think it will be interesting to do somebody like Ortrud [in Wagner’s Lohengrin] or Mistress Quickly [in Verdi’s Falstaff]. But I have to say for me Amneris, because I haven’t sung the most exciting and most beautiful role. I always said when I sing it, that’s all. I’m ready to stop singing because I have achieved that goal and that mountain that I wanted to achieve and reach.”

Not that Garanča will retire. But after several years of singing that role she will consider switching to recitals and recordings. Fellow mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli compared an opera singer’s voice to a fine wine that has to be aged. Garanča thinks there’s more to it than that.

“I can agree that you have to give time to develop, but just time will not do it. You have to work really on that. You need to adjust technique, you need to research repertoire, you need to push your limits sometimes and you need to challenge yourself, you know? Twenty-five or 30 years ago when I started to actually think about singing I never thought that I will be able to make such a big circle of starting really with Baroque and Mozart and bel canto and really to end up in Wagner.

“It’s not my, how should I say, continuous repertoire, but you know, I’ve started to develop and sing it. But it’s not just like I’m sitting and waiting. I had to work a lot for that, then I had to go to many coaches and many lessons with the teachers.”

Her first recording, Arie Favorite, was released over twenty years ago. In order to look forward often requires looking back. When Garanča does that she has a full understanding of how her voice has matured.

“If I listen now to some of my earlier recordings I still remember that feeling going on and my thinking, Oh my God! Now I listened to some of the things actually, not that bad really. Probably the thing is that you’ll learn to also love your aging instrument. You realize and you accept that certain things are not anymore possible. But I don’t get sad about it because there are so many more things that I can do with it now. And I believe that the voice is also what you are as a person and your personal experiences. Your life experiences also translate in how you sing and how your body becomes and how your personality as a singer becomes.”

If she has concerns it is about the challenges artists have to face in a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate a prickly public.

“When I voice my voice or I express myself, I do not think about if it’s now politically correct or it’s artistically correct. My heart needs to express it and it’s for my own dignity. I think the human being at this very moment is living in this consumer society that very quickly switches from right to left and from left to right. We are very limited in seeing different colors in between. It’s either white or black and I think that at some point that also has to change because we are all different and we all should have the right and must have right to live life and be free of expressing.”

Garanča goes on to explain that this doesn’t just impact the artist, but also the art.

“Also, art in a way is suffering in that respect. Before actually believing and listening to the message that art actually wants to give we start to take it apart. Are we correct in this way? Are we correct in that way? If we do that do we offend this part of the humanity or can we challenge this part? And I think it loses its purpose. We are there to communicate with emotions. We are there to transport. We are there to support history, the imagination of somebody. And if it all gets just corrected by politics, it loses its purpose.”

Though her idol Christa Ludwig once described opera as “an impossible art – if you can say it is an art at all,” Garanča still firmly believes in the power of a great production of a great opera. In other words, in her art.

“You know what? Music has its magical power that when all of the ingredients suit to each other – meaning conductor, staging, costumes, voice – that’s so magical. Where you say, ‘Oh my god, it’s already finished. I didn’t notice how quickly or how long the opera was.’ You know what I mean? It just went in one breath from their first moment down to the last moment; from the joyful meeting up to the death of one or the other one. It was just one breath and we aim to give those nights and they become special and then art.”

To watch our full conversation with Elīna Garanča, please go to our YouTube channel here.

For tickets and more information on Garanča’s recital at The Broad Stage, please go here. She will be performing Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra March 31st – April 5th. For details go here. At the end of May Garanča will begin performances as Dalila in Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila at The Royal Opera in London. For details go here.

Main photo: Elīna Garanča (© Sarah Katharina)

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“Lots of things draw me back,” he said last week during our conversation. “There is something very interesting, I think, about how we work and where we work. If you work at the Metropolitan Opera, which I’m very lucky enough to do every year, I walk down to Lincoln Center and I go in a back door. Then I go down three floors into the subterranean basement where there is no natural light, where the air is of dubious quality and you rehearse in these boxy rooms all day. Just the difference between that and driving up to the opera in the morning under a crystal blue sky and rehearsing outdoors. We have hummingbirds flying behind us, we occasionally have to sweep snakes off the campus when we come in, the flowers. It sounds like nothing, but, particularly this year after having all the traumas of lockdown, if you can get people before they even arrive for work to have their hearts filled with a positive spirit and a happiness, half your work is done.”

And he has a lot of work this year. He’s conducting productions of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The former is one of the most regularly performed works and the latter a much less well-known opera.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Is there such a thing as a perfect opera and do you think The Marriage of Figaro is that opera?

I think it is pretty close. It think it is the perfect marriage, pardon the pun, of music, libretto and voice and production and orchestra in the performance at least. It is very hard to find that sweet spot where everything is so completely unified. You’re not aware of the libretto being one thing and the music being something else. It’s just a complete fusion and I think that’s what Mozart and [librettist] Da Ponte achieved with Figaro.

As popular as it is, you’ve conducted it countless times. Are new discoveries still there to be found for you in this opera?

I think that as a conductor one thing you should do is also see what your orchestras and cast bring to the table. In that sense every time I do it is different. Working with the director also has to be added to the mix. So one has to be a bit of a chameleon, but then one also has to be very respectful of Mozart and of the music. It’s sort of a balancing act, but because of that I think every time I conduct the piece it’s slightly different and you want to find different ideas and different colors.

In 1948 a scholar Hans Keller, made the argument that there were many parallels between Mozart and Britten, notably in their “exaggerated importance attached to historical perspectives.” What, if any, similarities do you find?

That’s such a tough question. Because also I think that for Britten a lot of stuff was quite personal as a gay man at a time when it was illegal. It was also historical perspective for him. In all of the operas there’s a sense of this outsider and a person who is not proselytizing or complaining about the situation, but is clearly referencing it. You see that in Peter Grimes, you certainly see that in Billy Budd and to a certain extent there is an element of that in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The whole wedding thing – in the play they kind of all do get married at the end. And in the opera that whole thing is kind of mysteriously swept under the carpet perhaps because Britten and Peter Pears couldn’t get married. I don’t know. I don’t want to read too much into that.

For Mozart it was a similar thing. He was writing in the 1780s and there was the US revolution, the whole French situation, the situation in Vienna. I think that had to be something that influenced him every day of his life.

What surprises you most about the way Britten set Shakespeare’s play with his music?

It doesn’t surprise me that it’s brilliantly set. Most composers would really shy away from setting very very high end poetry because you’re on a losing wicket. How can you ever dare to aspire musically to the kind of quality of the text. Even Verdi when he was writing his Shakespeare operas he didn’t dare actually take on Shakespeare’s text. Britten is one of the few people in history that actually set Shakespeare’s text and all but one sentence is the original Shakespeare.

Britten told Joan Peyser of New York Times in a 1969 interview that “it is better to be a bad composer writing for society than to be a good composer writing against it. At least your work can be of some use.” Wasn’t Britten actually being both a good composer and writing for society at the same time?

I don’t think it is necessarily an either or. I think it’s kind of a both and. But I think Britten did feel very strongly obviously about so many things. He was a conscientious objector during the war. The War Requiem is very clearly expressing a moral outrage about the senselessness of war. Not a political thing, but a human response to that. I think certainly the theme through his pieces is just about how we treat people in society who don’t necessarily fit in. He was obviously quite bitter about it, but also realized as an artist he was in a unique position to actually talk about it in a way that wasn’t offensive. He was provocative and allowed people to be challenged. Not in a threatening way, but in a way which hopefully caused conversation and then many years later actually caused something to be done about that.

For tickets to The Marriage of Figaro please go here. There are performances on August 3rd, 10th, 14th, 18th, 21st, 24th and 27th.

For tickets to A Midsummer Night’s Dream please go here. There are performances on August 4th, 13th, 19th and 25th.

This is the second of our week-long series of interviews with artists participating in this year’s Santa Fe Opera season. Check back on Wednesday for our interview with counter tenor Iestyn Davies who sings the role of Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Main Photo: Conductor Harry Bicket (Courtesy Santa Fe Opera)

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The opera star appearing in the most productions is the late baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky who appears in the final two productions being streamed. The composer being represented the most is, no surprise, Verdi. In fact, Hvorostovsky singing Verdi received the top vote. That opera (see below for the reveal) is the final streaming production.

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 theplanned 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 July 19th, you’ll still have time to see the 2015-2016 season production of Puccini’s Turandot that concludes Puccini week.

Here is are selections for Week 71 at the Met:

Monday, July 19 – Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro – 3rd Showing

Conducted by James Levine, starring Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Susanne Mentzer, Dwayne Croft, and Sir Bryn Terfel. This Jonathan Miller production is from the 1998-1999 season.

Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro is based on the 1784 play La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro (translated: “The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro”) by Pierre Beaumarchais. Lorenzo da Ponte wrote the libretto. La Nozze di Figaro had its world premiere in Vienna in 1786.

Figaro and Susanna are getting married. They are in a room made available to them by the Count who plans to seduce the bride-to-be based on an old law that gave permission to lords to have sex with servant girls on their wedding night. When Figaro gets wind of this plan he enlists several people to outwit the Count using disguises, altered identities and more.

Bernard Holland, reviewing for the New York Times, said of this production: “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, July 20 – Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci – 2nd Showing

Both operas conducted by James Levine. Cavalleria Rusticana starring Tatiana Troyanos, Jean Kraft, Plácido Domingo and Vern Shinall. Pagliacci starring Teresa Stratas, Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes and Allan Monk. This Franco Zeffirelli production is from the 1977-1978 season.

Perhaps no pairing of one-act operas is more popular than the combination of Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. 

Cavalleria Rusticana had its world premiere in Rome in 1890. The opera is based on a short story which later became a play by Giovanni Verga. Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci adapted them both for their libretto.

Mascagni’s opera centers on a love triangle. Turridu, who has returned from military service, goes to see his ex-lover, Lola, before seeing his current lover, Santuzza. Lola is married to Alfio. Santuzza decides to tell Alfio about the infidelity and the two men decide to duel. At the end of the opera, multiple hearts are left broken.

Pagliacci had its world premiere in Milan in 1892. Leoncavallo also wrote the libretto.

The opera tells the story of a married couple, Canio and Nedda, who are performers in a small theatre company on the road. Canio is insanely jealous and that jealousy drives Nedda to seek affection from another man, Silvio. Nedda and Silvio make plans to elope, but their plans are overheard by Tonio, another member of the company. He tells Canio about Nedda’s plans. Looking for revenge, Canio, during a performance of their touring play, makes his personal life mirror the drama in the play.

This was not the first time Domingo had sung the lead tenor roles in both operas on the same night. In fact, with this performance he did so for the 25th time. Previous double-hitters were performed in Vienna, Covent Garden and in San Francisco. These performances also marked the first time James Levine conducted each opera at the Met.

Wednesday, July 21 – Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles – 4th Showing

Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda; starring Diana Damrau, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecień and Nicolas Testé. This Penny Woolcock production is from the 2015-2016 season.

Les Pêcheurs de Perles (best known to many as The Pearl Fishers) had its world premiere in 1863 in Paris. Bizet’s opera has a libretto written by Eugène Cormon and Michel Carré.

The setting is the island of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and two men find that their plan to be friends forever regardless of circumstances is threatened when they both fall in love with the same woman. She, too, is conflicted as she has sworn to be a priestess, but finds herself falling in love with the men.

Director Woolcock’s production was new to the Met when it debuted on New Year’s Eve 2015. The production was first staged at the English National Opera in 2010. The last time Les Pêcheurs de Perles had been performed at the Met was 1916.

Thursday, July 22 – Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann – 2nd Showing

Conducted by Yves Abel; starring Erin Morley, Hibla Gerzmava, Kate Lindsey, Christine Rice, Vittorio Grigolo and Thomas Hampson. This revival of the 2009 Bartlett Sher production is from the 2014-2015 season.

Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman had its world premiere in Paris in 1881. The libretto was written by Jules Barbier and was inspired by three short stories by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman. Offenbach did not live to see this opera performed. He died four months before its premiere.

In the opera Offenbach and Barbier put the author of the stories in the middle of all the action. He’s seeking perfect love and tells a tavern crowd about three fruitless attempts at romance. The first with the daughter of an inventor who turns out to be a doll instead of a human being. The second with a beautiful young woman with a gorgeous voice, but whose singing may lead to her death. The third with a young woman who steals his reflection. Will poor Hoffman ever find love? Or will his writing be his lifelong companion?

In David Shengold’s Opera News review of this production he raved about Grigolo’s performance:

“…Grigolo may have found his most convincing Met part yet. His French is remarkably clear and accurate for an Italian tenor and — though he deployed his full resources at climaxes, often excitingly — Grigolo showed admirable dynamic variety in filling out Offenbach’s higher lines. His soft singing wasn’t exactly Gallic classic voix mixte but he integrated it gracefully into his overall vocalization, clear and attractive save for rather empty low notes. Grigolo paced himself well in this extremely demanding assignment; he tended to be placed near the lip of the stage, but he interacted with colleagues and created an actual character.”

Friday, July 23 – Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment – 3rd Showing

Conducted by Marco Armiliato; starring Natalie Dessay, Felicity Palmer, Juan Diego Flórez and Alessandro Corbelli. This Laurent Pelly production is from the 2007-2008 season.

This two-act comic opera written by Gaetano Donizetti was first performed in 1840 in Paris. The libretto is by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.

La Fille du Régiment tells the story of a young woman, Marie, who was raised by the 21st Regiment after having been found as a baby on a battlefield. The plan is that when she is old enough she will marry one of the men of the Regiment. She falls in love with Tyrolean Tonio. When the Marquise de Berkenfield shows up, it is discovered that she is Marie’s aunt and she wants to take Marie away to raise her as a lady. Will love win out for Marie?

Pelly updated the original Napoleonic war setting to World War I for this production. The end result, according to several critics, was that the “war is hell” concept is undermined by the silliness of the plot.

One of the hallmarks of this opera is the challenge that faces every tenor singing the role of Tonio to hit nine high C’s in the opera’s best known aria, “Ah! mes amis.” Flórez nailed them and, of course, repeated the aria to wild applause from the audience. 

Saturday, July 24 – Verdi’s Il Trovatore – 3rd Showing

Conducted by Marco Armiliato; starring Anna Netrebko, Dolora Zajick, Yonghoon Lee, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Štefan Kocán. This revival of David McVicar’s 2009 production is from the 2014-2015 season. 

Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore is based on the play El trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez published in 1836. The libretto was written by Salvadore Cammarano with additions by Leone Emanuele Badare. The opera had its world premiere in Rome in 1853.

The setting is Zaragoza, the capital of the Kingdom of Aragon, circa 1412. To offer up a quick synopsis here would be a fool’s game to play. Several stories happen simultaneously and sometimes share the same characters. The opera has rarely been hailed for its story, but it certainly ranks as one of Verdi’s finest compositions.

This production of Il Trovatore took place months after Hvorostovsky’s diagnosis of cancer. This was his last production at the Met and as you could tell at the start of the clip above, he was beloved by the audience.

Anthony Tommasini’s review in the New York Times said that positively influenced the performance Hvorostovsky gave on opening night.

“It’s impossible to imagine a singer giving more than Mr. Hvorostovsky did on this night. When your life is actually threatened by a serious illness, you truly are putting everything on the line when you sing.

“Mr. Hvorostovsky gave a gripping performance as Count di Luna. There was little need to take what he has been going through into account. His resplendent voice, with its distinctive mellow character and dusky veneer, sounded not at all compromised. He sang with Verdian lyricism, dramatic subtlety and, when called for, chilling intensity as the complex count, who, in this production, with its Goya-inspired imagery, is the brash leader of the Royalist Aragon troops at a time of bloody civil war in Spain.”

Sunday, July 25 – Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera – 4th Showing

Conducted by Fabio Luisi; starring Sondra Radvanovsky, Kathleen Kim, Stephanie Blythe, Marcelo Álvarez and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. This David Alden production is from the 2012-2013 season. 

Verdi’s opera, translated A Masked Ball, had its premiere in Rome in 1859. Librettist Antonio Somma used the libretto written by Eugène Scribe for the opera, Gustave III, ou Le Ballo masqué, written by Daniel Auber in 1833. 

The opera is based on the real life assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden who was killed while attending a masquerade ball in Stockholm. 

Verdi takes some dramatic liberties which certainly enhances the drama. Riccardo is in love with Amelia. She, however, is the wife of his good friend and confidante, Renato. Riccardo is warned by his friend that there is a plot to kill him at the ball. Paying no attention to the warning, Riccardo instead seeks out Ulrica, a woman accused of being a witch. In disguise he visits Ulrica to have his fortune read. She tells him he will be killed by the next man who shakes his hand. That next man turns out to be Renato. What follows is a story of intrigue, deception, questions of fidelity and, of course, the assassination.

This was a brand new production of Un Ballo in Maschera at the Met. Director Alden was influenced by black and white films and, in particular, film noir for his production.

Karita Matilla was originally announced to sing the role of Amelia. She withdrew approximately six months prior to its staging. Radvanovsky assumed the role.

In his New York Times review, Anthony Tommasini said of Radvanovsky and Hvorostovsky, “She was particularly moving in the scene in which her husband, here the charismatic baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, having discovered her in a rendezvous with the king, tells her to prepare to die. Confronting his wife, Mr. Hvorostovsky shook Ms. Radvanovsky by the shoulders, as if really ready to strangle her. But the next moment he nestled his head next to her face and kissed her, almost pleadingly, singing with his trademark dark sound and supple phrasing, which poignantly brought to life this suffering husband’s love.”

It’s been quite a run of streaming productions. But all good things must come to an end.

Enjoy the operas! Enjoy your week!

Photo: Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Sondra Radvanovsky in Un Ballo in Maschera

The post Week 71 at the Met: The Final Week appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

The productions being shown this week feature a mix of openly gay performers (Jamie Barton, Michael Fabiano, David Portillo, Patricia Racette), a conductor (Yannick Nézet-Séguin), a director (David McVicar) and two openly gay composers (Thomas Adés and Benjamin Britten).

Being streamed for the first time is the 1996-1997 season production of Britten’s Billy Budd. You’ll find that opera on Saturday, June 26th.

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 column early enough on June 14thth, you’ll still have time to see the 2017-2018 season production of Verdi’s Luisa Miller that was part of Happy Father’s Day week.

Here is the full line-up for Week 67 at the Met:

Monday, June 21 – Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel – 4th Showing (Strongly Recommended)

Conducted by Thomas Adès; starring Audrey Luna, Amanda Echalaz, Sally Matthews, Sophie Bevan, Alice Coote, Christine Rice, Iestyn Davies, Joseph Kaiser, Frédéric Antoun, David Portillo, David Adam Moore, Rod Gilfry, Kevin Burdette, Christian Van Horn and John Tomlinson. This Tom Cairns production was from the 2017-2018 season.

British composer Adés’s opera, based on the Luis Buñuel film from 1962, had its world premiere in Salzburg in 2016. Tom Cairns, who directed this production, wrote the libretto.

The Exterminating Angel depicts an elaborate dinner party where all the attendees suddenly and mysteriously cannot leave the room. As the hours turn into days, they lose any sense of privilege and pretense and are reduced to more animalistic tendencies.

If you’ve seen the composer’s The Tempest you know that Adés is one of our most compelling and intriguing composers. 

Feel free to check out Anthony Tomassini’s review in the New York Times. I’ll just give you the last sentence from his review: “If you go to a single production this season, make it this one.” I’ve seen it and wholeheartedly agree.

Tuesday, June 22 – Dvořák’s Rusalka – 3rd Showing

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.

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 Metamorphosesand 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.

Wednesday, June 23 – Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda – 4th Showing

Conducted by Maurizio Benini; starring Elza van den Heever, Joyce DiDonato, Matthew Polenzani, Joshua Hopkins and Matthew Rose. This David McVicar production is from the 2012-2013 season.

Mary, Queen of Scots, is the central figure in this opera written by Donizetti that had its world premiere in Milan in 1835. The libretto Guiseppe Bardari, was based on Friedrich von Schiller’s play, Mary Stuart, from 1800. 

Elisabetta, the Queen of England, has her cousin, Maria Stuarda, the Queen of Scotland, in prison. Elisabetta is in love with the Earl of Leicester, Roberto, but he wants to help Maria with whom he is in love. His suggestion to Maria that a reconciliation take place between the two cousins only leads to greater animosity and ultimately Maria’s execution.

Of DiDonato’s performance in the title role, Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times said:

“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.”

Thursday, June 24 – Puccini’s Tosca – 2nd Showing

Conducted by Riccardo Frizza; starring Patricia Racette, Roberto Alagna and George Gagnidze. This revival of Luc Bondy’s 2009 production is from the 2013-2014 season.

It is quite likely that Puccini’s Tosca was the first opera to premiere in 1900. Its first performance was on January 14 in Rome. Based on Victorien Sardou’s 1887 play of the same name, Tosca‘s libretto was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

The setting for Tosca is Rome in 1800. The Napoleonic wars were raging and political unrest was omnipresent. The opera takes place over the course of slightly less than 24 hours. Floria Tosca (Verrett) is the object of Chief of Police Baron Scarpia’s (MacNeil) lust. He uses suspicions that her lover, Mario Cavaradossi (Pavarotti), aided a political prisoner who has escaped as an opportunity to get him out of his way which will leave Tosca for himself. After capturing Cavaradossi, Scarpia says that if Tosca doesn’t become his lover, he will have Cavaradossi killed.

Met Opera fans and critics were bitterly disappointed when Bondy’s production replaced the beloved long-standing production by Franco Zeffirelli. Perhaps in an effort to woo over their patrons, the Met revived that production every year since its debut leading up to this revival. Whether it become more embraced or simply tolerated, is in the eye of the ticket holders. Let us know what you think of this production.

Friday, June 25 –Puccini’s Turandot – 4th Showing

Conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; starring Christine Goerke, Eleonora Buratto, Yusif Eyvazov and James Morris. This revival of the 1987 Franco Zeffirelli production from the 2019-2020 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. 

Anthony Tommasini wrote in the New York Times about this production:

“Mr. Nézet-Séguin led an exciting and insightful account of Puccini’s Turandot, a revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s glittering, over-the-top and popular 1987 production. The strong cast was headed by the blazing soprano Christine Goerke as Puccini’s icy Princess Turandot, the ardent tenor Yusif Eyvazov as Calaf, and the plush-voiced soprano Eleonora Buratto as Liù. The chorus, during the crowd scenes, sounded superb.”

Saturday, June 26 – Britten’s Billy Budd – FIRST SHOWING

Conducted by Steuart Bedford; starring Philip Langridge, Dwayne Croft and James Morris. This revival of the 1978 John Dexter production is from the 1996-1997 season.

Herman Melville’s short novel, Billy Budd, left unfinished by the author and published in 1924 (33 years after Melville’s death), serves as the inspiration for Benjamin Britten’s opera. 

Billy Budd, the opera, had its world premiere in London in 1951. Novelist E.M. Forster (A Passage to India) and Eric Crozier wrote the libretto. Billy Budd is a rare opera in that it features no female roles. Even the chorus is all-male.

The opera tells the story of a young sailor who is newly recruited to join the HMS Indomitable. He possess great beauty and charm. The Master-at-Arms, Claggart, finds himself inexplicably drawn to the young man. Uneasy with the feelings Budd instills him, Claggart seeks to do everything he can to destroy him.

In his New York Times review, Anthony Tommasini pointed out the challenges of playing the title character and praised Croft for his performance.

“Hardly anyone in the opera refers to Billy without calling him a ‘beauty.’ The old seaman Dansker, with fatherly affection, even calls him ‘baby.’ So looking right in the role is critical, and Mr. Croft did, youthful and limber, with tousled blond hair.

“Yet Billy cannot be self-consciously sexual. He is innocent of his own attractiveness, painfully awkward and encumbered with a bad stammer. Mr. Croft movingly captured these qualities through his affecting portrayal and warm, robust singing. Matters of rhythm and phrasing were handled with musicianly skill. Since his debut in 1990, Mr. Croft has been increasingly important to the Met. Billy Budd may be his finest work yet.”

Sunday, June 27 – Verdi’s La Traviata – 2nd Showing

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.

Alexandre Dumas fils (the son of the author of The Three Musketeers) wrote the play, La Dame aux camélias on which Verdi’s opera is based. Francesco Maria Piave wrote the libretto for La Traviata which had its world premiere in Venice in 1853.

In the opera, Violetta, who is in declining health, throws an opulent party. At this party she is introduced to Alfredo by her lover, Baron Douphol. When signs of failing health get noticed by Alfredo, he encourages her to give up her lavish lifestyle. He also admits his great love for Violetta. A love triangle is now in play. From there the opera tells the story of a woman who sacrifices everything to live life on the edge.

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.”

That’s the end of Week 67 at the Met celebrating Pride Week. Next week, with Independence Day falling on Sunday, the theme will be Celebrating American Composers.

Enjoy your week! Enjoy the operas! Happy Pride!

Photo: Michael Fabiano and Sonya Yoncheva in La Traviata (Photo by Marty Sohl/Courtesy Metropolitan Opera)

The post Pride Week – Week 67 at the Met appeared first on Cultural Attaché.

Our top pick this week is actually a twofer. Jazz vocalist Jazzmeia Horn, who has taken the world by storm since her 2017 debut album A Social Call, is featured in two concerts you’ll want to watch this weekend.

With several operas, a very wide range of dance, play readings and more, it will seem at first glance like a pretty intense selection of programs. However, nothing is what it seems this week. Read about each of these programs and you’ll find they almost all represent a new way of telling both familiar and new stories.

Here are the Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st.

*TOP PICK* JAZZ: Jazzmeia Horn – SFJAZZ – June 18th – 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM PT and Cal Performances on demand through July 21st

This week’s Fridays at Five offering from SFJAZZ is a 2019 performance from the 37th San Francisco Jazz Festival in support of her second album, Love and Liberation.

She rose to prominence after winning the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition.

In a 2017 review of a performance Horn gave at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in New York, Giovanni Russonello wrote in the New York Times after calling her one of the most talked-about jazz singers to emerge since Cécile McLorin Salvant and Gregory Porter:

“…she’s possessed of some distinctive tools, all of which were on display: a pinched, sassy tone in the highest register; a fondness for unguarded duets with her bassist (at Dizzy’s, it was Noah Jackson); an array of rough, pealing nonverbal sounds that add drama to codas and interludes, hinting at meanings in the music that go beyond what fits on the page.”

Should you be unable to catch the streaming of this concert on Friday, there is an encore showing on Saturday at 1:00 PM ET/10:00 AM PT. Tickets are $5 which includes a one-month digital membership to SFJAZZ.

If you want to explore more of what Horn can do (and perhaps see and hear how she evolved her performances and her set list almost two years later), you can check out a concert filmed at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge in February of this year for Cal Performances.

That concert is available for on-demand streaming with prices ranging from $5 for Cal students and $15 per non-student viewers up to $68 for those who have the ability to pay.

Horn is a force to be reckoned with. These two concerts allow you to chart her growth as, we hope, a new album will soon be on the horizon.

OPERA: Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex – LA Opera – Now – July 18th

Igor Stravinsky composed this opera/oratorio in 1927. Based on the tragedy by Sophocles, it is a work for orchestra, speaker, soloists, and male chorus. If you believe you know well the story of Oedipus, I think you’ll be surprised at all the ultimately timely material to be found in this story.

For this filmed performance of Oedipus Rex, Los Angeles Opera has assembled a terrific ensemble.

Singing the title role is tenor Russell Thomas. The role of his mother, Jocasta, is sung by mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges. Creon and the Messenger are sung by John Relyea. Tiresias is sung by Morris Robinson. The role of the Shepherd is sung by Robert Stahley. Serving as narrator is Stephen Fry (via video).

James Conlon conducts the LA Opera orchestra.

I attended a rehearsal of this production two weeks ago (prior to a live performance in Los Angeles – LA Opera’s first live performance back in their home at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion). Collaborating with them is Manual Cinema. They are the Chicago-based company that did a truly memorable production of A Christmas Carol that was streamed last December (and was also a Best Bet).

At 50 minutes, this is a terrific way to get some opera into your weekend. And it’s free; though donations to LA Opera are encouraged.

If you want to see more of what Thomas and Bridges have to offer, let us remind you of LA Opera’s Signature Recital Series which has recitals by each of them available for streaming through the end of the month. Check out our preview here.

PLAY READING: Dear Elizabeth – Spotlight on Plays from Broadway’s Best Shows – Now – June 21st

You don’t need to know who poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell were. You don’t need to know that they became very good friends, mostly through the hundreds of letters they wrote to each other. Nor that they had an affair. You don’t even need to know that this play, which had its New York premiere in 2015, is written by award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl.

All you really need to know about this reading is that it stars Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep. The two famously appeared together in Sophie’s Choice. This was the film that earned Streep her second Academy Award. They also appeared as exes in Jonathan Demme’s Rikki and the Flash in 2015.

Not to be outdone, Kline won an Academy Award for his performance in A Fish Called Wanda.

They appeared on stage in the 2001 production of The Seagull and the 2006 production of Mother Courage and Her Children at the Delacorte Theater as part of The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park series.

This seems like a pretty easy choice to make for your weekend plans. Why not see these incredibly talented actors together again? This is the final play in the Spotlight on Plays series. They are clearly going out on a high note.

Kate Whoriskey directs.

Tickets are $19 and allow for streaming through Monday, June 21st at 6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT. Proceeds benefit The Actors Fund and The Acting Company.

OPERA/MINI-SERIES: desert in – Boston Lyric Opera – Now available

As befits a project from the mind of James Darrah, desert in does not fit easily into any one category. It is a mini-series. It is an opera. It contains nudity. There’s strong sexual content and adult language. It also comes from the minds of playwright christopher oscar peña and Pulitzer-Prize winning composer Ellen Reid.

In other words, it’s like nothing you’ve seen before.

The stories of multiple characters swirl around a lodge in the desert and its swimming pool. A combination of trysts, betrayals and shamanic ceremonies result in the lodge’s owners Cass and Sunny and new guests Ion and Rufus caught up in its mysterious ways.

Appearing in desert in are mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard (for whom the project was written), soprano Talise Trevigne, Tony-nominated performer Justin Vivian Bond (Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway), actors Carlis Shane Clark, Alexander Flores, Anthony Michael Lopez, Jon Orsini, Ricco Ross and Raviv Ullman with vocal performances by tenor Neal Ferreira, Tony Award-winner Jesus Garcia (La Bohème), baritone Edward Nelson, tenor Alan Pingarrón, soprano Brianna J. Robinson, mezzo-soprano Emma Sorenson and bass-baritone Davóne Tines.

Joining Reid in composing music for desert in are Michael Abels, Vijay Iyer, Nathalie Joachim, Nico Muhly, Emma O’Halloran, Wang Lu and Shelley Washington. Each one a truly fascinating composer.

Six of the eight episodes have been released and are available for viewing on operabox.tv. The final two episodes will be released in the next couple of weeks.

You have several options for viewing with varying price points. You can subscribe to operabox.tv, purchase on-demand streaming of the entire series or for individual episodes. Details can be found here.

CLASSICAL MEETS HIP-HOP: Common with the Los Angeles Philharmonic – Debuts June 18th

We’ve previewed the second season of the LA Philharmonic’s Sound/Stage series, but can attest from personal experience that seeing Common on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl with the orchestra is an event like few others. Frankly, it’s almost one of a kind, except that they created this 17-minute film available for free streaming that didn’t come from that concert.

Common is one of the most important and exciting performers in hip-hop. Gustavo Dudamel leads one of the most adventurous orchestras in this country. This pairing is going to please those who can’t imagine hip-hop with classical music institutions and those who can’t imagine a symphony orchestra with hip-hop.

Other episodes in this series are available for streaming and can be found at the link above.

OPERA: This Little Light of Mine – Kentucky Opera in collaboration with the Santa Fe Opera – June 19th – 6:00 PM ET/3:00 PM PT

Here’s a great opportunity to see a work truly in development. The Santa Fe Opera commissioned this opera inspired by the story of Fannie Lou Hamer. She was a voting rights activist whose relentless efforts lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Chandler Carter is the composer of This Little Light of Mine. The libretto is by Diana Solomon-Glover.

The two had previously collaborated on No Easy Walk to Freedom about Nelson Mandela. Solomon-Glover portrayed Winnie Mandela in that work.

On Saturday they will be streaming a workshop of This Little Light of Mine that was filmed on Monday at Kentucky Opera. This opera had been scheduled for a workshop last fall, but was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Nicole Joy Mitchell sings the role of Fannie Lou Hamer. Aundi Marie Moore sings the role of Dorothy Jean Hamer and Heather Hill sings the roles of June Johnson and an Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Worker. The workshop is directed by Beth Greenberg.

There is no charge to watch This Little Light of Mine. It will be available on Kentucky Opera’s YouTube channel.

ONE-ACT PLAYS: Unmasked: A Theatrical Celebration of Black Women’s Liberation – The Wallis – Debuts June 19th

The Wallis collaborated with Black Rebirth Collective on Unmasked, one-act plays by four Black female playwrights that was filmed in the Lovelace Studio Theatre at The Wallis.

Those writers are: Ngozi Anyanwu, Jocelyn Bioh, Dominique Morisseau and Stacy Osei-Kuffour.

Anyanwu is best known for Good Grief, an award-winning play that was first performed at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2016. Her play is called G.O.A.T. which finds three close friends who try to determine who is the greatest of all time (hence the title) through a sacred ritual.

Bioh, best known for School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, has written White-N-Luscious. While appearing on a talk show a Nigerian pop star and an Afro-British scholar face issues of self-representation and beauty standards.

Morisseau, who was Tony nominated for writing the book for Ain’t Too Proud and also wrote The Detroit Project trilogy of plays, contributes Jezelle the Gazelle. As the title perhaps alludes to, the title character is a young female runner who is easily the fastest on her block. But does she have the skill set to navigate what life has in store for her and still remain on top?

Osei-Kuffour’s work is called Madness. While handling an issue at work on a phone call, the protagonist is offered a new way to address the situation by a new colleague whom she doesn’t know. Osei-Kuffour’s ANIMALS was recorded by the Williamstown Theater Festival and can be heard on Audible.

The ensemble cast – Kelly M. Jenrett, Masha Mthembu, Candace Thomas and Jonah Wharton – are accompanied by violinist Katherine Washington. Unmasked was co-drected by Kimberly Hébert of Black Rebirth Collective and The Wallis’ Camille Jenkins.

Tickets are $19 for all four plays. If you only want to watch one of the plays, you can purchase a single ticket for $5. Please go here for details on ticket sales. Unmasked will be available for streaming on demand through July 2nd.

BROADWAY VOCALS: Jenn Colella – SETH Concert Series – June 20th – 3:00 PM ET/12:00 PM PT

I’ve never been lucky enough to see Broadway star and Tony-nominated actor Jenn Colella in any of the shows in which she’s appeared (Come From Away, If/Then, Chaplin, High Fidelity and Urban Cowboy). But that last show did lead to a chance to see her early in her career and I realized how special she was immediately.

Colella was a guest at a concert by composer Jason Robert Brown in North Hollywood. (He music directed Urban Cowboy). When she sang a couple songs with him it was like the best possible hurricane just blew into and through the theater.

I can only imagine what Colella will do this weekend as Seth Rudetsky’s guest in his concert series.

If you’re unable to see the live stream on Sunday as scheduled, there will be a re-stream of the show at 8:00 PM ET/5:00 PM the same day. Tickets for either showing are $25.

DANCE: Broadway Bares: Twerk from Home – Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS – June 20th – 9:00 PM ET/6:00 PM PT

Just as Broadway is on the cusp of coming back comes an annual tradition that is one of the toughest tickets in town. And because Broadway isn’t back yet…we all get a front row seat.

Broadway Bares is an annual dance/performance fundraiser, usually performed on a Broadway stage.

For the uninitiated, it is one where clothes become less necessary as each performance goes on. This year’s show is called Twerk from Home and it will debut on Sunday night.

Two-time Tony Award winning choreograph Jerry Mitchell (Kinky Boots, the 2005 revival of La Cage Aux Folles), is the creator of Broadway Bares and once again he directs this year’s show. Joining this year as co-directors are Laya Barak and Nick Kenkel.

Over 170 dancers are participating in Twerk from Home. Joining them will be Harvey Fierstein, J. Harrison Ghee, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Robyn Hurder, Peppermint and Jelani Remy who make special appearances. This year’s Broadway Bares culminates in a finale extravaganza that was filmed outdoors in Times Square.

There is no charge to watch Twerk from Home, but donations are encouraged. This is one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. Last year’s virtual edition raised $596,504 for Broadway Cares. You can watch the show on BC/EFA’s YouTube Channel.

MODERN DANCE: Future Dance Festival – 92Y – June 21st – July 4th

From a pool of 185 applicants, seven panelists selected 21 choreographer finalists to be part of the 92nd Street Y’s first Future Dance Festival. The goal of the festival is to pair emerging choreographers and creators with working directors.

Beginning on Monday, those 21 finalists will have their work showcased in three different programs that will all be available for free streaming.

Program 1 features work by Annie Rigney, Max Levy, Madison Elliott, Leonardo Sandoval, Burr Johnson, Nicole von Are and Brian Josiah Martinez.

Program 2 features works by Barkha Patel, Adrienne Lipson, Jessie Lee Thorne, William Ervin, Vera Kvarcakova & Jeremy Galdeano, Brian Golden and Caroline Payne.

Program 3 features works by Taylor Graham, Baye & Asa, Patrick Coker, Charly and Eriel Santagado, Jamal Callender, Beatrice Panero and Nicholas Ranauro.

The panelists, who come from Ballet Hispánico, Dance Magazine, Martha Graham Dance Company and other organizations, will introduce each work.

Registration is required.

Here ends the Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st. But just a couple reminders:

The Metropolitan Opera celebrates Father’s Day with Verdi’s Rigoletto from the 1981-1982 season Friday; his Don Carlo from the 2010-2011 season on Saturday and his Luisa Miller from the 1978-1979 season Sunday. If you’re not a father, consider this the end of Verdi Week.

Next week the Met will be celebrating Pride Week. Monday that program gets launched with the 2017-2018 season production of Thomas Adés’ The Exterminating Angel. We’ll have the full line-up for you on Monday. We strongly recommend this opera.

Your last chance to watch A Tribute to John Williams from the Boston Pops Orchestra is Saturday. Film music fans, what are you waiting for?

On Monday South Coast Rep starts streaming the final production of their Pacific Playwrights Festival. It’s a concert performance of Harold & Lillian. You can find details here.

You’re now fully loaded with options to enjoy the performing arts this weekend. That’s all for this week’s Top Ten Best Bets: June 18th – June 21st.

Enjoy your weekend!

Photo: Jazzmeia Horn (Photo by Emmanuel Afolabi/Courtesy imnworld.com)

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