abatt Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 The Met Opera announced next season's lineup. You can obtain complete info on their website. The HD Broadcast lineup is as follows: October 9 Wagner’s Das Rheingold October 23 Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov November 13 Donizetti’s Don Pasquale December 11 Verdi’s Don Carlo January 8 Puccini’s La Fanciulla Del West February 26 Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride March 19 Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor April 9 Rossini’s Le Comte Ory April 23 Strauss’s Capriccio April 30 Verdi’s Il Trovatore May 14 Wagner’s Die Walküre Link to comment
kfw Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Thanks, abatt. I'm a little disappointed they're not broadcasting "Nixon in China." Maybe "Dr. Atomic" didn't sell well. Link to comment
Helene Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Wow, that's quite a line-up for next year. I may invest in a guild membership to be able to buy the season early next year, to avoid sitting in the front four rows at the Scotiabank Theatre. Here's the link to the Met Opera site: http://www.metoperafamily.org//metopera/ne...h.aspx?id=11526 For "Das Rheingold", there's Terfel's Wotan and Blythe's splendid Fricka. It will be interesting to see what she does under Lepage's direction and with Terfel. Having seen "The Blue Dragon" in Vancouver, he's a relationship director, which I wouldn't have understood from "La Damnation de Faust", although I loved the production. In the "Die Walkure", what a cast: Kauffmann and Westbroek as the Walsung twins and Blythe and Terfel and Fricka and Wotan. I'm interested in hearing what Voigt does with Brunnhilde. "Boris Godunov" has Pape, wow. Netrebko's performance of the season is in Donizetti's "Don Pasquale", with Kwiecien and Polenzani. Hopefully, Kwiecien will be well, and I'm glad to see Polenzani get an HD broadcast. For me, the highlights of "Don Carlo" are Yannick Nézet-Séguin as conductor and Simon Keenleyside as Don Rodrigo. Luisotti's conducting "La Fanciulla del West". I'm very excited that they're broadcasting "Iphigenia en Tauride" and the "Il Trovatore" with Radvonovski, Alvaro, Zajick, and Hvorostovsky, wow, wow, wow. Dessay's in "Lucia di Lammermoor" -- did they do this before? I thought everyone hated the production? Link to comment
volcanohunter Posted February 23, 2010 Share Posted February 23, 2010 Dessay's in "Lucia di Lammermoor" -- did they do this before? I thought everyone hated the production? Well, I think it's horrid so I don't understand the repeat. But it would really make my day if, during the transmission, the people sitting in the box closest to stage left were to aim spitballs at the fussing "photographer" during the sextet. Link to comment
dirac Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Much obliged for the heads up, abatt. Link to comment
bart Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Yes, thank you abatt. I really urge Met Guild membership so you can get early ordering privileges. Last season I delayed ordering, By the time I went online to buy the series, several performances -- Aida, Tales of Hoffmann, Rosenkavalier, Carmen -- were sold out in all 5 theaters in our area which show HD/Live. (We managed to find Encores for all but Carmen but had to travel further than usual.) Next season Godunov, Don Carlo, and the two segments of the Ring are the productions I'm looking forward to most. Ordinarily, I would pass up Trovatore, but not with Radvanovsky, Zajick, Alvarez, and Hvorostovsky. Big, old fashioned stars and big voices: just what a war horse like Trovatore needs. I have an ineradicable prejudice against the cowboy movie setting of Fanciulla Del West, so this is one I'd definitely like to see in an updated (and transported) version. Link to comment
richard53dog Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 The Met Opera announced next season's lineup. You can obtain complete info on their website. The HD Broadcast lineup is as follows:April 9 Rossini’s Le Comte Ory I'm really looking forward to Le Comte Ory. It's a lovely fun piece with sparkling music, a bit more delicate that the usual comic Rossini. And it has Juan Diego Florez and Joyce DiDonato in roles they should be just terrific in. Diana Damrau is also in the cast and may also turn out to be a winner although some of her recent Donizetti/Rossini has been a bit unidiomatic. But JDF dresses up as a nun and tries to hide in a convent...... I only saw this piece once many years ago with Rockwell Blake as Ory and found it a lot of fun and a refreshing change from the seemingly endless Barbers and Cenerantolas. Written for Paris , this is one of Rossini's handful of French operas. Some of the music has been getting some play time as part of Il Viaggio a Reims but Rossini did tend to recycle music and Il Viaggio was really intended to be a piece d'occasion . Rossini didn't really expect Viaggio to be performed again after the coronation of whatever French king was being crowned so he rewrote a substantial part of it into Comte Ory. Link to comment
dirac Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 But JDF dresses up as a nun and tries to hide in a convent...... That should be worth the price of the ticket. Link to comment
SandyMcKean Posted February 27, 2010 Share Posted February 27, 2010 .....several performances -- Aida, Tales of Hoffmann, Rosenkavalier, Carmen -- were sold out in all 5 theaters in our area which show HD/Live. (We managed to find Encores for all but Carmen but had to travel further than usual.) I'm curious bart....... Seattle isn't a suburb of NYC like Miami is , so I'm not surprised that Seattle theaters don't seem to be as busy as the ones you speak of. Here in Seattle, the downtown theater is always sold out (even with 2 screens), and one must arrive almost 2 hours early to get a good seat (1 hour in a line waiting for the 9am door opening, 1 hour waiting in one's seat). None the less, as long as I purchase the tickets online about 1 week in advance I always get tickets. There are 4 or 5 suburban theaters within 30 minutes of Seattle, some of which are not sold out for the Saturday morning performances.....altho most are crowded. OTOH, the encore performances in all the theaters are easy to get into (even the downtown theater is only 1/2 full). The "live" Saturday showings are at 10am of course, but the encores are at 6:30pm on Wednesdays (although one theater does them at 1pm on Sundays to suit the matinee crowd I assume). I've been to one suburban theater for an encore performance that had only 5 people in the entire theater (including my wife and I)!!. I guess I'm surprized that your encore performances are sold out such that you must drive further away. Also have you tryed buying the Saturday "live" performance tickets ahead of time via the internet? Link to comment
kfw Posted February 27, 2010 Share Posted February 27, 2010 Here in Seattle, the downtown theater is always sold out (even with 2 screens), and one must arrive almost 2 hours early to get a good seat (1 hour in a line waiting for the 9am door opening, 1 hour waiting in one's seat). Interesting. Here in Charlottesville, where the broadcasts are at an old, beautifully refurbished movie theater that only rarely shows film now, all seats are reserved, as they are for other performances. Link to comment
dirac Posted February 28, 2010 Share Posted February 28, 2010 In my neck of the woods the broadcasts are in a multiplex, but then multiplexes are all we have, alas. Link to comment
kfw Posted July 6, 2010 Share Posted July 6, 2010 My local theater has now announced the schedule, and in addition to what was posted earlier here, it includes John Adams' "Nixon In China" on February 12. I'm so glad. Link to comment
Helene Posted July 7, 2010 Share Posted July 7, 2010 "Nixon in China" has a great cast, too: the role's originator, James Maddalena, as Richard Nixon, and Richard Paul Fink as Henry Kissinger. Link to comment
SandyMcKean Posted July 7, 2010 Share Posted July 7, 2010 My local theater has now announced the schedule, and in addition to what was posted earlier here, it includes John Adams' "Nixon In China" on February 12. I'm so glad. I note that the Met has made its roster of 11 HD operas for the 2010/2011 season into 12 operas with the addition of "Nixon in China". So all theaters will be showing this "extra" opera (altho I presume some might have scheduling conflicts). In case, someone who is reading this doesn't know, the Met is doing its Summer Encore run right now. In the USA there is an opera at 6:30pm every Wednesday night this month. Eugene Onegin tomorrow night.....with lots of Puccini to follow. Link to comment
kfw Posted August 12, 2010 Share Posted August 12, 2010 According to this this Newsweek article, we can thank PBS network president and CEO Paula Kerger for the Nixon in China broadcast. Though Kerger is relatively new in her role, there are signs that she is overhauling the system. One of the finest American operas of the past quarter century, John Adams’s Nixon in China, was not originally on the Met’s list of HD broadcasts (and thus PBS telecasts) for next season. Last month, Kerger told NEWSWEEK she was talking about it with general manager Peter Gelb and the Met “because [Nixon] is something that I personally am very much interested in.” Soon after that, the announcement was made: Nixon will be on next year’s broadcast schedule. Link to comment
Helene Posted August 28, 2010 Share Posted August 28, 2010 I'm sorry I'm a day late with this, but yesterday began the pre-sales period for Met Members, Supporting Level and above and for some Scene Card members in Canada. In the US, tickets can be purchased online. In Canada, tickets have to be purchased at the theatres. There was quite a line at Scotiabank Theatre in Vancouver yesterday afternoon. We were given the option to sit it out in the food area for the two-three hour wait, which I did happily, while the people who stood were not happy campers. By the time my number came up, the entire top section of last year's theater was sold out, leaving the first five rows, from where I suffered all last season. However, they've added a second theater for 2010-11, and, although smaller, I managed to get seats in the second-to-last row aisles for each. There was a volume discount, depending on the number of tickets, up to either 10 or 15% for the whole season of 12. The Scotiabank website says that pre-sales are available for Guild Members and for Scene Card holders. Scene Card is a free sign-up program that, when used, earns points and gives discounts on food. That's a lot cheaper than the Met Membership, even after the tax deduction. I just went online to buy at ticket at the AMC Theater in Seattle for "Nixon in China". I can't see a way of getting the "buy" options for Met HD movies to appear without having been directed from the Met Opera site after signing in as a Met Member. (Although I did find out von Trotta's new film about Hildegard von Bingen is opening on 13 October.) Link to comment
dirac Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 The "Iphigene in Tauride" was showing in my area last weekend but getting up to go to the movies at 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday is not in my DNA, unfortunately. Did anyone see it? Link to comment
SandyMcKean Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Yes, I did. It was a joint production with Seattle Opera; so those of us in Seattle saw it first in 2007 (different singers of course). The highlight for me was Paul Groves as Pylade. The opera itself is a bit too dark and heavy for me......but at the same time that is appropriate for a Greek tragedy. I found the "too often" use of chains to be distracting. If you don't like 10am, you can always go to the encore performance normally held about 10 days later on Wednesday night at 6:30pm (3/16 in this case in the USA). As far as I know, all the theaters do both showings. Link to comment
dirac Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 Thank you for posting, Sandy. I didn't know about the encore performances in the evenings. Link to comment
Helene Posted February 28, 2011 Share Posted February 28, 2011 In Canada, Vancouver at least, the encores are on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. Sandy, doesn't the theater in Mt. Vernon shown the encores on Sunday afternoons? I think scheduling is theater-specific. Last year they had encores during the summer as well, but only a subset of the most well-attended operas. I suspect "Iphigenie en Tauride" will not be among them, especially since Peter Gelb had to make the "Graham and Domingo are singing with colds" pre-curtain speech. It was gracious of them to do the mini-interviews at the beginning of intermission. I'm torn about Paul Groves. He sang very, very well, and I'm usually not someone who compares current performances to historical recordings, but in this case, I can't help thinking of George Thill because of his impeccable style. I think the music is gorgeous. Link to comment
SandyMcKean Posted March 1, 2011 Share Posted March 1, 2011 In Canada, Vancouver at least, the encores are on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. Sandy, doesn't the theater in Mt. Vernon shown the encores on Sunday afternoons? I think scheduling is theater-specific. Yes and no. As you know (but others might not), the MetHD website lists the performance dates; it lists not only the live b'cast on Saturdays, but the encore dates for the USA and Canada. For reasons I don't understand, the USA dates and the Canada dates are always (or near always) different. It is my understanding that all the "official" MetHD theaters use these published dates. I have not found an exception for the 5 theaters I have gone to in the Seattle area (plus 3 more theaters in the SF Bay Area that I have looked up in the past). But of course there may be exceptions somewhere or other. Helene, as far as the Mt Vernon (well north of Seattle) theater goes, they do change the encore dates. However, the Mt Vernon theater is not an official MetHD theater. It is one of the few (2 or 3 I think) theaters in the country the Met calls "associates". I believe that is because these few theaters don't meet MetHD sound standards. So perhaps these "associate" theaters have more flexibility -- I presume there is some agreement btwn the Met and the "official" theaters that requires the theaters to show the performances at the advertised dates. Link to comment
vipa Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 I saw HD Lucia di Lammermour today. Loved it. I'm far from an expert on Opera - my first was Pelleas et Melisande last December. I thought Natalie Dussey was wonderful. Her acting as well as her singing, it was a complete performance. I read the review of her in the NYTimes when I came home (the one written in Feb.) and was surprised by its negativity. I also thought Joseph Calleja was excellent and I loved the sound of Kwangchul Youn's voice. The 2nd act piece that was a quartet and built (sorry, I don't know what it's called) just took me to another place. The orchestra is amazing - what a great harpist. Again I'm a novice so I'd love to hear the opinions of you opera fans. One question - in other productions does Lucia return as a ghost in the last act or in some cases does Edgardo just sing about reuniting with her? The HD experience was good, but I miss getting a program. Link to comment
SandyMcKean Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 The HD experience was good, but I miss getting a program. It's not quite a program, but if you go here: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_template.aspx?id=11964 and click on the link "Cast sheet and Synopsis" under the current HD opera being b'cast, you can print off a sort of program (some theaters even pass these out in the lobby before the b'cast begins). Link to comment
vipa Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 The HD experience was good, but I miss getting a program. It's not quite a program, but if you go here: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/broadcast/hd_events_template.aspx?id=11964 and click on the link "Cast sheet and Synopsis" under the current HD opera being b'cast, you can print off a sort of program (some theaters even pass these out in the lobby before the b'cast begins). Thank you Sandy. I've now signed up to receive their emails. Link to comment
vipa Posted April 11, 2011 Share Posted April 11, 2011 I loved Le Comte Ory. Very much loved the staging and performances, particularly Florez and DiDonoto. This is a new art form for me. I am a former ballet dancer and long time ballet viewer so I bring a lot of opinions to ballet performances. Becoming an audience member of an art form that is not so familiar is a wonderful experience. I am very, very slowly developing likes and dislikes. I do bring years of dance, theatre and concert going as a kind of baggage, but is it fun to be novice viewer/listener to this art form. I am grateful to keep finding new avenues of enrichment. Link to comment
Recommended Posts