opera

Sondra Radvanovsky = Norma

Although I should revisit these other performances: http://operalively.com/forums/showthread.php/33-Norma-Caball%C3%A9-Callas-or-Sutherland

Went to see Tosca on Friday night. I believe people don't like the current production so there were some empty seats but the singing was fine. I saw it with Portuguese soprano Elisabete Matos filling on but Sondra will be singing it again on Monday night which you can listen to here http://www.metoperafamily.org/stream.aspx , and again for the Saturday matinee which will also be broadcast.

You could also have seen her TV last night doing the Kennedy Center Honors.

Best wishes and warm thoughts to Dmitry Hvorostovsky.

Hvorostovsky seems to be doing fine. Well-received concert at Carnegie Hall this week and scheduled for Eugene Onegin at the Met next year.

The 2016/17 Met schedule looks solid:

https://www.metopera.org/Season/2016-17-Season/

Opolais is always a good Rusalka and it would be great to have an opportunity to see the Domingo / Monastyrska Nabucco as an HD Live show if I can't get a ticket for Covent Garden this summer.

Ooh I would see l'amour de loin

I'm already saving the date for the HD Live production of Rusalka, one of the few operas I bought as a teenager. I always forget that these HD Live shows happen, such an easy way to get exposed to more opera.

I saw Handel's Orlando at the Barbican last night and the review is pretty much otm.

http://www.theartsdesk.com/opera/orlando-english-concert-bicket-barbican

It's the first time i've seen Iestyn Davies live and he really is excellent. I'd love to see him in something more conventionally dramatic.

This might be good:

https://www.metopera.org/Season/2015-16-Season/manon-lescaut-puccini-tickets/

Jonathan Kent's ROH staging from 2014 was pretty crass for the most part but Opolais is a wonderful Manon and it would be interesting to see her in a trad version.

Manon Lescaut is playing in HD at movie theaters this afternoon shortly before 1, so if you want to check it out but don't want to shell out for Met tix yet, maybe look up which theaters near you are showing it? I'm gonna go to my local Cinemagic and watch it, seems like a good use of a free afternoon.

Yep, I'm in the UK so it would have to be in HD but I think I'll have to wait for the DVD this time.

It was really good. I'm no opera connoisseur but the leads sang the hell out of their parts, and between acts they alternated brief interviews with actors and crew with shots of the set changes.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/02/yannick-nezet-seguin-metropolitan-opera-new-york-music-director?CMP=share_btn_tw

Levine has finally retired. Nezet Seguin is a fairly dull choice vs someone like Noseda but has seemed inevitable for a while. Slightly strange that they are going five years without a musical director until he can take over.

There's something ineffable that I just dislike about Levine's conducting on record; at the same time, I bet if I had seen him conduct live I'd have been won over.

Yes, i'm not a huge fan but some of his Wagner stuff stands up well and the Tannhauser he did last year was really enjoyable. Coming back from so many health problems to conduct at a high level is remarkable in itself but a lot of the opera press has been robustly unsentimental where his consistency has been concerned and there seems to be a general sense that he should probably have called time on his career a while ago.

Going five years without a musical director, and bringing in a very safe pair of hands when Nezet Seguin finally can join, doesn't necessarily inspire a great deal of confidence but they've been in limbo for a while and i'm still getting fairly good value from my Met On Demand subscription. The Lulu they did in collaboration with William Kentridge last year shows there's still room for creative innovation. They're in better shape than the ENO, who have recently decided that a musical director is too expensive and that they'll not bother in the future.

Tickets for the new Royal Opera House season go on sale this month and i have my eye on Written On Skin (with Iestyn Davies), Les Contes d’Hoffmann, The Nose and a few other bits and pieces. Netrebko decided she didn't want to do Norma, having already been announced, but that could be good too.

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/opera-and-music-201617

I'm going to see Il Trovatore at Covent Garden next Saturday. There are a few decent amphitheatre tickets for today still on sale between £30 - £38. It's two alternating casts and i wanted to see the one with Prudenskaya as Azucena but tonight has Lianna Haroutounian as Leonora and Željko Lučić as di Luna so should still be excellent.

Il Trovatore is being screened for free around the country and streamed via Youtube on the 14th:

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/watch-verdis-il-trovatore-to-be-live-streamed-on-14-july-2016

It's the Haroutounian / Lučić cast.

I went last night and really enjoyed it. The staging is generic and banal (endless night, tanks, barbed wire, snow, etc, etc) , which has contributed to some sniffy reviews but the central quartet (Pirozzi / Kunde / Prudenskaya / Maltman) was excellent.

A+ to the three tenors singing under the aegis of the Opera Collective in Times Square tonight.

Especially enjoyed their trading lines on "La donna è mobile."

New John Adams opera coming in November 2017:

http://www.earbox.com/girls-golden-west/

Juan Diego Flores and an extravagant number of high Cs are on BBC One / iplayer at the moment.

I'm very enamored of Ginastera's opera Bomarzo right now. It's about the historical Duke Orsini and the nightmare garden of mannerist monsters he had sculpted for himself. Tormented modernism exquisitely colored, RIYL wozzeck and lulu

Cool, I'll have to look out for that.

Has just been reissued for the first time since LP and is on Spotify etc.

Where is that? Oh I see.

Lol at the beginning of this thread.

I'm looking forward to seeing the ROH Barber of Seville this week. There is a huge buzz about Javier Camarena matching (or even outshining) Florez as Almaviva. I've never heard him sing before but he's apparently only the third person to get an encore at the Met, after Pavarotti and JDF, since they banned them.

http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2016/03/28/471842692/the-show-stopping-singing-of-javier-camarena

Guys are you familiar with an aria about Ophelia sung in English?

Never mind. It was the "Vilja Song" from The Merry Widow.

Tickets for the new Royal Opera House season go on sale this month and i have my eye on Written On Skin (with Iestyn Davies), Les Contes d’Hoffmann, The Nose and a few other bits and pieces. Netrebko decided she didn't want to do Norma, having already been announced, but that could be good too.

Yoncheva was sensational as a replacement for Netrebko. One of the best lead performances I have seen in ages.

Ah. Didn't you also say you were going to see Sondra R sing Manon on the other thread? Envious.

I am! That's next month. Should be fantastic.

I'm a huge fan of Sondra's because:

• She is an immense talent
• I was a relatively early adopter/early member of her fanbase
• She is friends with Dmitri Hvorostovsky
• My neighbor who works production at the Met says she is a really nice person

Is this melody actually from The Barber of Seville? Does not sound very Rossini-esque.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKkJAu16yJ0

lol, Radvanovsky appears to have liked my tweet saying the staging of Manon Lescaut is garish and awful and she looked even more uncomfortable than Opolais as a vamp but she sang fabulously.

The Kentridge staging of Lulu that did its run at the ENO must've been great. His show at the Whitechapel has one work based on it and its the best thing on the entire show.

Didn't see the ENO but caught the Met performance of it on their streaming service and it is very good. His staging of The Nose is also excellent and better than the recent Kosky version at the ROH, though that was quite fun.

Joyce el-Khoury was wonderful in La Traviata at the ROH last night. She was a little raw in the first act but phenomenal after that. Sergey Romanovsky, who i don't think i'd been before, was very good as Alfredo as well.

http://www.theartsdesk.com/opera/la-traviata-royal-opera-1

I also saw Written On Skin with the terrific pairing of Barbara Hannigan and Iestyn Davies - enough to convince even the curmudgeonly Rupert Christiansen of The Telegraph to break out the five stars:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opera/what-to-see/written-skin-one-operatic-masterpieces-time-review/

They seem to have jacked the ticket prices up this time around and there are lots still available for the rest of the run - though not all performances are with Hannigan.

Thanks.

lol, Radvanovsky appears to have liked my tweet saying the staging of Manon Lescaut is garish and awful and she looked even more uncomfortable than Opolais as a vamp but she sang fabulously.

Her Twitter account isn't verified but seems (i think) to be her.

The 2017/2018 season at Covent Garden isn't hugely inspiring but i have picked up tickets for Cav / Pag (primarily because of Elina Garanca), Lucia di Lammermoor and Les Vêpres Siciliennes in Autumn.

Semiramide with Joyce DiDonato and Salome with Malin Byström might be the pick of winter. Not massively exciting though.

Went to see Norma tonight and it was fine, but I'm really such a Sondra stan and she isn't singing it anymore this season.

Plus I still haven't processed the death of her "opera boyfriend," as she calls him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81z1YzH_994

Who was the lead tonight?

Angela Meade

Also just thought to look at Spotify and wondering if the streaming services have operas with recent casts or not. Seems the answer is no, just older casts or solo albums of arias by recent performers.

Just got firsthand confirmation from source mentioned up thread that Dmitri Hvorostovsky was universally loved by the production crew at the Met.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-john-copley.html

John Copley fired by the Met for "inappropriate behaviour". Levine still suspended.

Hmm:

https://slippedisc.com/2018/02/exclusive-why-peter-gelb-fired-uncle-john-copley/

Assuming that blog post is accurate (a big assumption), this seems like the most OTM comment:

What this incident reveals is that the Met has no policy or protocol in place for dealing with harassment complaints. (Probably should have put “harassment” in quote marks, here) To instantly fire someone with no apparent method of investigation and resolution, is crazy.