Author Topic: General Opera News (Read 310958 times)

k a rl h e nn i ng · « **Reply #800 on:** March 18, 2020, 12:54:41 PM »

Met Opera embarrasses itself and cheats its audience by canceling ‘Klinghoffer’ broadcast

T. D. · « **Reply #801 on:** March 18, 2020, 01:21:57 PM »

That story is dated "June 22, 2014, 12:00 a.m." Has the issue become topical again?

k a rl h e nn i ng · « **Reply #802 on:** March 18, 2020, 01:45:20 PM »

Quote from: T. D. on March 18, 2020, 01:21:57 PM

That story is dated "June 22, 2014, 12:00 a.m." Has the issue become topical again?

Oh, sorry! I suppose not, it was a headline which (peculiarly, now that we know its vintage) the Boston Globe app brought me when I went to the editorials section....

André · « **Reply #803 on:** March 18, 2020, 04:41:47 PM »

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on March 18, 2020, 01:45:20 PM

Oh, sorry! I suppose not, it was a headline which (peculiarly, now that we know its vintage) the Boston Globe app brought me when I went to the editorials section....

Most newspapers do that. There's a list of editorials in that section, but no indication of their writing date. You have to click on it to realize you’re reading stale news. Especially annoying when said newspaper has a paywall after a few free articles...

k a rl h e nn i ng · « **Reply #804 on:** March 18, 2020, 05:04:00 PM »

Quote from: André on March 18, 2020, 04:41:47 PM

Most newspapers do that. There's a list of editorials in that section, but no indication of their writing date. You have to click on it to realize you’re reading stale news. Especially annoying when said newspaper has a paywall after a few free articles...

Doubly sorry!

André · « **Reply #805 on:** March 18, 2020, 05:45:55 PM »

Don’t be sorry, Karl. I had not clicked on that one, just concurring with you that the newspaper's digital layout creates confusion

.

Wendell_E · « **Reply #806 on:** March 19, 2020, 10:33:52 AM »

In more current Met news, they've now canceled the remainder of their season, originally scheduled to run through May 9th.

Spineur · « **Reply #807 on:** April 01, 2020, 09:44:52 AM »

Bayreuth festival is cancelled. Between 1946 and 1951, Bayreuth was also cancelled to forget the Nazi era.

vers la flamme · « **Reply #808 on:** April 01, 2020, 01:02:50 PM »

Quote from: Spineur on April 01, 2020, 09:44:52 AM

Bayreuth festival is cancelled. Between 1946 and 1951, Bayreuth was also cancelled to forget the Nazi era.

Wow!!! What a bummer. But we all knew it had to happen at this point, no?

TheGSMoeller · « **Reply #809 on:** April 17, 2020, 02:14:09 PM »

The Lyric Opera of Chicago has joined in on the virtual orchestra fun during these challenging times.
They were supposed to be performing the Ring Cycle 3 times this month, so it's been a real bummer for the entire company that they weren't able to. I did see Lyric perform Die Walküre two years ago, and was planning on hopefully seeing the cycle this month. On a personal note, by brother is principal trombone of Lyric, and shows up at the 1:20 mark of the video.
I hope you enjoy!

If you can't access YouTube here's a link to their Twitter page that includes the video...
https://twitter.com/LyricOpera

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/3JzqCjuCK2U&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/3JzqCjuCK2U&feature=youtu.be</a>

Pohjolas Daughter · « **Reply #810 on:** May 03, 2020, 05:12:51 AM »

Quote from: TheGSMoeller on April 17, 2020, 02:14:09 PM

The Lyric Opera of Chicago has joined in on the virtual orchestra fun during these challenging times.
They were supposed to be performing the Ring Cycle 3 times this month, so it's been a real bummer for the entire company that they weren't able to. I did see Lyric perform Die Walküre two years ago, and was planning on hopefully seeing the cycle this month. On a personal note, by brother is principal trombone of Lyric, and shows up at the 1:20 mark of the video.
I hope you enjoy!

If you can't access YouTube here's a link to their Twitter page that includes the video...
https://twitter.com/LyricOpera

Thanks for that; it was fun to watch! They have a nice bio on him here: https://www.lyricopera.org/about-lyric-opera/orchestra-and-chorus/lyric-opera-orchestra/jeremy-moeller/

Wendell_E · « **Reply #811 on:** June 13, 2020, 01:34:19 AM »

Next season (Feb. 2021) San Diego Opera's doing a double bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi with mezzo Stephanie Blythe as the Zia Principessa and the title role in Gianni Schicchi.

Cato · « **Reply #812 on:** September 16, 2020, 11:46:49 AM »

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal today:

Quote

The premiere of Marina Abramović’s “The 7 Deaths of Maria Callas,” which opened the Bavarian State Opera’s season this month, was live-streamed on Sept. 5 and is available free of charge until Oct. 7. Though in development for several years, it seems made for this pandemic moment—it runs an intermission-free 90 minutes, and only one person sings onstage at a time. Rather than an opera, it’s an appropriation and an appreciation of the form. The Serbian-born performance artist inserts herself into the stories of some operatic icons—the soprano Maria Callas and seven famous heroines—and fashions a multilayered meditation on dying for love. Opera fans steeped in the tragedies of Violetta, Cio-Cio-San and their ilk, as well as the doomed Callas-Aristotle Onassis romance, will get the references as Ms. Abramović represents all of these women but chiefly herself.

In the diverting first hour, Ms. Abramović, as Callas, lies motionless in a bed at stage right, presumably dreaming her stage deaths as she awaits her own. (Marko Nikodijević composed the spacey interstitial music.) One by one, seven sopranos enter and sing famous Callas arias, starting with “Addio del passato” (“La Traviata”) and concluding with “Casta diva” (“Norma”). Each is introduced by a voiceover, spoken in English by Ms. Abramović, giving emotional context, and accompanied by a film, directed by Nabil Elderkin and starring Ms. Abramović and the actor Willem Dafoe as the lover who causes her death.

The arias are eloquently sung, but the giant film images seize our focus and, together with the introductory narrations, make the deaths explicit. In the “Traviata” sequence, Ms. Abramović expires in bed; the other six grow progressively more violent and grotesque. In “Ave Maria” (“Otello”), she is strangled by a giant snake; in “Un bel di” (“Madama Butterfly”), she rips off her hazmat suit in a poisoned landscape and breathes in the air; for “Il dolce suono,” from the mad scene in “Lucia di Lammermoor,” she slashes herself with broken glass. Puzzlingly, in “Casta diva,” it is Mr. Dafoe who wears the signature Callas makeup (skinny eyebrows, red lipstick) and a gold lamé gown; he and Ms. Abramović, in a tuxedo, stagger into a fire, their facial expressions simultaneously agonized and ecstatic. (The narration cites bubbling and blackening skin and singed lungs.) Dying for love, it seems, is actually a lot more painful than the exquisite music of Verdi and Bellini suggests.

The concluding half hour, lacking the arias and films, is tamer and duller. The bed is now part of a set, depicting the Paris bedroom where Callas died in 1977; Ms. Abramović’s voiceover narration and Mr. Nikodijević’s music take Ms. Abramović/Callas from semi-consciousness (“Breathe”) to a wander around the room, a glance through a pile of photographs, a smashed vase, and finally out a door. The sopranos reappear—their identical, demure outfits now explained as maids’ uniforms (the costumes are by Riccardo Tisci)—to tidy up and drape the room in crepe. One drops a stylus onto a turntable; the room disappears behind a scrim; and Ms. Abramović reappears downstage, in gold lamé, gesticulating along to Callas’s voice singing “Casta diva.” The line between homage and usurpation is a fine one; no doubt some Callas devotees will assume the latter and be offended.

Hera Hyesang Park emphasized Violetta’s fragilty in “Addio del passato” and vulnerability; Selene Zanetti made Tosca’s pleading in “Vissi d’arte” a poignant contrast to the oddly serene film of Ms. Abramović falling in slow motion from a tall building. Leah Hawkins exuded resignation in the “Ave Maria” (“Desdemona knew. She was ready”). Kiandra Howarth was a powerful Cio-Cio-San in “Un bel di”; Nadezhda Karyazina, a seductive Carmen in the “Habanera.” Adela Zaharia brought sparkling coloratura to Lucia, and Lauren Fagan was a solid Norma. Conductor Yoel Gamzou ably welded the arias and Mr. Nikodijević’s music into a coherent whole.

See:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-7-deaths-of-maria-callas-and-joyce-didonato-live-in-concert-reviews-divas-past-and-present-11600203913?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1

Brian · « **Reply #813 on:** September 17, 2020, 06:46:38 AM »

Anna Netrebko has covid-19 and is in hospital.

Given the long-term heart and lung damage that the disease has caused, even if she survives, this could potentially damage or finish her career.

Pohjolas Daughter · « **Reply #814 on:** September 17, 2020, 06:51:52 AM »

Cato, that opera sounds like it might be right up my alley (a big Callas fan here)! I didn't read the full description as I don't like to know the whole plot/details.

Brian,

So very sad to hear that; I hope that she manages a full recovery and soon!

Best wishes,

PD

Pohjolas Daughter · « **Reply #815 on:** September 17, 2020, 07:11:46 AM »

Just found this online: https://slippedisc.com/2020/09/opera-star-catches-covid-after-singing-with-netrebkos/

I can't believe that they have resumed performing operas at the Bolshoi! Wonder how many others there will end up testing positive?

PD

Wendell_E · « **Reply #816 on:** September 23, 2020, 09:03:53 AM »

The Met, which had already pushed its opening back from this week to New Year's Eve, has now canceled the entire season:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-cancels-coronavirus.html?smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwAR0XoqQxa7W6pLlvZteGqXSXTe_yABBWECEpJXB9ppVTJHk2TiSuBsCSJ28

AND they're posted their 2021-22 season on their website:

https://www.metopera.org/season/2021-22-season/?fbclid=iwar1o9pnthy2fhvk_dlb-sobhochgfx6o3yn4a7qrzhltmbr-fhusutxkrze

Press release: https://www.metopera.org/about/press-releases/the-metropolitan-opera-cancels-its-202021-season/

Scion7 · « **Reply #817 on:** October 15, 2020, 02:25:49 AM »

Opera house in Budapest 2017. Courtesy of a friend.

Pohjolas Daughter · « **Reply #818 on:** October 16, 2020, 04:58:48 AM »

Quote from: Scion7 on October 15, 2020, 02:25:49 AM

Opera house in Budapest 2017. Courtesy of a friend.

Wow! What a beautiful interior!

Wendell_E · « **Reply #819 on:** March 17, 2021, 09:53:06 AM »

In case, like me, you don't often visit "General Classical Music Discussion":

James Levine, who ruled over Met Opera, dead at age 77

News:

Author Topic: General Opera News (Read 310958 times)