Lisette Oropesa takes a bis

  

This is "Addio des passato" from La Traviata.  I love that the encore performance is back in international opera.  Lisette gets better every year.

La Traviata from Philadelphia

 

Conductor:  Corrado Rovaris
Director:  Paul Curranan *

Violetta: Lisette Oropesa 
Alfredo: Alek Shrader
Giorgio Germont;  Stephen Powell: 

I am here for Lisette, naturally.  I think this is her role debut in 2015 in one of Verdi's greatest operas, La Traviata.  The other two leads were also good.  I especially liked Stephen Powell in the second act.

The sets are fascinating and beautiful.  The costumes are relatively modern.  I think Lisette is developing into a great singer.  Her emotional range is considerable here.  This counts for a lot.  Violetta just wants to have fun and go to parties.  Then she decides for love and spends all her money to move to the country.  She enters completely into love.

Then Giorgio Germont, Alfredo's father, sees the softness in her heart and convinces her to sacrifice everything for his children.  She goes back to being the party girl, or at least she convinces Alfredo that she has.  Then she becomes ill and dies.  A great Violetta must cover all of this grand scope of emotions while singing difficult bel canto arias.  "E tardi."  You feel it with her.  The opera only works with this.  

Lisette sings the sad aria before Alfredo arrives lying down on her bed.  There is blood everywhere.

Opera Philadelphia is a good company.  I wish we could see more of them.

Die Entführung aus dem Serail from Vienna

Musical Direction - Antonello Manacorda
Production - Hans Neuenfels

Bassa Selim - Christian Nickel (spoken)
Konstanze - Lisette Oropesa (soprano)
Konstanze - Actress - Emanuela von Frankenberg
Blonde - Regula Mühlemann (soprano)
Blonde - Actress - Stella Roberts
Osmin - Goran Jurić (bass)
Osmin - Actor - Andreas Grötzinger
Belmonte - Daniel Behle (tenor)
Belmonte - Actor - Christian Natter
Pedrillo - Michael Laurenz (tenor)
Pedrillo - Actor - Ludwig Blochberger 

Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail  (The Abduction from the Seraglio), 2020, comes to us from the Wiener Staatsoper.  It is directed by Hans Neuenfels, one of the more scandalous regie producers.  One of his characteristics is to dress the chorus all in the same outfits.  Here in spite of the fact that they are a mixed chorus, they are all dressed as men in black.

This is a Singspiel, which means it comes with spoken dialog in German.  In the original version of the opera there is a character, Bassa Selim, who does not sing.  Everyone else both sings and speaks.  So Neuenfels has seized on this and doubled all the rest of the cast.  So in addition to the singers, he has cast a whole other cast who play the rest of the roles and only speak.  He has also added more words.  This is hard to follow.  Two people in the same outfits are the same person.  You get a lot of easy to understand German from the actors and beautiful singing from the singers.  The actress Blonde occasionally speaks English.  "Me too."

Lisette is singing a very serious aria, and a young man in his underwear is holding a giant snake.  Huh?  What you would want to keep from this is Lisette and her arias.  "Martern alle Arten" is especially great.  She changes the opera completely.  Suddenly it is enormous.

I can think of only one semi-legitimate reason for this double casting.  Singers have careers that take them all over the world.  This is why the performing of operas originally in other languages but sung in the local language of the opera house is a practice that has pretty much died out.  We perform Hansel and Gretel and Magic Flute in English, but that is pretty much it.  The singer learns the role with the original text and then sings it everywhere with only some brief rehearsal.

So Neuenfels wanted to add a lot of new German dialog, and in order to have extended rehearsals, he assigns these new words to local people he can rehearse for a long time.  This is the only thing I can think of.  We don't care about this added dialog.  Maybe Neuenfels doesn't really like opera.

They love only Lisette.  As do I.  Serious booing for Neuenfels.

Lisette and the Jewel Song

It's been quite a while since I went mad for a singer, but Lisette Oropesa is definitely worth it.

Sure on this shining night

This is Samuel Barber's "Sure on this shining night."  Our Lisette Oropesa, she does it all.  Her legato is perfection.

Werther

👍🏻
Conductor: Alain Altinoglu
Production: Richard Eyre
Set and Costume Designer: Rob Howell

Werther:  Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)
Charlotte:  Sophie Koch (mezzo-soprano)
Sophie:  Lisette Oropesa (soprano)
Albert:  David Bizic (baritone)

Goethe was 24 when he wrote his novel Die Leiden des Jungen Werther, 1774.  Thus he was virtually a child himself.  It was a raging success which made him very famous for the rest of his life.  For us Goethe is Faust, written later.  For that era he was Werther.

So what is Jules Massenet's excuse?  He was 50 when he wrote his opera Werther, 1893.  This Werther, 2014, when seen from the view of 2020 is simply a sexual harasser.  We know that unrequited love is painful, but do we need to spread the pain to everyone else?  So the question arises:  is he a cad?

Part of our problem with this opera is what a wonderful job Jonas is doing arousing our sympathy.  This is indeed a beautiful version of the opera.  Now that I know who she is, I especially enjoy Lisette Oropesa as Sophie.

La Rondine

👍🏻
Conductor...............Marco Armiliato
Production..............Nicolas Joël

Magda...................Angela Gheorghiu
Ruggero.................Roberto Alagna
Lisette.................Lisette Oropesa
Prunier.................Marius Brenciu
Rambaldo................Samuel Ramey

The daily rerun from the Metropolitan Opera is Puccini's La Rondine with Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna.  Now I know that the maid Lisette is played by Lisette Oropesa who is far more famous today.  It is lovely to see her.

Wonderful things in Act I:  Angela's lightness and enthusiasm, Roberto's youthfulness, the gorgeous art nouveau set, the aria, Lisette's charm.  Not so wonderful is the sharp decline in the voice of Sam Ramey from earlier years.  At his peak I loved him madly, but here not so much.  Prunier the poet says he wants Salome or Berenice, larger than life women.  Magda is a kept woman, but sneaks out of the house looking for love.

In Act II Magda has gone to a place with small round tables and bentwood chairs where there is dancing.  She happens on Ruggero whom she did not notice in Act I.  Magda and Ruggero dance.  Then couples come out and do what I would call Apache dancing where the men throw the women around.  Roberto is rather incredibly adorable.  I realize that I can't remember the ending.

Lisette and Prunier also come to entertain themselves in this student hangout.  Both Magda and Prunier think they will not see anyone they know, and when they do see someone they know they pretend not to know them.  Lisette is not sophisticated.  Magda asks Prunier, "Is she Salome or Berenice?"  No longer pretending.  Love music is followed by the arrival of Rambaldo, the man who is keeping her.  She tells him she's leaving him for true love.  He is rather nice about it.  "I hope you don't regret it."

In Act III Magda is still with Ruggero, this time in another gorgeous art nouveau set.  They are still in love.  The ending is not happy.

This is not like any other Puccini opera.  I suppose it is nearest to Fanciulla in plot, but the music here is much sweeter.  It started its life as an operetta and was later turned into an opera.  So this is more like Lehar than Puccini.  It never quite feels like Puccini, but one might still love it, especially this one. 

Manon with Lisette Oropesa

👍🏻
Conductor...............Maurizio Benini
Production..............Laurent Pelly

Manon...................Lisette Oropesa
Des Grieux..............Michael Fabiano
Lescaut.................Artur Rucinski
Count des Grieux...Kwangchul Youn
Guillot.................Carlo Bosi
Brétigny................Brett Polegato
Poussette...............Jacqueline Echols
Javotte.................Laura Krumm
Rosette.................Maya Lahyani

Nadine Sierra.....hostess

I love knowing things.  I can't help it.  In this performance of Massenet's Manon from the Metropolitan Opera in HD I noticed for the first time that there was quite a bit of melodrama.  This does not mean corny, overacted soap operas, but instead refers to spoken dialog with orchestral accompaniment instead of recitative or spoken dialog.  Since the orchestra never stops playing, it is easy to overlook that occasionally the actors are speaking.  Then I read that Manon was a mainstay of the Opéra-Comique in Paris after it premiered in 1884.  The original novel is from 1731.  The only problem with the opera is that it is too long.

I didn't realize it has been already 7 years since this production debuted.   The basketball is still there, but there have been hints that it is supposed to be a hot air balloon.  Hot air balloons are not precisely spherical.  Enough.  Please read the other review for more discussion of the production.

I have only seen Artur Rucinski before in Lucia with Lisette from Madrid.  He is very attractive on camera and sings beautifully.

But the performance belonged to Manon and her Des Grieux who received much loud shouting in their bows.  This is a great opera for Michael Fabiano, suiting both his voice and his personality to a T.  You believe in his love.  He made the initial pickup very believable.  More Michael please.

Lisette Oropesa precisely embodies the 15 year old innocent who arrives on the train on her way to the convent.  It is impossible to picture this lively, passionate and curious girl cut off completely from life.  Des Grieux has only good intentions toward her and she towards him.  When she learns that Des Grieux's father intends to kidnap him, she knows she must make other plans.  Lisette is physically trained and fully capable of the physical requirements of the staging.  She ran up and down stairs, fell down and was dragged about, all while singing strongly.

I don't see the diabolical Manon, the evil Manon.  I see only someone who wants to enjoy her life, to have fun while she is still young.  Everyone seems to work against this.  Lisette Oropesa changes as the opera progresses to acquire less innocence and more sophistication.  This is an opera for our time, because she is destroyed by a rich old man.  Her cheers were well deserved.

I still don't see the bed in the sanctuary.  This is bogus.

I masnadieri

Conductor Michele Mariotti
Staging David McVicar

Massimiliano, Count Moor..Michele Pertusi, bass
Carlo, his elder son......Fabio Sartori, tenor
Francesco, his younger son..Massimo Cavalletti, baritone
Amalia, his niece........Lisette Oropesa, soprano
Moser, priest...... Alessandro Spina, bass
Arminio, servant..Francesco Pittari, tenor
Rolla...Matteo Desole, baritone

This year Verdi's I masnadieri (The Bandits) was presented at La Scala.  We have taken notice because the female role is sung by Lisette Oropesa.

This traditional production completely violates my rules of portraying a plot.  The director's primary job is to explain the plot.  So who the hell is this guy in the military uniform that wanders around the stage in all these scenes?  Carlo before he became a bandit?  Francesco before he became a shit? Who?  Carlo is the fat guy.  So perhaps the director didn't like him and gave all his stuff to someone else.  Sigh.  I hate that.  He carries around a notebook where he occasionally writes, so the speculation is that he might be Schiller, the original writer of the story.

Lisette is spectacularly good in this, moving gently away from her soubrette Fach into full lyric repertoire.  I like her sound, her technique, her phrasing, anything else I can't think of.  She is developing into a truly wonderful singer.  This role was written for Jenny Lind who appears to have been a lyric soprano.  There is a lot of bombastic early Verdi singing throughout this opera, but the soprano is sweet and lyrical throughout.  It is an excellent role for Lisette.

The bandits seem to be having a lot of fun except for Carlo.  They leap and dance around. Francesco repents but the priest refuses to forgive him.  The silent writer comes to life and kills Francesco.  Then Amalia comes out and says that whether Carlo is an angel or a devil, she will always be his wife.  So then he kills her.  This plot is basically BS.

The male singers are all on the same page with the big Verdi sound.  The most applause was for Pertusi, Sartori and Oropesa, all well deserved.  I never have to see this opera again.  Just listening and ignoring the action is always an option.

Lisette Oropesa wins Beverly Sills Award

After just winning the Richard Tucker Prize, Lisette Oropesa has now received the Beverly Sills Award from the Metropolitan Opera.  Congratulations.

Lisette wins Richard Tucker

The Richard Tucker Foundation Award for the year 2019 goes to soprano Lisette Oropesa.  Lisette is a personal favorite and well deserves this award.  I first noticed Lisette when she sang the role Lisette in Puccini's La Rondine in HD in 2009.

Les Huguenots

👍🏻
Conductor : Michele Mariotti et Łukasz Borowicz
Director:  Andreas Kreigenburg

Marguerite de Valois, catholic queen : Lisette Oropesa
Raoul de Nangis, protestant: Yosep Kang
Valentine: Ermonela Jaho
Urbain, Queen's page: Karine Deshayes
Marcel, Raoul's servant: Nicolas Testé
Le Comte de Saint-Bris : Paul Gay
La dame d’honneur : Julie Robard‑Gendre
Une bohémienne : Julie Robard‑Gendre
Cossé, un étudiant catholique : François Rougier 
Le Comte de Nevers : Florian Sempey 
Tavannes, premier moine : Cyrille Dubois
Méru, deuxième moine : Michal Partyka
Thoré, Maurevert : Patrick Bolleire
Retz, troisième moine : Tomislav Lavoie
Coryphée, une jeune fille catholique, une bohémienne : Élodie Hache
Bois-Rosé, valet : Philippe Do
Un archer du guet : Olivier Ayault
Quatre seigneurs : John Bernard - Cyrille Lovighi - Bernard Arrieta - Fabio Bellenghi

From Paris Opera Bastille I have found a film of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, 1836, which I wanted to watch live on Thursday.  The action takes place in 2063[?] according to a text on the screen.  The Catholic men wear clown-like ruffs around their necks while the protestants look a bit more like business men.

In Roberto Devereux we heard "God Save the Queen" in the overture.  In this opera the well known tune incorporated into the story is Luther's "Ein feste Burg."  This is to represent Protestantism.  Les Huguenots precedes Roberto Devereux.  We know that Meyerbeer was Wagner's patron and got him his start in composing operas, which might help to explain the presence of the Dresden Amen in Tannhäuser and Parsifal.  In spite of his rants against Meyerbeer, imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery.  Perhaps it serves to suggest an aura of religious feeling.  I digress.

I'm finding the production pretty hard going.  I have no background with this opera.  I am here to see Lisette Oropesa, and here at the mid point I must say she is magnificent.  The first scene is men and the second is women, with the queen's page going back and forth between them.  What is one to make of religious persecution in the future?  The set in Act II is very beautiful and includes a bit of nudity.

I am exploring this opera and am surprised to see a male chorus singing "Rata plan"  See also Donizetti's La fille du régiment, and Verdi's La Forza del Destino.  Again, this opera  appears to be the first.  I didn't realize how much borrowing went on.  There's a lot of choral work which I am finding unattractive.  Verdi bombast is somehow more fun.  Things going on in my soul are also interfering with my enjoyment of this opera.  I am tired of hatred and violence.

There is a line across Europe across the Alps dividing the descendants of  Roman culture and the descendants of Vikings, Germans, etc.  The former group remained catholic while all of the north, except maybe Poland, changed to protestant.  I have always felt that when Luther went to Rome, he was mostly experiencing culture shock.  However, in the Catholic countries were also pockets of Protestantism.  There were two results:  war and immigration to America.  My German friends would always ask why we had so many religions in America.  Because when you chased them out of Europe, they came to us.  Again I digress.

Yosep Kang has a very beautiful tenor voice but fluffs a high note later on.  As a lyric tenor he's wonderful.  As a dramatic tenor not so much.  Ermonela Jaho hasn't had much to sing in the first half but sings a lot in the later acts. Jaho is well known in Europe but has not really crossed my path that much.  All the big coloratura show pieces are for the queen while Valentine is a full lyric type with very little coloratura.    That seems to be the pattern with Meyerbeer.  All the coloratura arias are for a specific voice.  I admit to not being wild about any of these operas.

The greatest influences on Wagner seem to be Meyerbeer and Liszt, Meyerbeer for the heavy orchestration and dramatic style, Liszt for the invention of the tone poem which provides the through-composed concept applied to the full act of an opera.  I have to say I very much prefer mythology to politics for opera plots.  The only hit tune from this opera, other than the borrowed one, is the page's aria in act I.

Lucia from Madrid

👍🏻
Conductor: Daniel Oren
Director: David Alden

Lucia: Lisette Oropesa
Edgardo: Javier Camarena
Enrico Ashton: Artur Rucinski
Raimondo Bidebent: Roberto Tagliavini
Lord Arturo Bucklaw: Yijie Shi
Alisa: Marina Pinchuk
Normanno: Alejandro del Cerro

I've never actually seen a live bis in an opera before (they do them all the time in concerts in Italy, usually of something you'd rather not hear again).  When I realized what it was, I burst into tears.  And an ensemble, the sextet, on top of it.  I'm seriously loving this.  Everyone is a shit except Lucia.  She's already pretty insane before the mad scene.   We had a glass harmonica.

I am speaking, of course, of Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor streamed live from Teatro Real Madrid.  The set is like your high school gym.  There's a radiator.  I think the theme is "you'd go nuts too if everyone you knew was this awful."  We're doing a play within a play.  At the end of the mad scene the chorus claps very slowly.  It's not at all like the loud shouting from the real audience.  The production does nothing to explain the opera but focuses entirely on the atmosphere.

The singing and for me also the acting were very good.  I love Lisette, but she will need to stay light in this role.  I came for Lisette and Javier, two of my favorites of the young singers, and they did not disappoint.  Javier wears a kilt in this, a first for me.

Lisette has also performed the ROH Lucia which I reviewed with Diana Damrau.  This version will be available on OperaVision for a while.  If you missed the live stream, watch it now.

I have to add a comment.  Lisette's physical training gives her a kind of absolute control over the phrase.  It's stunning.

Lisette Oropesa

Lisette in costume for Gilda at the LA Opera.

Les Indes Galantes

👍🏻
Conductor Ivor Bolton
Director and Choreography Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

Lisette Oropesa:  Hébé and Zima (soprano)
Ana Quintans:  L'Amour (soprano en travesti) and Zaire (soprano)
Tareq Nazmi:  Osman and Ali (baritone)
Anna Prohaska:  Phani and Fatime (soprano)
Mathias Vidal:  Don Carlos and Damon (haute-contre, a French high tenor?)
Goran Juric:  Bellone (baritone en travesti)
François Lis:  Huascar and Don Alvaro (bass)
Cyril Auvity:  Valère and Tacmas (haute-contre)
Elsa Benoit:  Emilie (soprano)
John Moore:  Adario (tenor)
Many dancers, supernumeraries and an invisible chorus.

Les Indes galante, an opéra-ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau, came to me by way of the Bayerische Staatsoper.  From an historical perspective this is Rameau's most significant theatrical work, though I think it's only rarely produced.  In music history he is most famous for his invention of the idea of the fundamental bass.  [I'm not going to try to explain this.  Complain in a comment.]  Harmonically he is quite complex.

Opera production in the twenty-first century consists of two contrasting parts:  historically meticulous musical production accompanied by clumsy, often unsuccessful, attempts to transfer the staging of the story into modern times.

The musicology was impressive.  The parts that show up most distinctly are the period sound of the orchestra and the beauty of the sung ornaments.  The conductor describes this as a big Baroque orchestra:  strings, bassoons, brass, theorbo, very busy harpsichord, etc. The singing is remarkable in how it does not sound like Handel.  If I were to compare it to something, it would be bel canto.  Light and beautiful.  Lisette was especially lovely.

We are in a timeless twentieth century, I believe, for our three love stories.  It is all about tangled love affairs among the native populations.  It's all very chaotic, as can be seen in the photo above.  There is much modern dancing and what looked to me like break dancing.  Don't trust me on this.  The break dancer was the janitor.  Cross dressing, both female to male and male to female, was a frequent feature here, and was from the original.  This opera is from the French Baroque, so there were no castrati.

We begin in a school with students.  There are many small flags but only one large flag, the stars and stripes.  So an American school?  For our love stories we go to Turkey, Peru and North America.  The Peru section includes a religious ceremony which has been translated into a catholic mass.  The priest goes around on a Segue and gives people wafers that are drugged.  They fall down.  This is designed to scare the girl he wants.

It's one of those operas that you just have to go along with.  It was fun, but a little long.  If I require the production to explain the opera, that has not happened here.  The chaos seems to have been enhanced.  It's still entertaining.
#ad

Fantasy cast for Werther

Werther:  Jonas Kaufmann
Charlotte:  Elīna Garanča
Sophie:  Lisette Oropesa
Albert:  Ludovic Tézier

This is a reaction to seeing a film from Vienna with Garanča and Matthew Polenzani.  Matthew is very romantic but occasionally loses control of the phrase.

The production is very dark, too dark for a computer screen.  The costumes are 50s and there are beds in most of the scenes.  The Albert is nasty and mean.  The final scene begins with Werther already shot.  Albert looms in the background, leaving the impression that he may have shot Werther.

Elina is incredible.  I think I begin to love this opera.

Sempre Libera

No offense, Natalie.  Viva Lisette.

Le Nozze di Figaro

Conductor: Patrick Summers
Director: Robin Guarino

Figaro: Philippe Sly (bass)
Susanna: Lisette Oropesa (soprano)
Countess Almaviva: Nadine Sierra (soprano)
Cherubino: Kate Lindsey (soprano)
Count Almaviva: Luca Pisaroni (bass)
Bartolo: John Del Carlo (bass)
Marcellina: Catherine Cook (soprano)
Basilio: Greg Fedderly (tenor)
Barbarina: Maria Valdes (soprano)

The San Francisco Opera has revived Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro yet again.  It's a very traditional production such as the just retired one from the Met.  Susanna accompanies "Voi che sapete" on the guitar. Stuff like that.

I went for the very fine cast.  Some of the cast members are repeats from the last time:  John Del Carlo, Catherine Cook and Greg Fedderly.  Of the younger cast members Luca Pisaroni has moved to the elder statesman Count role.  The singing for everyone was excellent.

I think this version is designed around the Susanna of Lisette Oropesa, she who runs marathons.  There is a lot of athletic activity.  Cherubino doesn't just hide behind the chair--he runs wildly around the stage, even turning a cartwheel.  Susanna and Figaro wrestle around in the garden, and she does a martial arts throw at one point, sending him over on his ass.  Philippe Sly's Figaro is up to the task.

It's interesting that while the production is the same as last time, the directing is completely different.  It was designed for the maximum amount of confusion, at least for me.  Perhaps I should consider not trying to follow the plot.

The tempos were brisk but I did not witness the loss of coordination reported elsewhere.

Jonas Kaufmann's Werther

👍🏻
Conductor: Alain Altinoglu
Production: Richard Eyre
Set and Costume Designer: Rob Howell

Werther:  Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)
Charlotte:  Sophie Koch (mezzo-soprano)
Sophie:  Lisette Oropesa (soprano)
Albert:  David Bizic (baritone)

If you have read this blog for long, you will know that I flew to Paris a few years ago to see Jonas Kaufmann sing Werther.  I loved it even more this time live from the Metropolitan Opera in HD.

I liked the production, which moved the time to the late 19th century, very much.  It did what I always say the production is for:  it explained the action.  They staged the overture to show Charlotte's mother dying at Christmas just as they began to sing carols.  This explains why father is teaching the children Christmas carols in the summer.

We know why Werther is at Charlotte's house--he is her date for the ball.  The production shows a small bit of the ball before returning us to the house.  Every scene shows this attention to detail without becoming distracting.  There's a harpsichord because the libretto says there is, but in the 1890s no one would have owned a harpsichord. 

I enjoyed Lisette Oropesa's Sophie very much and find that I could not forgive Werther when he made her cry.  Sophie Koch warmed slowly into the role exactly as a proper Charlotte should.

But you know we are here for Jonas Kaufmann.  This is the main opera where the person who has the mad scene is the man.  In fact the entire opera is about a man going mad for love.  If Jonas wasn't so good looking, we might be more afraid than attracted.  He overwhelms us with his intensity.  If you have seen Werther without Jonas you will know that it needs this intensity.

She called herself SHAR-LOT, while he occasionally called her car-LOT-tuh.  In other words she pronounced her name French and he pronounced it German.  Curious. In his interview he greeted his fans in Germany and Austria and mentioned that opera is the greatest of all art forms.  I couldn't agree more.

(Spoiler alert) The sound went out in the final scene, but we saw after he is dead she walked over and picked up the gun.

I couldn't help noticing things talked about on Twitter.  Perhaps I'll have to stop reading it.  I noticed when the couple who had no other dialog talked about Klopstock.  Klopstock and Ossian were writers who were talked about in Goethe's time. 

I think Kaufmann is the best thing going, and I'm glad there are so many ways for me to see his work.

_________________

I went again.  You knew I would.  Seeing the ending without the rest of the opera just didn't work for me, so I went to see the whole thing again.  He is a genuine phenomenon.  He treats each aspect of the Gesamtkunstwerk that is opera as its own individual art form, raising it to new levels of beauty and brilliance. I think the one in Paris was sweeter.

Klopstock.

Interesting things in Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Opera has also made a season announcement, and it includes a couple of interesting items.

I might think it was worth a trip to LA to see Florencia en el Amazonas by Daniel Catán which is part of the 2014-15 season.  I liked very much his Il Postino.  I liked especially the way he composed for voices.  Lisette Oropesa is in this.  She's everywhere these days. Francesca Zambello is doing the production. She is also everywhere.

And when did you ever see a Figaro Trilogy?  The order from Beaumarchais is The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, The Ghosts of Versailles.  What an incredible idea.  There isn't a lot of information about this, but it doesn't play until Feb-Mar in the 2014-15 season.  Ghosts will star Patricia Racette and Patti LuPone.  File it away in your brain somewhere.  They're not doing them like a Ring Cycle, unfortunately.