Ariadne👍🏻

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Conductor...............James Levine

Production..............Bodo Igesz

Ariadne.................Jessye Norman
Bacchus.................James King
Zerbinetta..............Kathleen Battle
The Composer.......Tatiana Troyanos
Music Master.........Franz Ferdinand Nentwig
Harlekin................Stephen Dickson
Scaramuccio..........Allan Glassman
Truffaldin..............Artur Korn
Brighella...............Anthony Laciura
Najade..................Barbara Bonney
Dryade..................Gweneth Bean
Echo....................Dawn Upshaw

For today's Metropolitan Opera stream we are treated to Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, 3/12/1988.  It is unbelievably wonderful.  My all time favorite mezzo is Tatiana Troyanos who sings an outstanding, over the top Composer.  She alone is worth the time.  But look at the complete excess of riches.  Zerbinetta is Kathleen Battle herself, here lively and young.  Ariadne is probably Jessye Norman's greatest role, and here we have her at her peak.  And if that isn't enough, there is James King to sing Bacchus.

In the prologue they all appear as themselves in a peek at backstage life.  Originally the play followed a play by Molière, see here.  They are all wonderfully lively. 

Jessye is beyond wonderful, but they have decided to focus on her face in endless closeups, and she makes faces when she sings.  One might prefer the camera a bit further back.  The singing of "Es gibt ein Reich" is absolutely glorious.  Is this the greatest opera performance every recorded?  I'm tempted to say yes.

Then Kathleen does her wonderful "Großmächtige Prinzessin".  We have one delight after another.  I loved Kathleen Battle and would have fired the conductor. 

Ariadne's three ladies sing what seems to be Schubert's "Schlafe, schlafe."  We transition to the entrance of Bacchus.  "Are you the queen of this island?"  He persuades her.  King isn't quite up to the ladies, but Jessye is fabulous all the way to the end.  They go off to be happy.

Thank you.  This is one of the great things.

Werther

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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.

Mother Plots

• Handel Giulio Cesare  Cornelia is the step-mother of Sesto who has just lost his father Pompey.

• Handel Agrippina   Agrippina is the mother of Nero*

• Mozart Die Zauberflöte  The Queen of the Night is the mother of Pamina.*

• Verdi Il trovatore  Azucena is the mother of Manrico (or not).  She also has mother issues of her own.  Her mother haunts the story.*
  

• Smetana The Bartered Bride Both of the main characters have mothers in the cast.

• Mascagni Cavalleria rusticana Turiddu's mother is prominent.

• Strauss Elektra  Elektra's mother Klytemnestra has killed her father.*

• Humperdinck Hänsel und Gretel The mother sends the children out alone into the woods. *

• Janáček Jenůfa Jenůfa's step-mother kills Jenůfa's child.*

• Strauss Salome Salome's mother starts this whole mess.*

• Puccini Madama Butterfly  The main character becomes a mother during the opera.*

• Wagner The Ring This features Erda, mother of the Earth.  Her children include the Valkyries and the Norms.*

• Massenet Werther.  Charlotte's dead mother haunts the story and persuades Charlotte to marry Albert.*
  

Le Nozze di Figaro from the Met 👍🏻

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Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............Jonathan Miller

Figaro..................Bryn Terfel
Susanna.................Cecilia Bartoli
Count Almaviva..........Dwayne Croft
Countess Almaviva.......Renée Fleming
Cherubino...............Susanne Mentzer
Dr. Bartolo.............Paul Plishka
Marcellina..............Wendy White
Don Basilio.............Heinz Zednik
Antonio.................Thomas Hammons
Barbarina...............Danielle de Niese

The Metropolitan Opera has rerun free of charge the 1998 telecast of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.  I would have seen the original, of course.  It was in the center of my infatuation with Cecilia Bartoli. Watching it again I find that it is a Figaro for the ages.  There is not even the tiniest hole in this cast.  Even Barbarina features Danielle de Niese making her Met debut at 19.

This opera features the Countess in two glorious arias-- Porgi Amor and Dove sono--sung gloriously by Renée Fleming.

This film still has the most hits for Cecilia Bartoli on YouTube and the second most for Fleming.

The Met cast Bartoli into more or less the same Fach as Kathleen Battle only with a comic slant. In her career she was known for her very successful coloratura singing, and this provides the explanation for the replacement of Deh vieni non tardar, an entirely legato aria, with something with at least some coloratura.

Bryn is perhaps my all time favorite Figaro, and Cecilia and Bryn's flirting is the best ever seen in this opera.

The last time I watched it I wrote this:

It was a surprise when it was announced that Cecilia would sing the role of Susanna, a role I don’t think she has sung since. There was a huge scandal because she insisted on performing different arias. I know “Un moto di gioia” is one of her favorites. Her choices, especially the final aria, are very successful, but she does not sing “Deh vieni non tardar.”

I have felt since I first saw this film that I never really understood this opera before. In a world where everything had to be about status and privilege, where the operas were clearly divided between elevated moral dramas about the upper classes and comedies in dialect from the lower classes, Mozart has brought us real people from all the various classes of his era, people with serious problems, people like us. I don’t think I really understood how deeply serious Figaro really is.

Cecilia is key in the success of this entire performance because she makes you feel how much Susanna loves Figaro and how much she hates the idea of sex with the count, how much she loathes his attentions while successfully masking her emotions from him. This is the content of the Marriage of Figaro, not just the jokes. I have read the book this is based on, but it is Mozart and da Ponte who give true life to these people.

There is a wonderful rapport between Cecilia and Bryn which they exploited in a duet album and dvd. This rapport is at its best here. They are exciting and very charismatic together.

As if this were not wonderful enough, there is also the fabulous countess of Renée Fleming, who needs only to sit around being miserably regal while singing two of the most gorgeous arias ever written. Gorgeously. She is in top form.

It is a succession of perfectly executed scenes by ideally cast singing actors. When was Figaro’s discovery of his parents ever so perfect? The count and countess are effectively upper class while Susanna and Figaro are common, as it should be. The entire production is pure perfection in singing, conducting and ensemble acting, and never becomes stale.

As one who has long adored Cecilia and has seen a lot of her stage work, this is her masterpiece.

Rainbows

I collect renditions of Over the Rainbow (see here), but this one cannot be overlooked. The singer is Christine Brewer.



Contrast with her Liebestod here.

The Only Aida 👍🏻

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Conductor...............James Levine
Production..............John Dexter

Aida....................Leontyne Price [Last performance]
Radamès.................James McCracken
Amneris.................Fiorenza Cossotto
Amonasro................Simon Estes
Ramfis..................John Macurdy

I'm going to cut everyone some slack in the replay of Aida, 1985, from Leontyne Price's last performance anywhere in a staged opera.  The previous season she presented at the Met the last performance of her other signature role from La Forza del Destino.  It starts slow and warms to an intensity seldom seen today.

"Celeste Aida" is tough.  I always remember that when Pavarotti did his first Aida in San Francisco that the papers panned him.  It's tough.  But McCracken carries his weight after that.  Cossotto comes out of the box roaring and carries this to the end.  Perhaps she knows that she will be remembered for this performance.

But this performance is about Leontyne Price.  I cannot top what I said years ago about the Blue Album which I used to play in my dorm room at college:

"To begin here tends to set ones standards absurdly, artificially high. Forever after I thought anyone should be able to do that gorgeous open, almost raw sound, that unbelievably fat middle tone, those awesome high notes. Anyone should be able to hit a high C and spin it back to a pianissimo. Right? How hard can it be?

"And that perfect, fluid phrasing, that perfection of ornamentation, that flawless instinct for scooping and sliding in Verdi, that must be a dime a dozen. Must be.

"And that reckless intensity, that daring passion, there must be hundreds of those.

"But no one who could approach this ever came again. For Bellini it's Callas, but for Verdi there is no one who ever could touch the one and only, never to be seen again Leontyne Price. Herbert von Karajan said that her singing gave him goose bumps. Yes."

And our Aida rerun from the Met captured my attention as seldom happens these days.  Our hearts are with them to the end.

Summer Festivals 2020 Future Unknown

Santa Fe Opera  Cancelled

• Gioachino Rossini The Barber of Seville
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart The Magic Flute
• Richard Wagner Tristan und Isolde 
• Antonín Dvořák Rusalka
• Huang Ruo  M. Butterfly (new opera)
  

Salzburg Whitsun  Cancelled

• Gaetano Donizetti Don Pasquale (and main festival, Cecilia Bartoli)
• Hector Berlioz Orphée (the usual Berlioz arrangement of Gluck, here attributed to Berlioz.)
  

Salzburg Festival 1 August – 31 August 2020

This festival is still talking optimistically about going on with a reduced schedule.  Current plan:

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Cosi fan Tutte
• Richard Strauss Elektra
• Vienna Phil 4 concerts
• Guest orchestras 4 concerts
• Netrebko/Eyvasov concert
• Concert with Bartoli
• Yoncheva concert
• Florez concert
• Igor Levit plays all Piano Sonatas by Beethoven. 
• And more things

 
Aix-en-Provence Festival Cancelled

• Giacomo Puccini Tosca  Angel Blue is Tosca
• Wolfgang Rihm Jakob Lenz
• Adam Maor The Sleeping Thousand World Premier
  
• Kurt Weill The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with Karita Mattila
  
• Michel van der Aa Blank Out  French Premier
  

Glyndebourne Festival  Cancelled

• Francis Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites with Danielle de Niese streamed
  
• Gaetano Donizetti L’elisir d’amore
• George Frideric Handel Alcina streamed
  
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Lisette Oropesa
  
• Ludwig van Beethoven Fidelio
• Igor Stravinsky The Rake’s Progress, streamed
  

Munich Opera Festival  Cancelled

• Richard Wagner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with Koch, Kaufmann
  
• Hans Abrahamson The Snow Queen
• Giuseppe Verdi Nabucco
• Giuseppe Verdi Rigoletto with Calleja, Keenlyside
  
• Joseph Haydn Orlando Paladino
• Giacomo Puccini La Boheme
• Peter Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin
• Erich Korngold Die tote Stadt with Kaufmann, Peterson
  
• Giuseppe Verdi Otello with Kunde, Harteros
  
• Giuseppe Verdi Falstaff with Koch, Kurzak  streamed
  
• Giacomo Puccini Tosca
• Giuseppe Verdi I Masnadieri with Damrau, Castronuovo
  
• Jean-Philippe Rameau Castor et Pollux  streamed
  
• Béla Bartók Bluebeard's Castle

Opera Theater of Saint Louis  Cancelled

• Georges Bizet Carmen
• Johann Strauss II Die Fledermaus
• Tobias Picker & Aryeh Lev Stollman Awakenings
• Carlysle Floyd Susannah

West Edge Opera Festival Postponed to 2021

• Leoš Janáček Katya Kabanova
• Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell Elizabeth Cree
• Francesco Cavalli Eliogabolo

Glimmerglass  Cancelled

• Rogers The Sound of Music with Leonard!, Burden
• Wagner Die Feen
• Handel Rinaldo
• Mozart Don Giovanni
• Mozart Cosi fan Tutte

Chorégies d'Orange  Cancelled

• Saint-Saëns Samson et Dalila
• Viaggio italiano Song Recital with Cecilia Bartoli 24/07/2020 
• Verdi La forza del destino

Roberto Devereux Stream

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People don't give Peter Gelb enough credit.  In this production of Roberto Devereux, from 2016, he has chosen the perfect cast.

Elisabetta: Sondra Radvanovsky (soprano)
Sara, Duchess of Nottingham: Elīna Garanča (mezzo-soprano)
Roberto Devereux: Matthew Polenzani (tenor)
Duke of Nottingham: Mariusz Kwiecien (baritone)

He has also chosen the great Englishman, David McVicar, to create this wonderful production.  Of the three queens, I prefer this one because it isn't so dark and drab.

I like Sondra Radvanovsky in other operas, but this is her masterpiece.  The opera comes to life because of the wonderful intensity she brings.

The plot is nonsense, of course.  Elizabeth was a truly great queen who would never have allowed the execution of one of her courtiers on anything so trivial as sex.  My understanding is that Devereux tried to overthrow the queen, the precise meaning of being a traitor.  I doubt that having a girlfriend qualifies.  It wouldn't make an opera, though.

Thank you all.

Anna Bolena stream

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Conductor.......................Marco Armiliato
Production......................David McVicar

Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn).......Anna Netrebko
Giovanna (Jane Seymour).........Ekaterina Gubanova
Enrico (Henry VIII).............Ildar Abdrazakov
Riccardo (Lord Richard Percy)...Stephen Costello
Mark Smeaton....................Tamara Mumford
Lord Rochefort..................Keith Miller
Sir Hervey......................Eduardo Valdes

In the announcement before Donizetti's Anna Bolena, 2011, began we were told that this was the first time this opera had played at the Met.  When Beverly Sills sang her three queens, it was across the plaza at City Opera.

We are not to see the happy time when Anna Bolena married Henry VIII.  Instead we come in at the point in her marriage where he has already moved on to his next wife, Jane Seymour.  In this context she as portrayed as loved by many men, but still remaining faithful to her husband.  The sets are dark and uninviting, but much love has gone into creating costumes that are true to the period of Henry VIII.  In this era of modern black business suits in virtually any opera, we are grateful.

Donizetti is the closest to Verdi of any of the Italian composers.  This could be early, or even middle Verdi.  There is much bombast.  Everyone earns a big aria.  The top three singers are all Russian, so we are treated to some magnificent Russian style singing characterized by big voices and big production.  Perhaps this is what prompts Stephen Costello to sing in this big voiced style.  It's the heaviest I remember for him.

Netrebko wished to sing this.  It is probably the intensity of emotion that attracted her.  The duet with Gubanova is especially dramatic.  Ildar makes Henry an angry asshole.  Seen from this perspective, he does seem like a megalomaniacal pervert.

Dear Anne Boleyn, Someone has written this opera for you, and now some other people have made this wonderful performance.  I think it's the best we can do for you.

What we love so unreservedly about Anna Netrebko is how completely she commits to the inner emotions of her performances.  She gives it all.  Viva.

Met Gala

There was never a gala like this.  Due to the wonders of modern computers, people from all over the world have gathered in their homes to make and enjoy music.  The sound wasn't always perfect, but the spirit was deep.  I cried many times.  Seeing them all as themselves made the meaning of our problem very clear.  Opera brings art and beauty to the world, and must go on.  May all be well for all of you.