What Operas Will You Attend This Month?

I'll be at the San Francisco Opera next week, for Un Ballo in Maschera.

What are other people hearing live?

Nothing until next month, but in October I'll be seeing Iphigénie in Tauride. November is very busy: Salome, Il Trovatore, and Romeo et Juliette. All at Chicago's Lyric Opera.

I'll also be seeing Lyric's Iphigénie at the end of September, along with Turandot the following night (Lyric has a great subscription plan, the "O" Series, for those of us who don't live in Chicago: four operas over two weekends).

You're all lucky buggers.
Downunder opera not only costs an arm and a leg, but isn't worth going to anyway.
Once there was a company called Opera Victoria that made some hideous blues but also some absolutely wonderful productions: unhappily, their finances went berserk - many years ago, this was... Since then, when they were sucked into Opera Australia, you can really forget it all.
But I have my collection of CDs and laser disks...
Still, what I wouldn't give to be able to attend REALLY GOOD OPERA...

Well, the opera season has just ended here, with Chicago Opera Theatre's presentation of Jake Heggie's Three Decembers, Frederica von Stade's farewell performance.

Last opera of the season for me was Rheingold at La Scala last week with Rene Pape as Wotan. All the singers were wonderful, particularly Stephan Ruegamer as Loge and Johannes Martins Kraenzle as Alberich. However, the production was marred by a director who turned it into a ballet, emasculated Wotan, and provided a sparkly Michael Jackson rhinestone glove for the ring.

One bright point, however, was that this was the first staging I've seen where Alberich looked like an ordinary man and not a freak, and this made him a more compelling and sympathetic character, at least to me.

I've got three visits to Covent Garden in June, Le Nozze di Figaro (another outing for McVicar's well-received production with Colin Davis conducting), Massenet's Manon (a new production by Laurent Pelly, starring Anna Netrebko) and a performance of Carmen. I don't know what to expect of the last of these - it is, apparently, the first time an opera has been filmed in 3-D. All the seats are much cheaper than usual and all are classed as 'restricted view'. The audience has to agree to be filmed, so maybe I'll go down in posterity ;-)

No Glyndebourne this year - I couldn't afford what was left for public bookings - but I have just booked up a visit to the Wexford Opera Festival in October. We'll see Virginia by Mercadante and Hubicka by Smetana. I know next to nothing about either work - has anyone seen them?

I believe the Metropolitan Opera's Aida will rerun this month in a nearby theater. I liked it enough to see it again.

Robert

I'll be at Carmen on Friday afternoon at Lyric Opera in Chicago. Part of my small package.

Others this season for me include A Masked Ball, The Mikado, and last, The Girl of the Golden West.

I saw Carmen at Lyric last Friday, and Macbeth the week before.

Midsummer Night's Dream week after next! I am so looking forward to it. David Daniels is singing Oberon and I adore David Daniels.

Mercadante's Virginia and Smetana's Hubicka at the Wexford Opera Festival this week and Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea from Glyndebourne On Tour next.

Cosi Fan Tutte and Don Carlo (at least twice) at the Met. Also Intermezzo at New York City Opera.

Don Carlo's high definition transmission is not until December, and I don't see any other transmissions in the meantime. I like both Don Carlo and Don Carlos and will almost certainly see this performance.

Robert

I am a season ticket holder to Opera San Jose (California) and have been since their inaugural season in 1983. They don't play on the scale of the San Francisco Opera, but they can hold their head up. They've staged some superb productions (and yes, a few duds) with founder Irene Dalis at the helm. I'm happy to support a distinguished local company that has seen tremendous growth over these decades.

This month's production is a double bill: La Voix Humaine paired with I Pagliacci.

>4 M.R.: Sorry to hear that M.R. Especially since you have such a fantastic opera house in Sydney. I always wondered, how are the acoustics in it?

>14 Meredy: I saw La Voix Humaine at Wexford a year or two ago. It was one of the short works and played in the tiny Dun Mhuire theatre so the audience was very close to the solo singer. I'd agree with The Rough Guide to Opera that "in a great performance the work is almost unbearably painful and places the audience in the role of powerless voyeur." It was harrowing - apparently Poulenc wrote it when he was separated from his lover, and admitted that it was a sort of musical confession.

You'll need the in-your-face blood and guts of I Pagliacci to cheer you up for your homeward journey ;-)

>16 abbottthomas: Yeah, I know. I saw it years ago and really hated it: music, lyrics, storyline, performance, staging, everything. I probably even hated the lighting and the costumes just to be thorough about it. This time I wanted to skip it and just go to dinner (it's a matinee) if Pagliacci came first, but it doesn't. If we arrived afterward, we'd face a full parking lot. So we'll tough it out and bitch about it over dinner. I've found that there's always that entertainment even if there's no other saving grace.

Due to see Ellen Kent's 'traditional' production of Puccini's Tosca at the New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham (UK) at the end of February. Lots more lined up for later months.

Carmen is coming up for me. I'm not overly fond of Bizet in general, but a particular performance or production can sometimes win me over.

I did, however, suffer almost to the point of stifling screams and running from my seat during La Voix Humaine noted at #14 above.

Seeing a dress rehearsal of Rosenkavalier at Lyric on Friday (the actual performance I'll see next month), a double bill of Gianni Schicchi and La Voix Humaine (Patricia Racette's role début) at Chicago Opera Theatre on Saturday, and Nabucco at Lyric in a couple of weeks.

A cold has laid me low, so I missed Turandot on the screen on Saturday. It was the Franco Zeffirelli production so I may have seen it already albeit with different personnel. I heard a good bit of it over public radio, but I am not good with opera just aurally; it sounded more musical to me, though, than I take a lot of opera to be.

Robert

>21 Mr.Durick: I got to Turandot on Saturday at our local cinema - just upgraded with sofas to sit on and wine, pizza and burgers brought to your seat! I did enjoy the old-fashioned, 'realistic' sets. In the UK there are hardly any of those left as the modern generation of directors takes over with more economical stagings.

I wasn't wild about Marco Berti's Calaf but the girls were good - Anita Hartig as Liu and, particularly, Nina Stemme in the title role. She is singing Electra at the end of the season - should be stunning.

Turandot does seem to be a very un-feminist tale. Her hacking through her would-be lovers shows aggression rather than assertiveness and she only needs to be grabbed forcefully and kissed by Calaf to crumble like a movie star in the arms of Clark Gable. I'll take my daughters to Tosca for a better role-model ;-)