NY Met Opera announces Season: 8 new operas with 18 revivals

By -

NEW YORK (AFP) - New York's Metropolitan Opera said Tuesday it would defy the economic downturn with eight new productions in its 2009-2010 season. General manager Peter Gelb announced Met premiers including Rossini's "Armida," Verdi's "Attila," Janacek's "From the House of the Dead," and Shostakovich's "The Nose." Also planned in the upcoming season are new productions of Bizet's "Carmen," Offenbach's "Les Contes d'Hoffmann," Thomas's "Hamlet," and Puccini's "Tosca." Eighteen revivals from the company's repertory will also be produced.

Music director James Levine described the program as a "wonderful balance of repertory that includes four works totally new to the Met as well as a number of great operas that have been out of the repertory for a long time." A deep economic downturn hitting the country and New York itself would not deter the opera house from pursuing an ambitious season.

"Although the economy is bad, we are committed to maintaining the Met's artistic excellence," Gelb said in a statement. "We have gained a new and larger public that we're determined to keep by continuing to present the world's leading artists in compelling new productions and appealing revivals."

Music lovers who can't make it to New York will be able to get a taste of the spectacle via live, high-definition cinema screenings already being run in the current season in more than 35 countries. The three remaining in this season are "Madama Butterfly" on March 7, "La Sonnambula" on March 21, and "La Cenerentola" May 9. The 2009-10 series will feature nine transmissions, beginning October 10 with "Tosca."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Role of Music in Opera

By -
There are numerous books on the topic, and every composer, librettist, director, singer and audience member has their opinion as to what role the music should play in an opera. In a play without music, the words ought to support the meaning behind a character's actions. However, in the case of action movies, often times the action is what tells the story and there aren't words, just images to forward the plot. We might hear music to accompany action, build tension, but the action tells the story. Musicals tend to speak until the emotion of the moment just "has" to break out in song - unless it's something like "Mama Mia" where the dialog is the rails we travel on between songs; the songs themselves, written before the concept of the musical, are the focus of the production, while the story is secondary. Operas are a different beast. The music provides emotion to the words spoken, but it also plays the role of ambience when there is only action. In &quo
Read more

Episode 210b: Joyeuse le départ

By -
Image
Podcast:  Play in new window  |  Download Subscribe:  Apple Podcasts  |  Android  |  Google Play  |  Stitcher  |  TuneIn  |  RSS Provost Cunningham has Transmigrated, but to where! What is Dr Sage going to do with his body? And how can she bring home her friends, Abigail and Erasmus, without also bring home Cunningham? What are they going to say when they find the “skeleton” she’s hiding in her closet? Cast: Eddie Louise Clark  as Dr Sage Chip Clark  as Professor Savant Justin Bremer  as the Narrator Emily Riley Piatt  as Abigail Entwhistle, Calypso & Dean Stewart Written by  Eddie Louise Theme music by  Unwoman Sound Design by  Chip Michael
Read more

The Art of String Quartets by Brian Ferneyhough

By -
Image
When an artist sets paint to canvas, there are brush strokes used for different effects. Sometimes those strokes are subtle, imperceptible; they produce works of art like the Mona Lisa . Other times the very obvious nature of the stroke is the art, as in works by Van Gogh. With some composers of music, the notes on the page are their craft. How those notes translate into an aural experience is what defines some composers as great artists. Brian Ferneyhough has a masterful command of the techniques of putting notes on the page. These techniques are sometimes so subtle, even though written in black and white, they escape detection. Some of what he attempts with his music is just that, to escape detection, to bury the framework, diverting the ear away from the structure, so only the music is heard . The subtlety is so fine it is almost imperceptible. Even though he studied at several institutions, he is considered self-taught, studying scores from Boule
Read more