Category Archives: Opera news and views – elsewhere

Calgary Opera announces 2015/16 season

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calgaryCalgary once again offers three main stage performances.  The season opens with Delibes’ Lakmé.  It’s a Tom Diamond production so probably not very Regie.  Aline Kutan, seen as Queen of the Night in Toronto not so long ago, sings the title role with Andrea Hill as her sidekick Mallika.  Lakmé’s paramour, the handsome British officer Frederic, is sung by Canadian opera’s current answer to Rudolph Valentino, Cam McPhail.  Gordon Gerrard conducts.  There are three performances on November 21st, 25th and 27th.

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The Met’s HD season for 2015/16

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I took a quick look at the overall Met season here.  What follows is a more detailed description of what’s coming to cinemas and why one might, or might not, want to see the offerings.

NFnug_trovatoreOctober 3rd, 2015.  Verdi’s Il Trovatore.  This is the McVicar production that was broadcast a few seasons back with Sondra Radvanovsky as Leonora.  This time it’s Anna Netrebko.  Yonghoon Lee is Manrico rather than Marcello Álvarez.  The other key players are the same.  The Radvan version is available quite cheaply on DVD and Blu-ray.  One for die hard Netrebko fans I think. Continue reading →

Don’t cry for me Vancouver

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2011-09-21-Rigoletto-2073There were two big 2015/16 season announcements yesterday.  On the west coast Vancouver Opera unveiled a four production season.  there’s fairly conventional fare; Verdi’s Rigoletto (d) Nancy Hermiston (c) Jonathan Darling and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (d) Michael Cavanagh.  Less conventionally they are offering Nico Muhly’s Dark Sisters.  It’s about conflict in a breakaway Mormon community.  Anthony Tommasini gave the original production a somewhat mixed review in the NYT but it sounds like it’s not without interest.  It’s presented here in a new production by Amiel Gladstone and Kinza Tyrrell will conduct.  Rounding out the season is Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Evita in a production by Kelly Robinson.  Casting information is sparse but Simone Osborne will sing Gilda in the Rigoletto.

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The deal at the Met

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LENIN-CAT-1The more I look at it, the more surprising the deal reached between management and unions at the Metropolitan Opera seems.  I have never seen a North American management cede so much power to the unions representing its workforce.  It appears that the structure, apparently described in the draft contract as an “Efficiency Task Force” will have a substantial role in the overall management of the enterprise comparable to, perhaps more powerful than, the supervisory boards that operate in countries like Germany.  This is a monumental change in governance model.  Most North American opera companies operate with a pretty much all powerful General Manger loosely supervised by a board that is too large to be an effective oversight vehicle, not helped by the fact that the sole qualification for membership is a large wallet and a willingness to open it.  This gives GMs the choice of operating as a dictator, which is what has happened at the Met for decades, or, smarter, operating with a handpicked subset of the board as an advisory group.  Neither approach provides much in the way of checks and balances.

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Finally, some common sense at the Met

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pawSome of that not so common quantity; common sense, seems to have emerged in the negotiating process at the Metropolitan Opera.  Following mediation, management and local 802 have agreed to retain an independent financial analyst and have agreed that work will continue while that person does his work and during the negotiations that will follow.  So, no lockout for now.  Full text of local 802’s press release under the cut.

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The state of the Met

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This is the first time I’ve posted about the current labour negotiations at the metropolitan Opera though I’ve been following the story closely.  I have rather a lot of experience of contract and grievance negotiations and I think I can spot bad faith bargaining at some distance.  Good faith bargaining typically occurs when both sides want to reach a settlement.  The opposite when one side is more interested in ramming home some “point of principle”.  This last was often a starting point on the union side in the bad old days ,especially in the UK and Australia but has become much less common.  Nowadays bad faith is much more likely to come from the employer’s side, usually when they are bent on some principle like the “right” to hire and fire at will.

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MetHD line up for 2014/15

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joyceThe Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2014/15 season both in-house and the HD broadcasts.  The HD line up seems to continue this season’s approach of mainstream works with big name casts.  That said, John Adams’ Death of Klinghoffer and the double bill of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle in a production by Polish director both get a cinecast. Three of the ten productions have previously been seen in the HD series and a fourth is available on DVD.  All five new productions this season get a broadcast which is to be welcomed.

Here’s the full line up with comments.

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