Tag Archives: methd

Upcoming opera in cinemas

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Bloor Hot Docs, after something of a hiatus, is showing three Royal Opera House productions in December.  Here’s the schedule:

Saturday, December 3, 12:00 PM Norma (directed by La Fura dels Baus’ Alex Olle) with Sonya Yoncheva in the title role. It was described as “striking and perverse” by The Guardian.  Sonia Ganassi is Adalgisa with Joseph Calleja as Pollione. Antonio Pappano conducts. More info.

Saturday, December 10, 11:00 AM Cosi fan tutte directed by  Jan Phillip Gloger, conducted by Semyon Bychkov. With Angela Brower (Dorabella), Corinne Winters (Fiordiligi), Daniel Behle (Ferrando), Alessio Arduini (Guiglielmo)  Looks like an updated “theatre in theatre” production. More info.

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Ossian meets Anne of Green Gables

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Rossini’s La donna del Lago is based on the Walter Scott poem, itself a deliberately romantic view of Scottish history, simplified until not much is left but the rivalry for the heroine’s hand by her three suitors and a completely unexplained war between the king of Scotland and the Clan Alpine.  Dramatically it’s thin indeed but it’s Rossini so there is crazy virtuosic music and it’s very hard to cast.  One needs two mezzos; one a mistress of Rossinian coloratura, the other more dramatic, and two tenors; both of which can do the crazy high stuff.  The supporting roles aren’t easy either.  Realistically only a major house could cast this adequately.

1.anne

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Met HD line up for 2016/17

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tristanmetThe Met has announced it’s 2016/17 cinema season.  There are again ten productions with what seems now to be a settled mix of a smattering of the Met’s new productions and a bunch of war horses that have already been broadcast.  For myself, I’ve pretty much had it with watching opera this way.  There aren’t that many productions in the program that I have any interest in and the combination of far too common technical problems, cheesey scripted and rehearsed “interviews” and over long intervals make it all rather tedious.  For the operas I want to see I’ll wait for the DVD release.  Still for those who are still interested, here’s the line up. Continue reading →

Lulu in HD

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649x486_lulu_introYesterday I went to a Met “live in HD” broadcast for the first time since The Nose two years ago.  It was an interesting and ultimately rather depressing experience.  This review really falls into two parts; a review of the production and performance, including how it was filmed for broadcast, and a piece on how the Met is “presenting” the work and how that seems to fit in with its overall HD strategy.  The latter may turn into a bit of a rant.

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A busy week

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Next week is a bit crazy.  Tomorrow is the Elizabeth Krehm memorial concert in aid of St. Mike’s ICU.  They are playing Mahler 2 and it’s PWYC with a tax receipt.  8pm at Metropolitan United Church.  Tueday sees the opening of Philippe Boesmann’s Julie at 8pm at the Bluma Appel.  It’s an important, if bleak, contemporary piece and for the first time here, in a Soundstreams/CanStage presentation, it will be sung in English.  It runs until the 29th so plenty of chance to catch it.

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The ur Nixon

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1.maoI found it a bit shocking that John Adam’s Nixon in China wasn’t released on DVD until after the MetHD broadcast in 2011.  I was even more shocked when I found out that the original 1987 Houston production had been recorded and broadcast on PBS.  Just recently, thanks to a kind reader of this blog, I’ve been able to watch that original broadcast.  It’s TV from 1988 recorded on VHS and then digitized so the picture quality isn’t state of the art but the sound is surprisingly good. Continue reading →

The Met’s Maria Stuarda on DVD

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Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda featured in the MetHD series in January 2013 and has now been released on DVD.  My review of the cinema broadcast is here.  It’s always a bit different watching the DVD rather than the cinema version but in this case I think my somewhat different reaction has a lot to do with having recently seen various versions of the other Schiller/Donizetti Tudor queen operas, especially Stephen Lawless’ Roberto Devereux at the COC.

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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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All who were lost are found

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Thomas Adès’ 2004 opera The Tempest was given at the Metropolitan Opera in 2012 in a new production by Robert Lepage.  It got an HD broadcast and a subsequent DVD release.  It’s an interesting work which, on happening, was compared to Peter Grimes as the “next great English opera”.  Whether this early hype will turn into a sustained place in the repertoire is yet to be seen.  Musically it’s not easy to characterize.  Adès very much has his own style; mixing lyricism with atonality and, in this piece, setting one of the roles, Ariel, so high it’s surprising anyone has been found to sing it.  Certainly it’s a more aggressively modern style than most of the work currently being produced in North America.  The libretto two is unusual.  Shakespeare’s own words were, apparently, considered too difficult to sing though, of course, Britten famously set great screeds of unadulterated bard in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  For the Tempest, Meredith Oakes has rendered the text into couplets; rhymed or half rhymed.  It works quite well with only the occasional touch of Jeremy Sams like banality.

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