Richard Sasanow - Page 8

In the midst of this COVID-19 crisis that is gripping the world--and keeping so many people in quarantine--the Metropolitan Opera managed to pull off a brilliantly executed music coup. It connected stars, chorus members and orchestral musicians in an “At-Home Gala”--a combination fund-raiser for the Met with wonderful entertainment. And the technology worked!

For all you lovelorn, “live opera”-lovers, the Met is coming to the rescue from COVID-19 this afternoon, Saturday April 25, at 1pm New York time, with a gala concert featuring over 40 artists performing direct from their homes around the world.

Luckily for viewers on the Metropolitan Opera's “Met on Demand”—with selections available free in this time of COVID-19, on your laptop or as apps for your phone or tablet—there were a couple of knee-slappers thrown in among the drama of AIDA, PARSIFAL and ROMEO ET JULIETTE this week. Two of my favorites were there: Donizetti's DON PASQUALE and Verdi's FALSTAFF.

Some people dream of a White Christmas--or at least an end to the horrors of COVID-19 and a semblance of life returned to normal. I'll drink to that. But high on my list of events I'm hoping to hear in a world turned back on its feet, is the return of Richard Strauss's DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN to the Met.

The Met on Demand had another week of exciting performances, from the divine [Rossini's IL  BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA] to the, well, the divine [Adams's NIXON IN CHINA].

Thanks to the French online service, France.tv, opera-goers in New York have had a chance to see what lies ahead with the new production of Mozart's DON GIOVANNI by Ivo van Hove, that, health crisis be willing, will make its debut at the Met next March.

In these crazy days when no theatres are open to the public, the Live in HD series on PBS is a lifeline to the Met; last Friday, on PBS' Great Performances (on WNET in New York, at least) there was this fall's TURANDOT with a first-rate cast.

It's a busy week for Piotr Beczala, at least on the Met on Demand. It started with Monday's free broadcast of 2014's RUSALKA, opposite Renée Fleming (when the interview that follows was conducted) to Saturday night's free ADRIANA LECOUVREUR performance opposite Anna Netrebko, from January 2019. You can also hear him in excerpts from WERTHER, opposite Joyce DiDonato, which was scheduled for last month at the Met, but sidelined by COVID-19. The arias were recorded in JDD's living room, to give audiences a glimpse of what they might have missed in the complete performance.

The Met's first cancellation due to coronavirus concerns was the revival of Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA, the opera retelling of the Cinderella story, set to star mezzo Tara Erraught in the title role and one of its biggest tenor stars, Javier Camarena as Don Ramiro, her prince. The opera holds a particular place in Camarena's history at the Met: It made him an overnight sensation when he was tapped to replace Juan Diego Florez and blew the roof off--a real-life Cinderella story.

The Met had a wonderfully conducted performance of Wagner's DER FLIENGENDE HOLLANDER with a marvelous singer in the title role. Unfortunately, that was in 2017, when the Met's Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin was on the podium and Michael Volle was the forceful Hollander. This time around, when Francois Girard's new Expressionist production had its premiere the other night, with Valery Gergiev at the helm and Evgeny Nikitin as the Dutchman, things did not go so smoothly.

When I recently interviewed Lisette Ororpesa, just before her first Violetta at the Met, she told me that people are always asking her “Isn't TRAVIATA an opera for three different sopranos? One soprano per act?” and her answer is: “Yeah, if you want to look at it that way...' She proved that she didn't need any help from a doppelganger in pulling off all the varied aspects of Verdi's courtesan, with a stellar performance.

Saturday night, I heard soprano Lisette Oropesa deliver an alternatingly delicious and desperately dramatic Violetta in Verdi's LA TRAVIATA at the Met. Less than a day later, she was the emcee at the GRAND FINALS CONCERT of the Met's National Council Auditions--where she was a winner herself in 2005 and “it changed my life,” she recalled--delivering the latest batch of opera babies into the big time.

Someone once asked me, long ago, “Don't you ever get Baroque-d out?” The answer then--when instrumental music was more widely available than vocal--was a firm “no.” Today, when there's the music of Handel and his contemporaries everywhere, the answer remains the same, particularly when it's in the right hands, like Joyce DiDonato (JDD) in AGRIPPINA on disk and recently at the Met. There are also some less familiar--but very much worthy--names, like countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski on his Erato CD, “Facce d'Amore,” and mezzo Ann Hallenberg, at Carnegie's Zankel Hall last week with the Venice Baroque Orchestra.

It's been a big year for soprano Lisette Oropesa, with starring roles at major European houses. But in this country, it's something else entirely: She won the Richard Tucker Award and the Met's Beverly Sills Award. That was followed by a pair of name-above-the-title roles, her first at the Met: her role debut in Massenet's MANON and, this week, her house role debut as Verdi's Violetta in LA TRAVIATA.

With great success, Juilliard's Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts, including a notable alumna, Felicia Moore, as Susan B. Anthony, along with members of the New York Philharmonic under Daniela Candillari performed Louisa Proske's production of the Gertrude Stein-Virgil Thomson opera THE MOTHER OF US ALL. It took place in the Engelhardt Court of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as part of the MetLiveArts series.

I was delighted to hear that the Oratorio Society of New York's world premiere at Carnegie Hall of SANCTUARY ROAD (Naxos 8.559884)--a work for orchestra, chorus and a quintet of soloists--had been captured on disc. Not only is the story worth bringing to a broader audience, but the magic of the work, composed by Paul Moravec with a libretto by Mark Campbell based on the writings of William Still, “a conductor for the Underground Railroad,' merits hearing over and over again.

Welcome to the Met, AGRIPPINA: It's about time. Handel and his librettist, Vincent Grimani, knew that certain stories are timeless--like corruption in government--and this one has plenty of twists and turns...and even some belly laughs. It was the perfect piece for an ingenious director, Sir David McVicar, and a spectacular singing actress, mezzo Joyce DiDonato, aided and abetted by conductor Harry Bicket and the Met's perfectly Baroque pit band. The result was an unusual combination for early music: great music and great fun. I suppose that's why it became such a big hit for Handel.

There must be something in the air, with a couple of New York's small opera companies transporting 19th-century German Romantic operas by Weber and Wagner to Texas within a couple of months, in search of ways to attract new audiences. The first was Weber's DIE FREISCHUTZ from Heartbeat Opera, now On Site Opera's new production of Jim Luigs' and Scott Warrender's DAS BARBECU, complete with all the fixin's at Hill Country Barbecue Market on West 26th Street in Manhattan.  

Maestro Gustavo Dudamel, who usually leads the LA Philharmonic, took a busman's holiday to NY for a brace of performances with his orchestra's East Coast counterpart, the New York Philharmonic. His reputation as a master on the podium is not overrated: I can't think of a more understated, yet fully controlled, performance than the one I heard Friday night at Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall, with Schubert and, especially, Mahler on the bill.

This year's edition of PROTOTYPE, which refers to itself as 'Opera-Theatre-Now,' has come and gone. You never know what to expect, for better or for worse: Try guessing what's going to be 'the next big thing' at your own peril, even if it has played somewhere else first, for they things might not be what you expected at all.