Metropolitan Opera Guild news: March 2010
The March issue of Opera News celebrates two upcoming Metropolitan Opera productions, both new to New York City’s opera-goers: Ambroise Thomas’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet – last staged at the Met in 1897 – and the company’s premiere presentation of The Nose by Dmitri Shostakovich. British baritone Simon Keenlyside, who returns to the Met in the title role of Hamlet, is the subject of the March issue’s cover story, while an additional feature examines how well the opera has stood the test of time. Opera News investigates Shostakovich’s black comedy in The Nose, profiles the opera’s star, baritone Paulo Szot, and boasts an interview with William Kentridge, who takes on the challenge of directing and designing the opera’s Met premiere.
Directed by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, the new Hamlet stars Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay, who bring their extraordinary acting and singing skills to two of Shakespeare’s most iconic characters. The production has already enjoyed a successful run at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where the Independent pronounced Keenlyside’s Hamlet “a revelation – thrilling throughout.” In Opera News’s feature “A Prince Apart”, William R. Braun visits with the British baritone, and discovers that although his singular gifts have made him one of classical music’s most admired artists, he has little use for media hype.
Hamlet debuted in Paris in 1868 and was produced throughout the world. After Thomas’s death in 1896, however, the opera was largely forgotten until the past two decades, which have seen a number of prominent revivals. On March 16, Hamlet finally returns to the Met for its first company performances in 113 years. How does the work hold up? Matthew Gurewitsch examines the 19th-century sensibility that shaped Ambroise Thomas’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy, in “Honored in the Breach”.
Like Hamlet, The Nose – Shostakovich’s first opera – has endured many decades of neglect. Composed in the late 1920s, and given its premiere in Leningrad in 1930, it was not heard again in the composer’s homeland until 1974. Shostakovich based The Nose’s highly theatrical score, with its pastiches of folk music, popular song, and atonality, on a ten-page work of Gogol’s that Chekhov once described as “the greatest short story ever written.” Its premise is both simple and absurd: a civil servant wakes up one morning to find that his nose has gone. In “Black Comedy Tonight,” Laurel E. Fay considers the unique musical makeup of The Nose, and wonders how one writes an opera about a missing facial part?
It is the opera’s very absurdity that is so appealing to its South African director and co-designer, William Kentridge, who makes his Met debut with The Nose. “The opera is about the terrors of hierarchy,” Kentridge says. “There’s a mixture of anarchy and the absurd that interests me. I love in this opera the sense that anything is possible.” In “Animating the Absurd,” Kentridge shares his thoughts on Shostakovich’s dark comedy with David Belcher, revealing his special ability to relate to it after growing up with the “absurd logic” of apartheid.
Opening on March 5, and conducted by definitive Shostakovich interpreter Valery Gergiev, the new production stars baritone Paulo Szot, who makes his Met debut as the man whose nose disappears. The Brazilian baritone attracted lots of favorable attention with his performances as Escamillo, Belcore, and Count Almaviva, but it was his Tony-winning turn as Emile de Becque in South Pacific that made him a star. In “The Two Worlds of Paulo Szot”, Jennifer Melick contemplates the singer and the contrasting strands of his career.
In March’s “Sound Bites” column, Features Editor Brian Kellow puts the spotlight on Hawaiian baritone Jordan Shanahan, winner of a major award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Regional Auditions, who plays Horatio in the new Hamlet revival. Other regular features include details of this month’s Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, which are Hamlet, The Nose, Attila, Aida, and From the House of the Dead. Opera News provides further background information, including synopses and biographies of cast members.
As usual, the magazine’s extensive In Review section covers not only live performance – both North American and international – but also recordings, videos, and books. Performances under consideration include Sher’s new staging of Hoffmann at the Met; Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Merry Widow; La Scala’s new Carmen, led by Barenboim; and a controversial Macbeth at Wiener Staatsoper. Also up for appraisal in the March issue are a biography of Franco Alfano; Pelléas et Mélisande on DVD, with Dessay, Degout, and Naouri in Pelly’s Theater an der Wien production; this month’s “Critic’s Choice,” which is a vigorous new recording of Nixon in China; and many more books and recordings.
Finally, writer Polly Frost, who recently collaborated on the one-act comedy The Last Artist in New York City, describes “The Performance I Can’t Forget.”
As ever, there are special extras exclusively for subscribers and Met patrons at the Opera News web site, www.operanews.com, including a chat with Emmanuel Plasson about pacing this month’s performances of Chabrier’s L’Étoile at New York City Opera.
The Metropolitan Opera Guild offers an abundance of lectures and other events this March, with an opportunity to hear Hamlet star Simon Keenlyside in “Candid and Casual Conversation” with Brian Kellow on Monday, March 22, and Dr. Harlow Robinson’s introduction to Shostakovich’s zany masterpiece: “A Nose on the Run” (Monday, March 8). Full details of these and other upcoming lectures and public events from the Metropolitan Opera Guild follow below.
Upcoming lectures and public events from the Metropolitan Opera Guild
OPERA BOOT CAMP: Basic Training – Four Sundays: Feb 28, March 7, 14, 21
Newcomers and lifelong opera-goers alike will deepen their appreciation of the lyric arts with this enlightening series. The Metropolitan Opera Guild’s resident experts reveal secrets of listening that maximize enjoyment and minimize boredom; recount the history of the art form, from its Renaissance roots to its place in contemporary culture; and examine operatic mysteries and myths—such as, who is that fat lady after all?
Sunday, February 28, 4:00 – 5:15 PM
OPERA BOOT CAMP: Vocal Verbiage and Vocabulary
presented by Laura Day
Don’t know the difference between a soprano and a tenor, or an aria and a recitative? Think a sforzando is a military command or a sushi order? Learn the language of music and the sounds of the singers in this fun-filled session.
Price: $16; $20 at door
Sunday, March 7, 4:00 – 5:15 PM
OPERA BOOT CAMP: The Opera, Seen from Behind the Scenes
Presented by Laura Day
Not everyone involved in staging an opera gets to take a curtain call—more than 1,500 individuals are responsible for every opera performance at the Met. We’ll talk shop and get to know the many off-stage roles that give direction and bring a production from page to stage.
Price: $16; $20 at door
Sunday, March 14, 4:00 – 5:15 PM
OPERA BOOT CAMP: Opera Evolution: 1600-1800
presented by Dottie Allen
What is opera and where did it come from? Who were Monteverdi, Handel, and Mozart, and why are they important to this splendid synergy of art forms? Find out as we tour opera’s first 200 years.
Price: $16; $20 at door
Sunday, March 21, 4:00 – 5:15 PM
OPERA BOOT CAMP: Opera Revolution: 1800 to Today
Presented by Dottie Allen
Who were Wagner, Verdi, and Puccini, and how did their revolutionary ideas propel opera into superstardom? Learn how opera has continually transformed itself since the 19th century, and what it’s doing to stay vital and relevant today.
Price: $16; $20 at door
Monday, March 1 at 6pm – 7:15pm
THE SINGERS’ STUDIO: CANDID AND CASUAL CONVERSATION
In Studio: Regina Resnik
Presented by Michael Snider
Mezzo-soprano Regina Resnik celebrates the 65th anniversary of her Met debut this season. She joins Martin Bernheimer for a conversation and a look back at her performance career.
Price: $20; $25 at door
Tuesday, March 2 at 6pm – 7:15pm
BASED ON A TRUE STORY: VERDI’S VERSION OF HISTORY
Unsafe Harbor: Simon Boccanegra
Presented by Joseph Colaneri
The tangled and deadly politics of Renaissance Italy inspired many poets and dramatists in the 19th century – and, of course, opera composers. Joseph Colaneri describes how the real-life intrigues of 14th-century Genoa are as dramatic and fascinating as Verdi’s magnificent opera.
Price: $16; $20 at door SOLD OUT
Saturday, March 6 at 11am – 12:15pm
BEYOND BOOT CAMP: EARLY OPERA AND THE BAROQUE ERA
The Way We Were: Early Performance Practices
Presented by Dottie Allen
An evening at the opera in the 18th century was a different experience than today – from sets and lighting to staging practices, casting, and instrumentation, even audience etiquette! Dottie Allen offers the chance to look back at the way opera was.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door
Monday, March 8 at 6pm – 7:15pm
OPERA OUTLOOKS: NEW PRODUCTIONS AT THE MET
A Nose on the Run
Presented by Dr. Harlow Robinson
Eighty years after it scandalized Soviet audiences and party officials at its 1930 Leningrad premiere, Dmitri Shostakovich’s wildly funny The Nose has finally landed at the Met. Farce, satire, music-hall slapstick, and pathos converge in this avant-garde setting of a bizarre tale by Nikolai Gogol about a civil servant who loses his nose. Dr. Harlow Robinson introduces us to this zany masterpiece.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door SOLD OUT
Tuesday, March 9 at 6pm – 7:15pm
SHAKESPEARE SINGS
Star-Crossed Lovers: Romeo and Juliet and its Composers
Presented by Dr. Jeffrey Langford
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet was the inspiration for numerous musical adaptations – both symphonic and operatic – in the 19th century. But the musical realizations of this timeless story of tragic love are as different as their composers. Dr. Jeffrey Langford examines Gounod’s adaptation of this story in relation to those of Bellini and Berlioz.
Price: $16; $20 at door
Thursday, March 11 at 2pm – 3:15pm
NATIONAL TREASURES: LESSONS IN LISTENING FOR THE ARMCHAIR ENTHUSIAST
French Flair
Presented by Martin Bernheimer
Many countries and regions have not only their own musical style, but their own style of vocalism as well. Martin Bernheimer surveys opera’s national schools of singing, illustrating the particular colorations and phrasings that can indicate a singer’s artistic origins.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door
Saturday, March 13 at 11am – 12:15pm
BEYOND BOOT CAMP: EARLY OPERA AND THE BAROQUE ERA
Baroque’n Record: The Composers, the Source Material, and the Music
Presented by Jesse Cohen
The Baroque period spans nearly two centuries, bookended by the titanic figures of Monteverdi and Handel. Learn about the developments and reformations that came about during this time, the composers who made them, and how those composers nurtured the evolution of the lyric stage.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door
Monday, March 15 at 6pm – 7:15pm
THE SINGERS’ STUDIO: CANDID AND CASUAL CONVERSATION
In Studio: Harolyn Blackwell
Presented by Paul Gruber
Star soprano Harolyn Blackwell meets with the Guild’s Paul Gruber for a look back on her groundbreaking coloratura career, from her Met debut in Manon to her current dual passions: performance and education.
Price: $20; $25 at door
Tuesday, March 16 at 6pm – 7:15pm
SHAKESPEARE SINGS
Hamlet: Words into Song
Presented by Desirée Mays
In Thomas’s Hamlet, Shakespeare’s famous soliloquies become the material for arias and other powerful scenes. Desirée Mays uses examples from the world’s finest actors and singing actors to explore how the Bard’s words are turned into music.
Price: $16; $20 at door SOLD OUT
Thursday, March 18 at 2pm – 3:15pm
NATIONAL TREASURES: LESSONS IN LISTENING FOR THE ARMCHAIR ENTHUSIAST
Slavic Soul
Presented by Martin Bernheimer
Many countries and regions have not only their own musical style, but their own style of vocalism as well. Martin Bernheimer surveys opera’s national schools of singing, illustrating the particular colorations and phrasings that can indicate a singer’s artistic origins.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door
Saturday, March 20 at 11am – 12:15pm
BEYOND BOOT CAMP: EARLY OPERA AND THE BAROQUE ERA
Handel with Care: Vocal Technique Examined
Presented by Dottie Allen
How is singing Handel different from singing Wagner? The answers may surprise you! This listening tour will examine the vocal stylings utilized by singers of Baroque opera and how they came into practice.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door
Monday, March 22 at 6pm – 7:15pm
THE SINGERS’ STUDIO: CANDID AND CASUAL CONVERSATION
In Studio: Simon Keenlyside
Presented by Brian Kellow
British baritone Simon Keenlyside takes the stage this season as the title character in Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet. Opera News
Price: $20; $25 at door SOLD OUT Features Editor Brian Kellow speaks with the singer about his not-to-be-missed portrayal in this production.
Tuesday, March 23 at 6pm – 7:15pm
SHAKESPEARE SINGS
Antony and Cleopatra: Love in a Warm Climate
Presented by James O’Leary
The world premiere of Samuel Barber’s opera christened the Met’s new home in 1966. James O’Leary revisits this underappreciated and highly effective adaptation of Shakespeare’s great romantic tragedy.
Price: $16; $20 at door
Thursday, March 11 at 2pm – 3:15pm
NATIONAL TREASURES: LESSONS IN LISTENING FOR THE ARMCHAIR ENTHUSIAST
American Beauty
Presented by Martin Bernheimer
Many countries and regions have not only their own musical style, but their own style of vocalism as well. Martin Bernheimer surveys opera’s national schools of singing, illustrating the particular colorations and phrasings that can indicate a singer’s artistic origins.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door
Saturday, March 27 at 11am – 12:15pm
BEYOND BOOT CAMP: EARLY OPERA AND THE BAROQUE ERA
What’s Old Is New: Modern Interpretations
Presented by Jesse Cohen
One reason for the explosive revival of Baroque opera is the attention being brought to authentic performance practice, from period instruments to interpretive technique. Find out what makes the Baroque era’s drama seem so new and fresh in our time.
Price: $16.00; $20 at door
All events will be held in the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s Opera Learning Center on the 6th floor of the Samuel B. & David Rose building at Lincoln Center, unless otherwise noted.
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© 21C Media Group, February 2010