Metropolitan Opera Guild News: May 2009
It’s time
to look toward to summer opera festivals, and what’s going on in Scandinavia’s
active opera world takes center stage in the May 2009 issue of Opera News.
Birgitta
Svendén, a busy
mezzo-turned-opera-impresario, runs the Swedish Royal Opera, the country’s largest opera
company. At the Met she was part
of Otto Schenk’s “Ring” cycle onstage, on recordings, and on DVD. This month she is Opera News’s cover story, interviewed by Sofia
Nyblom. Also featured this month
is Sweden’s “second” opera company, Malmö Opera – separated from Copenhagen by a
5-mile bridge, Malmö is on the narrow strait between southern Sweden and
Denmark.
Although
very small, Sweden’s beloved Drottningholm Opera – also in Stockholm – is far from
being the least valued of Sweden’s opera houses. Not only was it named Sweden’s first UNESCO World Heritage
Site, it was also chosen as one of the “top ten destinations for opera lovers”
in the collaboration between Opera News and the world-famous travel book publisher,
Frommer’s. The publisher asked the
editors of Opera News to come up with the top ten destinations that should be included on
every opera lover’s itinerary this year – and in time for the May issue’s
survey of summer festivals. Opera News editor-in-chief F. Paul Driscoll
was the lucky man who visited the tiny jewel of 18th-century theater
design to write this month’s article.
Denmark and
Norway both have spectacular new opera houses, and Opera News visits both. Matthew Gurewitsch interviews Kasper
Holten, artistic
director of the Royal Danish Theatre since 2000, when he was still in his 20s. He has staged
more than 50 operas, musicals, and plays in Europe and the U.S., and between
2003 and 2006 directed the first integral production of Wagner’s “Ring”at the Royal Danish Theatre in almost a century; it’s now
available on DVD. Oslo’s
state-of-the-art house is even newer than Copenhagen’s, and Andrew Ferren takes
Opera News readers on an exploration of
its wonders.
Scandinavia
has sent a disproportionate share of fine singers onto the world’s stages,
especially in the Wagner Fach. Ira Siff
writes about four singers who were part of a golden age of Wagner singing at
the Met, and, in a companion article, Ingrid Gäfvert applauds seven young
Scandinavian singers on the rise.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Steven Blier – pianist, vocal coach, and
co-artistic director of the New York Festival of Song – succumbs to the
beauties of Scandinavian song).
In addition
to the many reviews of performances, recordings, videos, books, and more, the
May issue of Opera News sports an article by Philip Kennicott that poses the non-Scandinavian
conundrum: why did famed opera conductor Gustav Mahler never compose an opera
of his own? And Mr. Kennicott even
offers some answers.
Visitors to www.OperaNews.com
can listen in to an audio survey featuring recorded highlights by the Scandinavian singers who lit up the Met’s Wagner wing in the 1930s. There are always
additional features at the Opera News website – many of them available exclusively to subscribers
and Guild members.
Final Metropolitan
Opera Guild Events of the 2008-09 Season:
Thursday,
April 23 at the Waldorf=Astoria: the Guild’s 74th Annual Luncheon
¡Espléndido
Plácido! – An Affectionate Tribute to Plácido Domingo on the 40th anniversary of
his Met debut. Regular ticket
price: $250. To order by phone, call
(212) 769-7009
Monday,
May 4, 6pm – 7:15 pm in List Hall at the Metropolitan Opera House
Opera
Outlooks: Ring Cycle Three –Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, presented by John J.H.
Muller
The
years of work Wagner poured into his epic “Ring” cycle can be felt through its
unrivaled emotional range and dramatic scope. John J.H. Muller examines how musical elements such as
motif, harmony, and orchestration combine to embody the drama of the “Ring”.
Price:
$16.00
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