Opera News articles from March 2003

Opera News archives from March 2003

Broadway melody. (Viewpoint).
March 1, 2003... Thanks to Baz Luhrmann's multi-million-dollar production of La Boheme, Puccini's most popular opera is thriving on Broadway. It's true that some who have seen the show feel that it isn't opera, not really. It's miked. The orchestra of...

Corrections.(Correction Notice)
March 1, 2003... The costume designer of Houston Grand Opera's Abduction from the Seraglio is Anna R. Oliver, not Melissa Graft, as stated in "Abduction on the Orient Express" (Jan.). John Dexter's Met staging of Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail was borrowed...

Opera watch.(people in the news)
March 1, 2003... 1. DEBORAH VOIGT received the Vocalist of the Year Award from Musical America in a December ceremony at Carnegie Hall. Musical America editor SEDGWICK CLARK made the presentation to the soprano, whose fellow honorees for 2003 included composer...

On the beat: Goerke leaves "Mozartland" for Seattle Norma; Lincoln Center presents John Adams festival; Rysanek remembered.(Christine Goerke, Leonie Rysanek)
March 1, 2003... Norma turns up all too infrequently these days, but at Seattle Opera, it surfaces more often than it does in most places, thanks to the company's resourceful general director, SPEIGHT JENKINS. On February 22, SO opened a new production,...

Sound bites.(Jill Grove)
March 1, 2003... Jill Grove says, "The first opera, ever saw was the first one, I was in. It was Carmen, and I was in the chorus. I didn't even know that she died! We were in rehearsals, and I realized--`Oh, my God! She dies!'" Things changed fast once...

Notes from the road: Dolora Zajick in Barcelona.
March 1, 2003... "Barcelona is experiencing the most extraordinary cultural renaissance," says Dolora Zajick. "All of a sudden, there's this vital artistic energy, just bursting to get out--in literature, art, sculpture, architecture, new music--so it's a very...

Bohemians on Broadway: opera and musical-comedy audiences have always eyed each other suspiciously. Now that movie wunderkind Baz Luhrmann has made La Boheme a smash on Broadway, will audiences cross over more in the future?
March 1, 2003... Much--perhaps too much--has been written about the subtle distinctions between opera and musical theater. We've all read those endless articles that ponder whether The Most Happy Fella and Sweeney Todd are operas or musicals. Much less has been...

Strictly Bohemian: Eric Myers talks to Baz Luhrmann.(Interview)
March 1, 2003... Opera always has needed a Pied Piper in this country--someone cool enough to draw the younger generation whose interest (and money) will help keep the art form healthy. He may well have arrived: a charismatic, baby-faced Messiah with shaggy...

There goes the neighborhood: through the decades, Paris bohemians have set up headquarters at a long line of cafee, bars and bordellos. Jorg von Uthmann conducts a guided tour.
March 1, 2003... Love, if we are to believe the most celebrated factory worker on the opera stage, is a child of Bohemia and has never, never known a law. "Bohemiens" is French for Gypsies, so the naive national pride of the Gypsy Carmen may be excused. In...

A new lion roars: tenor Vladimir Galouzine employs bold strokes as both singer and actor. This month, he's back at the Met as Otello--and offers some surprising opinions on the Verdi work.(Interview)
March 1, 2003... "I don't know numbers. I don't count how often I sing. I just know that it's a lot. Once, in Japan, I sang Otello three times in three nights--general rehearsal, opening night, second night." There are no such exigencies at the...

Power shortage: in the 1960s, several big stars--Price, Schwarzkopf, Tebaldi, Siepi--experienced major vocal meltdowns in public. Steven Blier looks back at that troubled time and finds that it sparked a gradual dimming of the lights that is still with us today.(Leontyne Price, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Renata Tebaldi, Cesare Siepi)
March 1, 2003... In the winter of 1966, the Met broadcast what promised to be an exciting Don Giovanni. Mozart veterans Cesare Siepi, Jan Peerce, Theodor Uppman and Teresa Stich-Randall were being joined by Geraint Evans, whose Leporello was making headlines in...

Turandot's last riddle: Puccini's final opera has always been a work in search of a proper ending. Now Luciano Berio has tried his hand at a Turandot completion worthy of the score.
March 1, 2003... No abandoned orphan draws such tears and frustrations as does Turandot, Puccini's final work, left incomplete at the composer's death in November 1924 and rushed to completion by lesser hands soon afterward. It remains a sad thought that 325...

Appraising Alfredo: La Traviata's callow hero is high on may a tenor's list of thankless roles. David J. Baker takes a close look at this perplexing juvenile.
March 1, 2003... Giuseppe di Stefano walked out of Luchino Visconti's illustrious 1955 La Scala production of La Traviata after just one performance. The role of Alfredo, he claimed, did not flatter tenors. Luciano Pavarotti stopped singing the part in...

The March of Adamo: Mark Adamo's Little Women, one of the most successful new operas in recent seasons, opens at New York City Opera this spring. But to hear the composer tell it, he'd rather write than be popular.(Interview)
March 1, 2003... Mark Adamo has spoken and written so much about his first opera, Little Women, that Andrew Bisantz, an assistant conductor at Glimmerglass Opera, wishes aloud that Verdi had left behind such ample documentation on Aida. Yet composer/librettist...

Tales from the Triptych: Steve Reich's Three Tales comes out on DVD this spring.
March 1, 2003... It's called a "video opera," but Three Tales is unlike anything you'd encounter at the Met. A sixty-five-minute blending of music, speech and startling visual imagery, the piece is more like a cutting-edge art installation than a traditional...

Opera news quiz. (Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... March forth! How sharp are your trivia skills this month, when the ChevronTexaco Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts feature four repertory favorites? 1: What would the singers of Puccini's Rodolfo and Marcello have to do to sing in...

Turandot. (Metropolitan Opera).
March 1, 2003... BROADCAST OF MARCH 1, 2003 SPONSORED BY CHEVRONTEXACO OVER THE CHEVRONTEXACO METROPOLITAN OPERA INTERNATIONAL RADIO NETWORK, 1:30 P.M. Music by Giacomo Puccini Libretto by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni TURANDOT THE CAST...

La Boheme. (Metropolitan Opera).
March 1, 2003... BROADCAST OF MARCH 8, 2003 SPONSORED BY CHEVRONTEXACO OVER THE CHEVRONTEXACO METROPOLITAN OPERA INTERNATIONAL RADIO NETWORK, 1:30 P.M. Music by Giacomo Puccini Libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica LA BOHEME THE CAST...

The casts.(performers)
March 1, 2003... Adrienne Dugger (Turandot) bowed with Deutsche Oper Berlin in November as Abigaille and repeated that killer role for St. Gallen in December. The soprano from Atlanta, Georgia, first heard at the Met in 2000 as Helmwige in Walkure, has another...

La Traviata. (Metropolitan Opera).
March 1, 2003... BROADCAST OF MARCH 15, 2003 SPONSORED BY CHEVRONTEXACO OVER THE CHEVRONTEXACO METROPOLITAN OPERA INTERNATIONAL RADIO NETWORK, 12 NOON Music by Giuseppe Verdi Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave LA TRAVIATA THE CAST (in order of...

Otello. (Metropolitan Opera).
March 1, 2003... BROADCAST OF MARCH 22, 2003 SPONSORED BY CHEVRONTEXACO OVER THE CHEVRONTEXACO METROPOLITAN OPERA INTERNATIONAL RADIO NETWORK, 1:30 P.M. Music by Giuseppe Verdi Libretto by Arriqo Boito, after the play by William Shakespeare OTELLO ...

The Lost Days.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * "THE LOST DAYS" Songs by Piazzolla, Villa-Lobos, Valdes, Vitier, Elias, Guastavino. Elias Valdes, Vitier, Ziegler, piano; ensemble. Texts and translations. RCA Red Seal 63726 The Lost Days shows off Denyce Graves's capacity for fun and...

Puccini: Turandot (in English).(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Eaglen, Plazas; O'Neill, Gedda, Sidhom, Bayley; Philharmonia Orchestra, Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, New London Children's Choir, Parry Chandos CHAN 3086(2) As the Emperor Altoum in Chandos's Turandot, Nicolai Gedda makes a stunning case for...

Donizetti: Lucie de Lammermoor.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Dessay; Alagna, Tezier, Laho, Saelens, Cavallier; Orchestre & Choeur de l'Opera National de Lyon, Pido. Text and translation. Virgin Classics 45528 This isn't just a simple French translation: Donizetti's 1841 adaptation of Lucia for the...

Rossini: Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Larmore, Cullagh, Custer; Ford, Siragusa, Lee; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Geoffrey Mitchell Choir, Carella. Text and translation. Opera Rara ORC22 A frustratingly uneven opera now has a recording to match. Elisabetta (1815) was the...

Thomas: Desire Under the Elms.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Livengood; Hadley, Morris, Lentz, Ulrich, Meadows; London Symphony Orchestra, Manahan. English Text. Naxos 8. 669001-02 (2) With this recent entry in its American Opera Classics series, Naxos offers an extremely well-made recording of...

Meyerbeer in Italy.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * "MEYERBEER IN ITALY" Arias and ensembles from Il Crociato in Egitto, Emma di Resburgo, L'Esule di Granata, Margherita d'Anjou, Romilda e Costanza and Semiramide Riconosciuta. Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Parry Notes...

Choral and Song Wolf: Italienisches Liederbuch.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Isokoski, Skovhus; Viitasalo, piano. Texts and translations. Ondine ODE 998-2D (2) WOLF: Lieder nach Heine und Lenau * S. Genz; Vignoles, piano. Texts and translations. Hyperion CDA67343 The forty-six songs that make up Wolf's...

Ramon Vargas.(In My Heart (Nel Mio Cuore): 17th and 18th Century Italian Songs)(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * "IN MY HEART (Nel Mio Cuore): 17th & 18th Century Italian Songs" Arias and songs by Caccini, Carissimi, Scarlatti, Gluck, others. Ensemble, Vargas. RCA Red Seal 63913 Just about anyone who has ever studied classical singing has come in...

Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov.(Sound Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... MUSSORGSKY: Boris Godunov * Shumskaya, Arkhipova, Borisenko; London, Ivanovsky, Shulpin, Grigoriev, Kibkalo, Reshetin, Gueleva; Chorus and Orchestra of the State Academic Bolshoi Theater, Melik-Pashaev. No libretto. Sony Classical S3K...

March on-line edition of Opera News.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Recitals by Lemieux and the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal; songs by Loewe, Schoenberg and Zumsteeg; new recording of Dvorak's Stabat Mater; historic releases devoted to Charpentier and Moross; Armida and Simon Boccanegra from the BBC; Simionato...

From around the world: New York City. (North America).(operas)(Opera Review)
March 1, 2003... William Bolcom's second full-scale opera, A View from the Bridge, opened at the Met on December 5 in the same strong production that was mounted for its world premiere at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1999. Chicago commissioned View, as it had...

From around the world: Chicago. (North America).(Sweeney Todd, Thais)(Opera Review)(Theater Review)
March 1, 2003... Even with head down and mighty shoulders hunched, Bryn Terfel loomed over the cast of Lyric Opera's new Sweeney Todd (a production shared with, and destined for, Covent Garden). For years, the Welsh baritone has expressed interest in Sondheim's...

From around the world: Houston. (North America).(Ariodante)(Opera Review)
March 1, 2003... Handel fought a losing battle to sell English audiences on his Italian operas. Only now, nearly three centuries later, do they appear as more than occasional novelties, although their length and profusion of da capo arias still challenge...

San Francisco.(Kata Kabanova, Alcina, Hansel and Gretel)(Opera Review)
March 1, 2003... "Women Outside the Law, Women Outside Society": this is one of the divisions in Pamela Rosenberg's plan to organize and categorize the San Francisco Opera repertory (under her overall rubric of "Animating Opera"). Over three nights in late...

From around the world: London. (International).(Sophie's Choice)(Opera Review)
March 1, 2003... Royal Opera unveiled its first newly commissioned work in seven years (since Alexander Goehr's Arianna) on December 7: Nicholas Maw's Sophie's Choice, to a libretto by the composer based on William Styron's 1979 novel, subsequently made into a...

From around the world: Paris. (International).(Juliette, ou la Cle des Songes)(Opera Review)
March 1, 2003... Martinu's opera Juliette, ou la Cle des Songes (Juliette, or the Key of Dreams), based on a play by French Symbolist Georges Neveux, received its first performances at the Paris Opera (seen Nov. 22). The work, given its premiere in Prague in...

Verdi: Aida.(Video Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Aaron, Aldrich; Piper, Garra, Iori, Pecchioli; Orch. and Choir of Fondazione Arturo Toscanini, Stefanelli. TDK DVUS-AIDDB, 188 mins. 2001, color, optional titles (Naxos, dist.) Verdi's hometown of Busseto commemorated the centenary of the...

Puccini: La Boheme.(Video Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Freni, Martino; Raimondi, Panerai, Maffeo, Vinco; La Scala, Karajan, 1965. Deutsche Grammophon DVD 073 027-9, 111 rains. Color, subtitled In 1965, Met audiences were treated to the double debut of Mirella Freni and Gianni Raimondi,...

Verdi: Otello.(Video Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Carteri, Ciaffi; Del Monaco, Mattera, Cesarini, Capecchi, Catalani, Clabassi; Orchestra & Chorus of RAI Milan, Serafin. Hardy Classic DVD BCD 4004, 136 mins. Black and white, subtitled (VAL dist.) In 1958, Mario Del Monaco recorded his...

Menotti: The Medium.(Video Recording Review)
March 1, 2003... * Powers, Alberghetti, Kibler; Coleman, Dame, Morgan; Symphony Orchestra of Rome Radio Italiana, Schippers. VAI DVD 4218, black and white, 80 mins. In 1950, Gian Carlo Menotti returned to Italy to direct his first and only feature film. He...

Obituaries.(briefs )
March 1, 2003... MARIA BJORNSON, Paris, February 16, 1949--London, December 13, 2002 One of the leading set and costume designers of her generation, Bjornson first attracted attention with her highly theatrical, tumultuously expressive work for the Glasgow...

Dateline.(performances)(Calendar)
March 1, 2003... METROPOLITAN OPERA (Metropolitan Opera House, 212-362-6000; www.metopera.org) Mar. 1m Turandot (Puccini). BROADCAST: SEE PAGE 54 Mar. 1 La Boheme (Puccini). Evseeva, Arteta; Vargas, Gerello, Robbins; Viotti, Zeffirelli/Pappas,...

Opera by the book. (Coda).(novels inspired by opera)
March 1, 2003... "It was one of the gala nights at Covent Garden Theatre, the first of the autumn season in this memorable year of grace 1792." So begins a chapter of The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. Opera has inspired many other novelists as...