Opera Chic

Hold onto your Binoculars: Met Opera's 2014-15 Season

 

Renée Fleming is Hanna and Nathan Gunn is Danilo in Lehár's The Merry Widow. Credit: Brigitte Lacombe/Metropolitan Opera

Live from New York, it's™ -- The Metropolitan Opera's 2014-15 season, announced yesterday. Sumptuous promo shots tease twenty-six operas, which includes three house premieres, six new productions and 18 revivals.

Gelb's hybridization of opera/broadway in NYC moves along with the outsourcing of Lehár's The Merry Widow to perennially-baseball-capped Broadway choreographer Susan Stroman (we obliterated our entertainment budget with The Producers tix, and Double Feature was good fun, but how much did Oklahoma suck?) starring Renée Fleming, sided by opera-outsider Kelli O'Hara as Valencienne, who's currently singing in The Bridges of Madison County on the Great White Way. 

Other highlights? Tchaikovsky's Iolanta gets a new production by Mariusz Treliński starring Anna Netrebko, who also sings the lady in Verdi's Macbeth. A new Donna del Lago by Paul Curran stars bel canto dream-team Joyce DiDonato & Juan Diego Flórez. Plácido Domingo goes baritone as Don Carlo in Ernani. Vittorio Grigolo goes Grieux in Manon and stars in Les Contes d’Hoffmann vs. Thomas Hampson's Four Villains. Jonas Kaufmann splits Don José with Roberto Alagna against Elīna Garanča's Carmen. Sondra Radvanovsky does Amelia in Ballo. Danielle de Niese brings her Susanna to Nozze (in a new production by Richard Eyre), and Angela Gheorghiu owes it all to Mimì.

MD James Levine will lead six productions (Mozart Nozze, Offenbach Contes, Stravinsky Rake, Verdi Ernani and Ballo and Wagner Die Meistersinger) and René Pape gives a recital of Dvořák, Beethoven, Ravel, and Mussorgsky.

 Anna Netrebko in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta. Credit: Baden-Baden Festival: Andrea Krempera

Renée Fleming is Hanna and Nathan Gunn is Danilo in Lehár's The Merry Widow. Credit: Brigitte Lacombe/Metropolitan Opera

Begin the Onegin: Curtain Up for The Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14

Tonight bows the Metropolitan Opera's 2013-14 season in an off-trend Verdi/Britten/Wagner Tchaikovsky Onegin -- although most of the red carpet-treading celebrities won't care/don't know, so win/win for the Russian power ménage à trois of Tchaikovsky, Netrebko and Gergiev.

The Met flexes its microblogging skills with an Instagram account where live celebrity fly-fishing has hooked Dan Stevens, Mischa Barton/Heather Graham and Patrick Stewart, who's fresh from the NYCO Anna Nicole Opera. Fat over lean brings Domigno, Sondra Radvanovsky and Isabel Leonard, but now that HBIC Austin Scarlett has arrived on a cloud of black satin with groomed-to-perfection brows, everyone else can just phone it in. Track. Wall. C-YA.

In anticipation of leaflet-wielding LGBT activists (in the end, they came to the party), GM Peter Gelb defended his decision to not turn The Met into a socio-political rights circus in protest of Russia’s anti-gay laws (and from the RUSALGBT twitter, a copy of the statement has been included in the opening night program). For centuries, opera has spirited subversion into roars, but silence is golden for house admin. Now, let's begin the Oneguine with Deborah Warner's coolly-aloof enchantments.

UPDATE:

Domingo and the family

Patti Smith

Misha Barton

HBIC Austin Scarlett

Heather Graham

Diane Kruger and Pabal Gurung

Dan Stevens

Brooke Shields

Randomness Reigns at The Metropolitan Opera Season Opener

As OC was wrapping-up Milan Fashion Week spring 2013 coverage (tip: natural is the new black for beauty and streamlined Sixties is the buzz for collections), complete randomness reigned at last night's non-Wagner/non-Verdi opening night of The Metropolitan Opera's l'Elisir. Madonna's ex, Marc Jacobs' ex, a hockey player, a celebrity chef, models who weren't walking the Milan/Paris shows -- and when Courtney Love shows up, you know it's gonna be a paaaar-tay.

HBIC Austin Scarlett enchanted (above, with date, soprano Lisette Oropesa), Isabel Leonard devastated (below) and Placido mayored (with Marta) the random starlettes who rang-in The Met's new season. Randomness asidie, props to The Met for sourcing the It Crowd at the event that inaugurates eight months of culture (yay) -- we'll never pine for the pre-red carpet days when glitterati was crownded with NYC anchormen and Montauk retirees. At this rate, Gelb might finally have to spring for a new tux (sartorial advice -- go bespoke.) So how did Trebs sound as L'Elisir d'Amore's lead? Midgette sounded-off for her WP Classical Beat.

(Trebs & Co.)

Cheyenne Jackson!

Michelle Trachtenberg

Diane von Furstenberg

Patti & Jesse Smith

The Metropolitan Opera's Titles Gets a Makeover, Thanks to Dolce & Gabbana

 

Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana has revamped [some of] The Metropolitan Opera's Met Titles. The Made in Italy duo, based in Milan, have backed a new initiative that brings Italian translations to [Italian] opera librettos that are wired through the Lincoln Center opera house.

Titles were previously available only in English, Spanish and German, but on September 24, with the opening of Donizetti's L'Elisir d' Amore, Italian language will be available for all 28 operas of the 2012-13 season. [UPDATE: The Metropolitan Opera clarifies that Italian titles will only be available for Italian-language operas in it's entire season. Met Titles will not be available in Italian for operas sung in other languages.]

Domenico & Dolce have straddled the opera and fashion world frequently -- a 2009 collection evoked Maria Callas and Italian opera houses; a 20th anniversary celebration in Milan in 2010 blasted Verdi on the sound system; and earlier this year, we were at the Milan MFW runway show to a soundtrack of Pavarotti's La Traviata.

As for an opening night gala sighting of the Italian duo? Milan Fashion Week kicks off on September 19 with Gucci and ends on September 24 with Roberto Cavalli, with Dolce & Gabbana's runway show at 2pm on September 23. OC usually heads to Principe's spa to ease into post-Milan Fashion Week burn out, but those two are inexhaustible!

 

The Met's Manon (And YSL) Brings Out the Stars

A(ish) list actors (like January Jones above) aired out their Yves Saint Laurent last night at the Metropolitan Opera's Manon opening night gala, sponsored by Maison Laurent.

No reviews yet of the Met's latest Netrebko Show but OC's review for the black carpet arrivals = lame, since Austin Scarlett's gorgeous blond coiffure was nowhere to be seen. 

Last night's Manon was in a new production signed by Laurent Pelly and costumed by Chantal Thomas with Fabio Luisi on the podium.

(Above: Emma Roberts)

(Above: Patricia Clarkson taking "opera gloves" literally)

(Above: Stipe and his bf)

(Above: Howard Stringer and Barbara Walters)

(Above: Emmy Rossum)

(Above: Amber Heard)

The Met HD in Milan

Passing one of Milan's movie theaters the other day...

Here's the same version for the Americans:

Welcome to Your 128th Season, Met Opera!

The Metropolitan Opera opened its 128th season in Lincoln Center last night to Donizetti's Anna Bolena, starring Trebs. The opera, which had never been performed at The Met, is in a new David McVicar production, conducted by Marco Armiliato.

Celebrity power was slim (newscasters ≠ interesting), starred by the most ethereal creature of the night, Austin Scarlett, the culture vampire with his southern belle (above). Tyra Banks, Leelee Sobieski, Martha Stewart, and Zac Posen/Crystal Renn tried to walk in his shadow but he's a vampire so he doesn't have one. He just leaves a fabulous berth of Swarovski Crystal and L'Oréal Elnett mist. *makes the internationl _call me_ sign with an airkiss*

Leelee Sobieski

 

Tyra Banks

Zac Posen/Crystal Renn

Gelb & co.

Villazón Babysits Damrau's Bebbe in Japan

(Photo: Lee Abrahamian/Met Opera)

Out of the 350 travelling members of The Metropolitan Opera (which includes singers, orchestra, chorus, ballet, and staff) it's Diana Damrau’s eight-month-old son Alexander that is the biggest star of the company's current Japan tour. The New York City opera company touched down in Japan on May 30 for three weeks of concerts and operas (Lucia di Lammermoor, La Bohème, and Don Carlo) from June 4 - 19 in Tokyo and Nagoya. It's The Met's seventh Japan tour, and this year is chaperoned by Italian conducting super-powers Fabio Luisi and Gianandrea Noseda.

Soprano Marina Poplavskaya, tenor Marcelo Álvarez, tenor Rolando Villazón, and tenor Alexey Dolgov all came to the resque of the casting department when Anna Netrebko and Joseph Calleja pulled out of the tour at the last minute, citing radiation fears despite the all-clear from a team of scientists.

Other principals on the tour are Diana Damrau, Barbara Frittoli, Ildar Abdrazakov, Piotr Beczala, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Mariusz Kwiecien, Yonghoon Lee, Željko Lučić, and René Pape.

Follow The Met's Japan tour through photo here and here!

Die Walküre at The Metropolitan Opera

Tonight opens Wagner's Die Walküre at The Metropolitan Opera in Robert Lepage’s sold-out second installment/production of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Photos above and below are from rehearsals at The Met on April 14 and are taken by Ken Howard. James Levine conducts an all-star cast: Bryn Terfel is Wotan, Deborah Voigt is Brünnhilde, Jonas Kaufmann is Siegmund, Eva-Maria Westbroek is Sieglinde, and Stephanie Blythe is Fricka.

Deborah Voigt as Brünnhilde and Bryn Terfel as Wotan

Bryn Terfel as Wotan

Jonas Kaufmann as Siegmund and Eva-Maria Westbroek as Sieglinde

 

Olivier Zahm Went To "Le Comte Ory" And Brought His Camera To Le Party

The extremely French editor in chief of the mostly NSFW Purple Magazine, Olivier Zahm, went to Le Comte Ory at The Metropolitan Opera a few nights ago and brought along to the party, as usual, his trusty little camera (even if Ollie should upgrade to the newer and better -- and even cheaper GF2).

Above, model Lindsey Wixson photographed by Zahm.

After the jump, Mary-Kate Olsen making out with a very dapper Stefano Pilati. More images here and here.

Another Metropolitan Opera Debut for Radvanovsky

Chicago native soprano Sondra Radvanovsky made her Metropolitan Opera re-debut earlier today in NYC, this time as host of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West for the live HD broadcast. The Met's Fanciulla revival stars Deborah Voigt, Marcello Giordani and Nicola Luisotti conducting, which commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the opera's 1910 World Premiere at The Met.

That girl's got some ~true grit~ taking on hosting duties -- she'll be back at The Met on Monday singing the premiere of Tosca!

 

 

Time Marches On: Willy Decker's La Traviata

 

Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

How sassy is it to inaugurate an opera production whose silent protagonist is a menacing clock on the holiday where it's all about ~the countdown~? Willy Decker's 5-year-old La Traviata takes its premiere tomorrow night (New Year's Eve!) at The Metropolitan Opera, his minimalist concept that features a large clock on a stark, Richard Serra curve, monopolizing the pulse of Verdi's score (and tragic heroine's demise) that starts the countdown from the first, loaded bars of the overture.

Everyone on stage in clean blacks, whites and reds, Decker's Traviata premiered in 2005 at the Salzburger Festspiele and starred La Netrebko as Violetta, Thomas Hampson as Germont and Rolando Villazón as Alfredo (with Carlo Rizzi conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker). It was lauded for its streamlined approach which allowed the characters to shed the often-overbearing architecture of hyper-realistic stagings.

Decker's new vision was cheered in Europe, but will his giant clock become a metaphor of NYC's collective cultural phobia of time marching on? Get with it or get lost in it! Are you ready? 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 -- Operapocalypse!

La Traviata for The Met stars Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta, Matthew Polenzani as Alfredo, and Andrzej Dobber as Germont with Gianandrea Noseda representing Verdi's twinkling score.

Preview it (with Salzburger's original cast) on YouTube. All photos copyright of The Met's go-to photographer, Ken Howard

Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Matthew Polenzani as Alfredo © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta © Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

© Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Madge Does Melisande @ the Met

 
Magdalena Kozena is Melisande, Stephane Degout is Pelleas, Gerald Finley is Golaud, Simon Rattle conducts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York

 
(photos Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)

Metropolitan Opera Opening Party Coverage

At least someone's happy with The Metropolitan Opera's new Wagner Ring! New York Social Diary came through with photos from The Metropolitan Opera's opening night gala, which actually left us wondering if was a black tie affair -- what was up with men in slouchy business casual? A smiling Peter Gelb welcomes you in above, but click here for the entire Gelb clan (young Gelb blood) on NYSD! 

We're also digging Guest of a Guest's party photos from opening night! Especially for snaps of diva Austin Scarlett looking fabulous (as always). There's also The Met's own gallery here. 

UPDATE! Don't miss André Leon Talley's Night at the Opera report on Vogue.com. Talley, who went with Maureen Dowd, quoted her:

“Opera is the new hot. Forget movie premieres and Hollywood—it’s the new sexy. I feel like Ellen Olenska in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence.”

 

Update! Via Alex Ross (via Amanda Ameer) we found this short video of Eric Owens (who sang Alberich on opening night) showing off his  freestyle skillz in all his post-opera glory! 

The Metropolitan Opera Kicks Off The New Season with Soggy Wagner

Last night, The Metropolitan Opera officially opened their 2010-2011 season with a glitzy opening night gala attended by celebrities who were up to the challenge of sitting through Richard Wagner's 2.5 hour Das Rheingold. Despite the rain (HA! Even Wagner makes God cry), local crowds flocked to the free simulcast in Lincoln Center's plaza.  

Das Rheingold was given a hightech spin by director Robert Lepage (that behaved naughtily -- must have been opening night jitters!) whose new production replaced Otto Schenk's classic. Bryn Terfel sang his Met Opera Wotan role premiere, joined by Stephanie Blythe's Fricka and Eric Owens' Alberich under James Levine's lush conducting.

Celeb power was a'plenty, but they all bowed down to flawless goddess Miranda Richardson. Other VIPs in attendance were Patricia Clarkson, Patrick Stewart, Rufus Wainwright, Angelica Houston, Meg Ryan, Vera Farmiga, and Holly Hunter.

Above: HBIC Miranda Richardson

Above: Patricia Clarkson

 

Above: Patrick Stewart

Click the link for sooo many more! 

"World's Biggest Opera House" in the Red: Gelb's Debt Woes

The AP reports on The Metropolitan Opera's financial troubles.

Kate the Great + Ken the Great = Great x Great!

Ken Howard's photo of American mezzo Kate Aldrich as Carmen is flawless with bewbage. Kate prepares to sing her last NYC Carmen performance on Saturday at the Metropolitan Opera against Jonas Kaufmann's Don José. Aldrich took over the role after Angela Gheorghiu canceled, the Romanian soprano stating that she was unprepared. Or the dog ate my music score. Or the dog ate my vocal cords.

Click the link below for a close up!

Opera Chic Exclusive: Fabio Luisi To Be Named New Principal Guest Conductor of The Metropolitan Opera

OPERA CHIC EXCLUSIVE, PLEASE CREDIT OPERACHIC.COM

 

Italian conductor Fabio Luisi will soon be officially named Principal Guest Conductor of NYC's Metropolitan Opera: his contract will go from 2010/11 through 2012/13.

 

*** update ***

 

The New York Times confirms that this is indeed the case.

 

*** update #2 ***

 

From The Metropolitan Opera press office at 5pm, April 27:

Fabio Luisi will become Principal Guest Conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, the company’s General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine announced today. The Italian maestro, who made his Met debut in 2005 with Don Carlo, will take up the post beginning with the 2010-11 season. [...] In the 2010-11 season, the Italian maestro will return for Ariadne auf Naxos and Rigoletto. Luisi is only the second principal guest conductor in Met history, following Valery Gergiev who held the position from 1998 to 2008.

 

“It is a great honor for me to work with the Metropolitan Opera continuously in the coming years,” said Luisi. “Everything in this company meets the highest artistic standards: music staff, chorus, technical department, stage directors, and the Met Orchestra – one of the very best orchestras in the world – with which I enjoy every minute that we make music together.”

(Don't) Do The Right Thing: Spike Lee Exits The Met

 

Opera Chic always answers the question "how do you make opera cool" with: first, you take cool people to the opera. America's coolest film director & general smartypants, Spike Lee, went to the Met's Armida and a good time was apparently had by all (except him):

Spike Lee only made it through one act before exiting.

reports WWD.

Also spotted, all decked out in YSL (but opera fan Stefano Pilati had to remain in Paris, working hard on the new collection): Renee Fleming fan Ginnifer Goodwin, Chloe Sevigny and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Unlike Spike, they stayed for the duration of show. More photos, and an idea for the Met (or NYCO), after the jump!

The Met Opera's Attila Namechecked by Case Da Abitare

The biggest event in Milan's year is about to hit the city. Bigger than the fashion shows, bigger than, yes, La Scala's la prima, and bigger than OC's posse rollin' down Via Montenapoleone in a black Benz limo. Salone Internazionale del Mobile -- the International Furniture Fair where the biggest & best names in design showcase their latest inspirations -- starts on Wednesday, and OC already has her Chanel ballet flats (and Leica D-Lux 4) packed in her YSL shopper. We're stocking-up on all the Salone guides this weekend and all the special editions that Italy's media put out for the event.

Among the design articles, we were psyched to find in the first pages Case da Abitare -- a magazine for interiors, design and living -- a piece on Verdi's Attila that the Metropolitan Opera produced a few months ago, which caught the magazine's attention with sets by Pritzker Architecture Prize winning duo, Herzog & de Meuron, and costumes by Miuccia Prada. Translation copyright OC, TIA (thanks in advance): 

A huge success for Attila that premiered at the end of last March at The Metropolitan Opera of New York with costumes by Miuccia Prada and the sets by the Swiss architects Herzon & de Meuron. Jacques Herzog said, "Attlia enacts the historical moment in which an outdated world crumbles, antique, and from the rubble arises something new." La Prada goes on to say, "It's a bit like the situation in which we live in today. I looked to express my vision of the essential characters in a psychological perspective, in a way that was important for me in today's world." The opera was conducted by Riccardo Muti for the first time at The Metropolitan Opera. In the photo, The Prologue, Ken Howard/ Metropolitan Opera.

Levine Out for the Metropolitan Opera's Tosca & Lulu. Fabio Luisi to Step In

(Photo credit: Barbara Luisi)

Opera Chic reports that Italian Maestro Fabio Luisi will be called in to substitute James Levine for a handful of remaining Metropolitan Opera spring performances, Levine still recovering from his herniated disc.

Levine was supposed to conduct opening night of Tosca on April 14, continuing with April 17, 20, and 24th. Fabio Luisi (who Opera Chic calls "the conductor with a German brain and an Italian heart") will step-up to the podium for all four performances.

Levine has also cancelled the entire May run of Berg's Lulu (May 8, 12 & 15), and the Metropolitan Opera has called on Maestro Luisi to conduct in his place.

[UPDATE --> 10:40pm Milan time: Ten hours after Opera Chic announced that Fabio Luisi will be replacing James Levine in Tosca and Lulu, The Metropolitan Press office has confirmed.]

"James Levine has withdrawn from the four performances of Tosca and three performances of Lulu he was scheduled to conduct in April and May. He is to undergo corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem."

"Fabio Luisi will replace Levine for both Tosca (April 14, 17, 20, and 24 mat.) and Lulu (May 8, 12, 15 mat.). Luisi has conducted Hansel and Gretel, Le Nozze di Figaro and Elektra at the Met this season. Previous appearances with the company include Don Carlo (for his 2005 debut), Simon Boccanegra, Die Ägyptische Helena, and Turandot." 

Peter Gelb Speaks to La Repubblica About Wooing the "iPod Generation" (lol) for the Met

 

Peter Gelb, General Manager of The Metropolitan Opera since 2005, spoke to Italian daily La Repubblica in a small interview, "Cosi in 5 anni il Metropolitan ha conquistato i giovani dell'iPod", boasting that in the five years since he's been GM, he's wooed the ~iPod generation~ (lol ok dad) with his shock & awe military-grade strategies that would make Call of Duty 4's code-monkeys proud.

He tells the paper, "Five years ago, the Met's problem was that the public was getting older and was totally diminishing. I had only one solution: to sweep away the the image of eliteness and reconnect the Met with a new the audience via the internet, radio, tv, and cinema."

He went on to stress that he's managed to procure a new audience: kids who had never before stepped foot into the opera house have now become the Met's most frequent and loyal opera fans, continuing: "The ~iPod generation~ [OC reserves her ~irony quotes~ for special occasions] has a different approach to listening to music, and to not keep that in mind would be like suicide." 

Then he goes on to talk about his Live in HD series that, frankly, Opera Chic thinks does more harm to opera than help. But Gelb's sort of like your uncool dad who's trying to figure really complicated stuff out, and he made the right enemies in the meantime, and that's a good thing: so, iPod or not, may Zeus help him, as John Banville would say.

You Know About The Nose? Shostakovich's Satire From William Kentridge's Genius

 

Tonight in New York, South African mixed-media artist William Kentridge debuts as director and set designer for Dmitri Shostakovich's satirical opera, The Nose, his first collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera. The opera is based on Nikolai Gogol's short story about a 1920s St. Petersburg official, Kovalyov (sung by Baritone Paulo Szot) who discovers after waking that his nose (sung by Canadian tenor Gordon Gietz) is gone and has assumed a higher ranking than his former keeper.

Valery Gergiev conducts the opera, driven by whimsical musical interludes in a schizophrenic thrust of styles (folk, atonal, modern, etc.) written (both libretto and music, although the libretto was overseen by 3 other collaborators) by the 22-year-old Shostakovich between 1927 & '28. Too controversial in its scarily-oppressive time, the opera was only shown 16 replications, and resurfaced in the mid-1970s. Trailer below!

The Johannesburg based artist has previously staged opera for the KunstenFESTIVAL des Arts (in 1998 for Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria) and the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels (in 2005 for Mozart's The Magic Flute). His sets for The Met's Nose boast soaring collages, film, sculpture and projections that allude to Soviet propaganda and the nose's political exploits. 

The rest of NYC has Kentridge fever (really, he deserves it). MoMA is currently exhibiting a retrospective of Kentridge's mixed media work from the past three decades called "William Kentridge: Five Themes" through May 17. The New York Public Library is hosting a conversation ("Learning from the Absurd: A Conversation with William Kentridge") with the artist on Friday, March 12 where the artist talks about Gogol and Shostakovich. And the World Financial Center Winter Garden is holding a free concert/film screening on March 21 & 22 "Sounds from the Black Box", Kentridge's animations accompanied by the music of South African composer Philip Miller.

The Metropolitan Opera's 2010-2011 Season

The New York Times:

"At Met, Less Zeffirelli, Pricier Tickets"

Carlos Alvarez Out for Attila at the Metropolitan Opera: Giovanni Meoni Sings Ezio

As Opera Chic stated two days ago, The Metropolitan Opera has just announced that Carlos Alvarez will not be singing in tomorrow's Verdi's Attila, which opens tomorrow night.

The statement continues: "Giovanni Meoni will make his Met debut singing the role of Ezio in the premiere of Verdi’s Attila, tomorrow evening, replacing Carlos Alvarez, who is ill [...]He has previously sung the role of Ezio in Bari."

We wish Alvarez the speediest recovery.