MEMETERIA by Thomas May

Music & the Arts

February 15, 2025 • 9:12 pm Comments Off on Upcoming at Seattle Opera: Barrie Kosky’s “Magic Flute” Production

Upcoming at Seattle Opera: Barrie Kosky’s “Magic Flute” Production

Image from Barrie Kosky’s production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” taken from a revival of the original production at Komische Oper Berlin in November 2023. Seattle Opera presents this “Magic Flute,” which mixes live performance with projected animations and references to the world of silent film, Feb. 22-March 9. (Jaro Suffner)

Here’s my Seattle Times preview of the well-traveled production of Mozart’s opera that arrives in Seattle for the first time this weekend:

The Magic Flute has enchanted audiences ever since it opened in 1791, just months before Mozart’s untimely death. 

On the surface, Flute is a fairy tale about a prince who sets out to rescue a supposedly kidnapped princess — only to discover that both are destined for a journey of enlightenment. Along the way, the Queen of the Night loses her struggle to topple the high priest Sarastro, who is revealed to be a benevolent ruler….

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Filed under: directors, Mozart, Seattle Opera

August 16, 2024 • 2:17 pm Comments Off on Summer at Santa Fe Opera

Summer at Santa Fe Opera

Rachel Willis-Sørensen as he Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier; photo by Curtis Brown for the Santa Fe Opera

Here’s my review essay for Musical America covering three of the productions at the 2024 Santa Fe Opera Festival:

SANTA FE, NM— “Love is terrifying,” observes the protagonist of The Righteous, the affecting new work by Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith at Santa Fe Opera. A preacher elected to be governor during the 1980s, he’s referring to the early years of the AIDS crisis in this highly era-specific opera. But his observation emerged as a theme in Louisa Muller’s new production of La traviata, which bookends the company’s summer-based season running from late June to August. 

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Filed under: directors, Donizetti, Mozart, review, Richard Strauss, Santa Fe Opera, singers

April 26, 2024 • 11:33 am Comments Off on “El Niño” Arrives at the Met: Fresh and in Full Flower

“El Niño” Arrives at the Met: Fresh and in Full Flower

Julia Bullock and Davóne Tines in a scene from John
Adams’s El Niño. Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

My Musical America review of the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of John Adams’s El Niño has now been posted:

NEW YORK—At the end of El Niño’s opening chorus, during the transition to the Annunciation scene, the orchestra begins to vibrate in steadily intensifying waves of ecstatic energy—a moment of sonic transfiguration that is one of the signatures of the composer John Adams. …

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Filed under: directors, John Adams, Metropolitan Opera, Musical America, review

August 14, 2023 • 10:55 am Comments Off on Mount Green: Monteverdi in Santa Fe

Mount Green: Monteverdi in Santa Fe

Santa Fe Opera Chorus | Photo: Curtis Brown

I wrote for Opera Now about Yuval Sharon’s Monteverdi production this summer at Santa Fe Opera:

The rousing fanfare that famously calls the audience to order for Orfeo was preceded by the sound of a modern orchestra tuning up – a preliminary signal of many surprises to come in Santa Fe Opera’s first-ever staging of the epochal work by Claudio Monteverdi.
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Filed under: directors, Monteverdi, review, Santa Fe Opera

August 11, 2023 • 11:29 am Comments Off on Orfeo in Santa Fe

Orfeo in Santa Fe

Amber Norelai (Euridice), Rolando Villazón (Orfeo), Lucy Evans (La Ninfa), Luke Elmer (3rd Pastore); photo by Curtis Brown for Santa Fe Opera

The first of my reviews from Santa Fe Opera’s 2023 season is open through the weekend (no paywall) here. I discuss Yuval Sharon’s extraordinary new production of L’Orfeo (or Orfeo, as they’re calling it), which features new orchestrations commissioned from Nico Muhly.

My review of Tosca is here (but behind the paywall). More reviews upcoming in Opera Now.

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Filed under: directors, Monteverdi, Musical America, Puccini, reviews, Santa Fe Opera

August 9, 2023 • 8:28 am Comments Off on A New Rheingold at Seattle Opera

A New Rheingold at Seattle Opera

Greer Grimsley as Wotan in “Das Rheingold” at Minnesota Opera. Grimsley performs the role in the Seattle Opera run as well. (Cory Weaver)

Opening Seattle Opera’s 60th season this Saturday is a new production of Das Rheingold — staged here for the first time since 2013. It’s not the start of a new complete Ring but a stand-alone production. My Seattle Times preview:

At McCaw Hall, the gods are preparing once again to enter Valhalla.

Stagings of Richard Wagner’s cycle of four interlinked operas, together known as “The Ring of the Nibelung,” are what put Seattle Opera on the international map almost half a century ago. But a full decade has elapsed since the “Ring” was last produced here. So to open the milestone 60th anniversary season, General Director Christina Scheppelmann decided to pay homage to a central part of the company’s legacy with “Das Rheingold,” the first installment of the “Ring” operas, in a stand-alone new production directed by Brian Staufenbiel. It runs Aug. 12-20.

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Filed under: directors, Ring cycle, Seattle Opera, Wagner

October 11, 2022 • 7:54 am 2

An International Collaboration Brings Wagner back to Seattle Opera with Tristan and Isolde

Teatro Argentino de la Plata’s production of Tristan and Isolde. (Courtesy of Guillermo Genitti / Teatro Argentino de la Plata)

My Seattle Times story on the Tristan und Isolde production by Argentine director Marcelo Lombardero and colleagues, which opens Saturday at Seattle Opera:

Christina Scheppelmann, Seattle Opera’s general director, fervently believes that cross-cultural exchange is vital for the health of the art form. So she invited the prominent Argentinian stage director Marcelo Lombardero and his creative team to bring their vision to Seattle in a production of Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” opening Oct. 15.

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Filed under: directors, Seattle Opera, Seattle Times, Wagner

November 9, 2020 • 10:54 am Comments Off on How Do You Stage an Opera During a Pandemic?

How Do You Stage an Opera During a Pandemic?

My latest story for Seattle Times, on a new, COVID-era staging of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore by Seattle Opera:

The course of true love never did run smooth.”

Shakespeare’s observation applies as much to effective artistic strategy as to human psychology. Even the sunniest of love stories needs complications to get the audience to invest its attention. But the COVID-19 pandemic has made Seattle Opera confront some unprecedented curveballs in order to realize its new production of Gaetano Donizetti’s lighthearted, seductively tuneful opera The Elixir of Love….

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Filed under: directors, Donizetti, Seattle Opera

October 3, 2020 • 2:41 pm Comments Off on Covid fan tutte

Covid fan tutte

Very much enjoying this “update” from Finnish Opera of Mozart’s ingenious opera buffa, which has just opened the company’s season. With Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and staging by Jussi Nikkilä, this abridged version of the original features a libretto by Minna Lindgren rewritten for today and referencing the coronavirus pandemic and reality shows.

Cast: FIORDILIGI Miina-Liisa Värelä, DORABELLA Johanna Rusanen, FERRANDO Tuomas Katajala, GUGLIELMO Waltteri Torikka, DESPINA Karita Mattila, DON ALFONSO Tommi Hakala, INTERFACE MANAGER Sanna-Kaisa Palo, MOUZART Ylermi Rajamaa, COVID VIRUS Natasha Lommi

Meanwhile, here’s a recent tribute to the amazing Karita Mattila, who plays Despina in this production.

Filed under: COVID-19 Era, directors, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mozart

August 9, 2020 • 9:24 am Comments Off on Don Giovanni at Finnish National Opera

Don Giovanni at Finnish National Opera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2GumUO9Lbk

Here’s a new production staged by Finnish actor-director Jussi Nikkilä for Finnish National Opera, with Patrick Fournillier conducting.

Cast
Don Giovanni: Tuomas Pursio
Donna Anna: Hanna Rantala
The Commandant: Koit Soasepp
Donna Elvira: Tamuna Gochashvili
Don Ottavio: Tuomas Katajala
Leporello: Markus Suihkonen
Masetto: Henri Uusitalo
Zerlina: Olga Heikkilä

Filed under: directors, Mozart

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