MEMETERIA by Thomas May

Music & the Arts

April 26, 2024 • 11:33 am 0

“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

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

April 3, 2020 • 12:32 am Comments Off on The Mother of Us All Tonight

The Mother of Us All Tonight

This evening at 7pm EST, the Met Museum hosts the digital premiere of The Mother of Us All by Virgil Thomson to Gertrude Stein’s libretto about Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement.

The production, which was filmed during live performances at the Met’s sculpture court in the American Wing in February, is a collaboration between Juilliard and the New York Philharmonic (and part of the latter’s ongoing Project 19 initiative.

Watch the premiere on Facebook, YouTube, or at the bottom of the Met’s page here.

Louisa Proske, the production’s brilliant director, offers an introduction here:

Filed under: American opera, directors, Juilliard, New York Philharmonic

January 14, 2020 • 5:35 am Comments Off on Eugene Onegin at Seattle Opera

Eugene Onegin at Seattle Opera

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Marjukka Tepponen (Tatyana) and John Moore (Onegin); (c) Sunny Martini

Just what is Onegin’s problem? The alienation embodied by Pushkin’s anti-hero obviously struck a powerful chord for Tchaikovsky – he wrote an immense symphony, after all, based on Byron’s version of the character type (Manfred) – yet it’s not until Tatyana’s name-day party at the beginning of the second act in Seattle Opera’s new production that we start to get a concrete sense of his identity…

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Filed under: directors, review, Seattle Opera, Tchaikovsky

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