A new Walküre at Aix-en-Provence

A new production of Die Walküre is now playing at the new Grand Théâtre de Provence, a 1,350 seat new opera house that will house the yearly summer festival at this bucolic Provençal town. Here is an excerpt from Alan Riding's New York Times review of the opera.

In what is both conductor Simon Rattle’s and Aix’s first Ring Cycle, Das Rheingold, the opening episode in Wagner’s monumental four-opera work, was presented last year at the former Archbishop’s Palace to mixed reviews. But this year Die Walküre, the Ring’s second chapter, was magically transformed by the enclosed space and lively acoustics of the Grand Théâtre de Provence.

From the first bars of the overture, the orchestra’s rich string and booming brass instruments filled the hall, creating the tension and stirring the excitement so often associated with Die Walküre. And if some of the soloists later struggled a tad to compete with the orchestra, this could reasonably be put down to the teething problems of any new opera house.

The décor of this production, like Das Rheingold directed by Stéphane Braunschweig, remains spare, a Modernist abstraction that suggests little of the mythical world of Der Ring des Nibelungen. The costumes too are modern, although the warrior maidens, Brünnhilde and the other Valkyries, are at least wearing helmets.

But where the new theater makes another significant difference is in Mr. Braunschweig’s staging of the opera. Far more than in last year’s Rheingold, even the gods, notably Wotan and his twin children, Siegmund and Sieglinde, can now be felt to experience deeply human emotions. And the result is less dark fairy tale than intense lyrical voyage.

As Wotan, the bass-baritone Willard White presides over the narrative like a worried patriarch, who nonetheless bends to the demands of his domineering wife, Fricka (Lilli Paasikivi). Robert Gambill’s Siegmund and Eva-Maria Westbroek’s Sieglinde seem no less vulnerably human as they dominate the first two acts with the passion and fatality of their incestuous love.

The final curtain brought a standing ovation for both orchestra and singers, with Ms. Westbroek singled out for her “extraordinary power and lyricism,” as Jean-Louis Validire, Le Figaro’s music critic, put it. And he added: “She demonstrates once again exceptional qualities in the ‘Der Männer Sippe’ monologue, maintaining perfect musicality as it mounts in strength toward exaltation.”

The Ring Cycle continues here with Siegfried in 2008 and Götterdammerüng in 2009 and, as with Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, they will be presented afresh at the Salzburg Easter Festival the following year.

For Aix, though, the mere presence of Mr. Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic is a major coup, one of the legacies of Stéphane Lissner, who ran the festival until last year and is now the superintendent and artistic director of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

Bored Nazis at Bayreuth

The myth goes that the Nazis were great lovers of the music of Richard Wagner. When you see the Bayreuth Festspielhaus filled with members of the party one begins to believe the myth. It was just part of the carefully crafted propaganda machine for which the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (The Nazis) were well known. The reality was that most Party members hated Wagner's music, and that Adolf Hitler forced his men to attend performances at the Green Hill. All this according to Charlotte Higgins's article in The Guardian which follows below.

How the Nazis took flight from Valkyries and Rhinemaidens
Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
Tuesday July 3, 2007

According to popular mythology, night after night during the Nazi era Germans flooded into opera houses to watch enthralled as Rhinemaidens and Valkyries dominated the stage.

But Wagner, far from being the Third Reich's "house composer", actually became much less popular during Hitler's rule, according to new research.

The Germans were much more keen on Carmen, Bizet's tale of a soldier's scandalous obsession with a Gypsy; and on Madama Butterfly, Puccini's opera about an officer's doomed liaison with a Japanese courtesan - neither particularly appropriate tales by the standards of Nazi ideology.

According to Jonathan Carr, author of the forthcoming book The Wagner Clan, Hitler himself was obsessed by "the Master". But the party faithful were not, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to performances at Hitler's insistence.

"We are all told that the Germans poured into opera houses to listen to Wagner as soon as Hitler came to power. The opposite is true," said Carr.

The party faithful's devotion to Wagner has also been exaggerated, according to Carr. We may think of Wagner as the soundtrack to Nazism, with newsreels of Hitler at Bayreuth and the famous Wagner performances at the Nuremburg rallies. However, according to the memoirs of Albert Speer and Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, most Nazis were bored silly at the prospect of watching five-hour-long epics in which, frequently, little happens.

At the 1933 gala performance of Die Meistersinger, for instance, so few turned up that a furious Hitler sent patrols to drag party members out of beer gardens and brothels, according to Speer. And during one performance of Tristan and Isolde, Junge recalled a member of Hitler's group dropping off and having to be rescued before collapsing over the railings of the box they were in. His rescuer had himself been asleep for most of the performance.

The author has analysed the operas performed in Germany in the 1930s. Wagner's works did not come to dominate the output. Instead they had already begun a slow decline during the Weimar period and their fortunes continued to wane.

In the 1932-33 season Carmen was the most performed opera in Germany, with Weber's Der Freischütz in second place. Four Wagner operas were placed next.

But by 1938-39 the highest ranked Wagner opera - Lohengrin - achieved only 12th place. Leoncavallo's Pagliacci was the most popular, Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana second, and Puccini's Madama Butterfly third. And, by the war years, it was Verdi, not Wagner, who was Germany's most performed opera composer. The Master's market share dropped to under 10%. "Wagner was already considered by the younger generation to be rather old-hat," said Carr.

It is true, said Carr, that Wagner's music was used at key moments in the Nazi regime. On the so-called Day of Potsdam, the propaganda show staged on March 21 1933 by Goebbels, officially to inaugurate the new Reichstag, the day ended with a performance of Die Meistersinger (at Hitler's insistence; originally a performance of Strauss's Elektra had been planned). The Ride of the Valkyries was broadcast to accompany reports on German air attacks.

Siegfrieds Tod from Götterdammerung would be heard on German wirelesses to announce important deaths - including Hitler's own. And the overture from Rienzi was often heard on ceremonial occasions. But the penetration of Wagner has been exaggerated. Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, about the 1934 Nuremburg rally, is often thought of as having a Wagner soundtrack. In fact, most of the music is Wagner pastiche.

Hitler's personal obsession with the composer was, perhaps, partly to do with his identification with Wagner the man: he saw him as a lonely figure who had battled against the odds to achieve greatness. And as a man who clearly understood the power of spectacle he was, according to Carr, fascinated by the "nuts and bolts of the staging" of the operas.

Beverly Sills dies at 78

Soprano Beverly Sills died of cancer in New York on Monday. She was "the" opera diva when I started going to performances, and was very fortunate to see her in The Barber of Seville at the New York City Opera, a performance which also starred the young Samuel Ramey, and which was conducted by Sarah Caldwell. Later on, at the Metropolitan Opera, I saw her Thais, with baritone Sherrill Milnes, as well as her performance in Don Pasquale, alongside the great Alfredo Krauss.

For many, Ms. Sills was opera, and her incredibly bubbly personality led this art form on both sides of the stage for many years. She will be greatly missed.

Following are excerpts from the obituary from the Associated Press.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Beverly Sills, the Brooklyn-born opera diva who was a global icon of can-do American culture with her dazzling voice, bubbly personality and management moxie in the arts world, died Monday of cancer, her manager said. She was 78.

It had been revealed just last month that Sills was gravely ill with inoperable lung cancer. Sills, who never smoked, died about 9 p.m. Monday at her Manhattan home with her family and doctor at her side, said her manager, Edgar Vincent.

Born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn, she quickly became Bubbles, an endearment coined by the doctor who delivered her, noting that she was born blowing a bubble of spit from her little mouth. Fast-forward to 1947, when the same mouth produced vocal glory for her operatic stage debut in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in a bit role in Bizet's "Carmen." Sills became a star with the New York City Opera, where she first performed in 1955 in Johann Strauss Jr.'s "Die Fledermaus." She was acclaimed for performances in such operas as Douglas Moore's "The Ballad of Baby Doe," Massenet's "Manon" and Handel's "Giulio Cesare," and the roles of three Tudor queens in works by Gaetano Donizetti.

It was not until late in her career that she achieved the pinnacle, appearing at the Met, the nation's premier opera house.

Her debut on that stage didn't come until 1975, years after she became famous. In her memoir, she said longtime Met general manager Rudolf Bing "had a thing about American singers, especially those who had not been trained abroad: He did not think very much of them."

Sills' Met debut, arranged after Bing retired, was in "The Siege of Corinth," and she recalled that "I was welcomed at the Met like a long-lost child." (She also recalled having a couple of friendly encounters with Bing and found he "could not have been more charming.")

Sills retired from the stage in 1980 at age 51 after a three-decade singing career and began a new life as an executive and leader of New York's performing arts community. First, she became general director of the New York City Opera.

Under her stewardship, the City Opera, known as the "people's opera company," became the first in the nation to use English supertitles, translating operas for the audience by projecting lyrics onto a screen above the stage. The Met followed, later adopting its titles on the back of audience seats.

In 1994, Sills became chairwoman of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. She was the first woman and first former artist in that position.

After leading the nation's largest arts complex through eight boom years and launching a redevelopment project, she retired in 2002, saying she wanted "to smell the flowers a little bit."

After six months, she was back.

"So I smelled the roses and developed an allergy," she joked as she accepted a position as chairwoman of the Met. "I need new mountains to climb, which is why roses don't appeal to me."

Sills was a master fundraiser, tapping her vast network of friends and colleagues for money that bolstered not only Lincoln Center but also non-artistic causes such as the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the March of Dimes, a job she called "one of the most rewarding in my life."

She also lent her name and voice to the Multiple Sclerosis Society; her daughter, Muffy, has MS and was born deaf.

At a 2005 Manhattan benefit for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Sills told an audience that included her daughter: "One of the things that separates the two-legged creatures from the four-legged ones is compassion."

Added the host for that evening, Barbara Walters: "She can go from doing a duet with Placido Domingo to doing a duet with a Muppet."

Sills' compassion extended to her autistic son and to her husband, who lived with her at their home as his Alzheimer's disease progressed.

Still, through harrowing personal times, she never lost her own sense of humor, accompanied by a billowing ripple of laughter that was all the more warming because it was born not of frivolity but of a survivor's grit.

Stage fright was foreign to her. Before curtain time, she would make phone calls or munch on an apple, then sweep on to deliver her roles with exuberance.

A coloratura soprano, Sills was for years the prima donna of the New York City Opera, achieving stardom with critically acclaimed performances in Verdi's "La Traviata" and Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor," among dozens of roles.

She is credited with reviving musical styles that had gathered dust, such as the Three Queens -- the trio of heroines of Gaetano Donizetti's "Anna Bolena," "Maria Stuarda" and "Roberto Devereaux" -- in which she starred as Elizabeth, a role she called her greatest artistic achievement.

"Opera is music AND drama," she wrote in her 1976 memoir, "Bubbles: A Self-Portrait." "I'm prepared to sacrifice the beautiful note for the meaningful sound any time. ... I can make a pretty tone as well as anyone, but there are times when the drama of a scene demands the opposite of a pretty sound."

As chairwoman of the Met, she was instrumental in proposing Peter Gelb, now general manager, for that position, a move that brought a new leader who injected a dose of new moves that pushed up attendance and ticket sales.

Citing personal reasons, Sills bowed out as Metropolitan Opera chairwoman in January 2005, saying, "I know that I have achieved what I set out to do." At the time, she had recently suffered a fall and was using a wheelchair.

Sills grew up in a "typical middle-class American Jewish family," as she put it. She was first exposed to opera by listening to her mother's record collection. She began taking weekly voice, dance and elocution lessons as a young child and at age 4 appeared on a local radio show called "Uncle Bob's Rainbow Hour." When she was 7, her name was changed to Beverly Sills -- a friend of her mother's thought it was a more suitable stage name -- and she began 34 years of study with vocal coach Estelle Liebling.

Her opera debut came in 1947, in the role of Frasquita in "Carmen" with the Philadelphia Civic Opera. For several years, Sills sang opera when she could, touring twice with the Wagner Company, while performing in the Catskills and at a Manhattan after-hours club.

In 1956, Sills married Peter Greenough, a journalist who later quit the news business to manage the family's affairs as his wife's career flourished. He died in 2006.

After a whirlwind of performances in the early 1960s, Sills hit her stride as Cleopatra in Handel's "Julius Caesar" in 1966, when the New York City Opera officially opened its new home at Lincoln Center. "When the performance was over, I knew that something extraordinary had taken place," Sills wrote. "I knew that I had sung as I had never sung before, and I needed no newspapers the next day to reassure me."

Abroad, Sills sang at such famed opera houses as La Scala and Teatro San Carlo in Italy, London's Royal Opera at Covent Garden and the Berlin Opera.

Besides Greenough's three children from a previous marriage, the couple had two children of their own, Peter Jr., known as "Bucky", and Meredith, known as "Muffy."

The Demise of the Juilliard Choral Union

I have been a member of the Juilliard Choral Union for four years. With the ensemble I have performed many wonderful concerts which included staged performances of Igor Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, at the Juilliard School, and the world premiere of Peter Martin's ballet Chichester Psalms, with the music of Leonard Bernstein, with the New York City Ballet.

Last Spring, while rehearsing for a performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony the ensemble was informed that our director, Judith Clurman, had resigned from the Juilliard School. The members of the chorus, distraught over the fact that the ensemble would not continue, petitioned the president of the school, Joseph Polisi, to keep the group going. It is fair to say that every person in that chorus signed this petition which was delivered to President Polisi's desk before our last concert of the year.

A few weeks ago, the members of the chorus received the following e-mail from the president of the Juilliard School.


Dear members of the Juilliard Choral Union,

Please accept my gratitude for your important contributions to Juilliard’s musical life over the past year, culminating with the success of our Commencement Concert.

As was announced to the Choral Union about three weeks ago, Judith Clurman has decided to resign her position at the Juilliard School. We thank her for her many years of dedicated work on behalf of choral music at Juilliard and wish her well in her future endeavors.

This coming season was going to be, by necessity, one with limited choral activity. The ongoing construction activity at both Alice Tully Hall and within the Juilliard building has had a significant impact on the availability of both rehearsal and, particularly, performance space. Many of the concerts that traditionally take place under our roof have either been cut back or placed in other venues throughout New York City. The Choral Union’s schedule was already planned to be a limited one in the 2007-08 season because of these factors, with no major work planned with the Juilliard Orchestra.

As a result of Judy's decision and the very limited performance schedule envisioned for the Choral Union, we have decided to put the Juilliard Choral Union on hiatus for next year, to allow us time to plan for the future in an appropriate and thoughtful manner.

I am aware of the personal and artistic commitment that many of you had made to the Choral Union over the years. Our decision to suspend the Choral Union's activities for the time being was made only after lengthy discussions with members of Juilliard's Senior Staff. I believe it is the best and most prudent approach for choral activities at Juilliard in the current environment.

Thank you for understanding in this matter, and I hope that you will enjoy a restful and productive summer.

Sincerely,

Joseph W. Polisi

I hope that President Polisi is true to his word, and that the ensemble is merely on a one year hiatus as Juilliard makes up its mind what it wants to do with the choral singing aspect of its curriculum. The Juilliard Choral Union was part of the Juilliard Evening Division, and it offered the Juilliard community as well as tri-state area singers the chance to be part of the classical musical scene in New York. Let us hope that one day we can be back making music once again.

Beverly Sills gravely ill

It was reported yesterday that soprano Beverly Sills is gravely ill with cancer. The following is an article from The Washington Post detailing Ms. Sills's condition.

NEW YORK -- Beverly Sills, the opera diva who won over fans worldwide with her sparkling voice and charming personality and later became a powerhouse in the New York arts world, is gravely ill with cancer, The Associated Press has learned.

Sills, 78, was chairwoman of the Metropolitan Opera until she resigned two years ago, citing health and family reasons. She remains the Met's chairwoman emerita.

The Met would neither confirm nor deny news of her illness, but people close to the situation said Sills was at a Manhattan hospital, with her daughter at her side.

In an e-mail this week to members of its board, the Met said Sills was "gravely ill." One person said she was suffering from lung cancer. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to announce news of her health.

Sills, a nonsmoker, underwent successful cancer surgery in 1974.

Born Belle Miriam Silverman in Brooklyn, the coloratura soprano made her opera debut in 1947 in Philadelphia in a bit role in Bizet's Carmen. She became a star with the New York City Opera, where she first performed in 1955 in Johann Strauss Jr.'s Die Fledermaus. She was acclaimed for performances in such operas as Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe, Massenet's Manon, Handel's Giulio Cesare and the roles of three Tudor queens in works by Gaetano Donizetti.

She didn't appear at the Met until 1975, shortly before her retirement from singing -- which made it surprising when the Met asked her to sit on its board in 2002.

Beyond the music world, Sills gained fans worldwide with a personality that matched her childhood nickname -- Bubbles. The relaxed, red-haired diva appeared frequently on "The Tonight Show," "The Muppet Show" and singing with her friend Carol Burnett. As recently as last season, she hosted some of the Met's new high definition theater broadcasts.

Sills retired from the stage in 1980 at 51 and began a career leading New York's performing arts community as general director of City Opera. She became chairwoman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1994.

-- VERENA DOBNIK

The Kirov Ring at the MET

After much self-debate, I'll be attending the Kirov Ring at the Metropolitan Opera this summer in July after all. I got tickets to this event this week thanks to the MET's choice of selling the remnants of what was not sold as subscriptions as individual tickets. Not the best tickets in the house, but all of them full view, and all of them in the orchestra section of the house. I was happy that there was something left over. I will be going to three quarters of the Ring (I decided to skip Siegfried).

I am not sure what this Ring is going to be like, but I can tell you that for me it does not photograph well. From the few pictures that have been published, I am not too thrilled by the visual aspect of this production, which based on Russian myths (so I have read), has a "Polivetsian Dances" feel to it, and a color scheme right out of Bollywood. For someone like me, who reveres Wieland Wagner and shares his directorial opinion that darkness is more apt for Richard Wagner than lights, this will be a very challenging production for me.

The real draw for me is the Ring itself, of course. We have not heard it in New York in a while, and experiencing it in a production other than what the MET currently offers is a rare event indeed. Also, the most important part will be experiencing what Valery Gergiev will do with this score. We have not heard this work in the hands of someone other than James Levine in years, and I think audiences need to hear what another conductor can do. Gergiev led an amazingly satisfying reading of Parsifal back in 2003, and next season New York audiences will be treated to Lorin Maazel return to the MET in Die Walküre.

It should be an exciting production this summer, and I will be blogging about each one.

Frost/Nixon on Broadway

The genius of Frost/Nixon when it comes to the two figures that the play brings to life is not rooted in the fact that Frank Langella looks and sounds like Richard Nixon. In fact, his performance is as far from an impersonation as it can get. And certainly the same can be said of Michael Sheen's brilliant interpretation of David Frost, the British talk show host who scored the biggest coup of his life when he interviewed the ex-president of the United States in a series of programs that have become the stuff of journalistic legend. The play's power comes from the titanic performances of these two actors, the incredible pacing established by director Michael Grandage and Peter Morgan's powerful script which matches the two men in a power play that often feels like the 15th round of an Ali-Frazier heavyweight bout.

The difficulty in bringing these characters to life has a lot to do with our historical familiarity to them, and also in which side of the Atlantic you saw this play. In the case of Richard Nixon, here in America, we know the man's face and voice too well. As a result, Frank Langella's performance takes a bit getting used to. At first, we fight the fact that he neither looks nor sounds like Nixon, a man who was born, bred, and destroyed under the watchful eyes of the cameras. But as Mr. Langella's performance develops we begin to believe that we are watching the President of the United States. It is a brilliant illusion that can only occur within the precincts of the theater, and Langella is a master of this type of eye-opening sleight-of-hand. After a few minutes we are hooked, and we start noticing mannerisms that Nixon never had, but wished he had. His limp wrist dismissal gesture of European loafers is just priceless.

Michael Sheen's approach to the other side of the coin of this play is very similar to Langella's. He completely avoids an impersonation of the talk show host in favor of capturing the flavor of the man. We believe he is David Frost because of his mastery of style. Mr. Sheen is one of Britain's finest new actors, and part of the fun of Frost/Nixon is observing the different approaches to acting of the two leads. Simply put, Sheen plays his part, but Langella becomes his. It is the classic difference that separates Broadway from the West End, and it is one of the main attractions we should look for when we have the unique opportunity to witness two equal forces headlining a project. The chance to see this phenomenon at work is alone worth the price of admission to Frost/Nixon: don't miss it.

LoveMusik on Broadway

LoveMusik, the new Harold Prince show, with its lovely title and incredible talent behind it, is a great idea for a musical. However, like most great ideas that go on-stage half-baked, the show just withers away as it tries to present a serious musical biopic of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya, but ends up being just a confused jukebox musical.

One can't deny the great talent that has gathered on the stage of the Biltmore Theater. Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy play the composer and his sometime-wife. Here are two Broadway veterans giving performances that end up leaving us cold and distant from the two musical giants that they portray. The book by Alfred Uhry (the Tony, Pulitzer, Oscar winner writer) fails to get inside the skins of the protagonists, or to conjure the time and locale where the action takes place. Likewise, Harold Prince, whose middle name is definitely Broadway, just can't seem to come up with the right ingredients to make the whole thing work. He did it, and he did it masterfully with the original production of Cabaret (with Lotte Lenya herself), but here he treats the pair as immortal icons, and neither Mr. Cerveris nor Ms. Murphy are able to break out of that mold.

Further, the choice of having the stars sing and act with thick German accents (to establish a locale, I suppose) is a bad decision that many times makes their lines unintelligible. On top of that, to add to the accent confusion, some of the songs are sung in the original German. At times, I was not sure exactly what I was suppose to understand. Another unfortunate directorial choice was to have the stars mimic the singing style of the real Weill and Lenya. Now, I am not sure what Weill sounded like when he sang, (if he sang at all) and it seems that neither do the creators. Therefore, they went with the old adage that composers can't sing. Mr. Cerveris is straight-jacketed into performing with a toned-down version of his usual radiant voice, and Ms. Murphy is placed at a great disadvantage trying to mimic Lotte Lenya's unforgettable voice. Neither of the two are totally successful at their attempts, and this hurts the show. The only one who manages to break through is David Pittu, whose earnest and earthy portrayal of Bertolt Brecht deserves the Tony Award.

I recommend that you skip this one, unless you want to catch Mr. Pittu's wonderful performance, or you are die-hard Cerveris or Murphy fans. But do get the Original Cast Recording when that comes out. There are rare Kurt Weill gems that have been gathered, and the orchestra (who were dressed in tuxedos and gowns) under Nicholas Archer plays tastefully, and with the right accent.

A Great Start for Peter Gelb

Peter Gelb's first year at The Metropolitan Opera was a fantastic beginning to what will apparently be an exciting, productive tenure for this general manager. Hopefully, his years at the MET will also bring to the house the kind of intelligent innovation that is seldom found on today's opera stages. One need only to think of last year's Salzburg Festival to realize that not every production was a hit. Of course, with so many operas and so many artistic decisions to be considered, Salzburg should be commended for the Herculean task of attempting to present all of W.A. Mozart's works in time for an important anniversary year. However, the DVD's of these productions reveal many lapses of taste throughout the presentation of the twenty-two operas. The Don Giovanni production, for instance, was such a mixed bag, that although one wanted to applaud its innovative approach to this seminal work, the end result was a collection of half-baked ideas.

So far this year, I am happy to report that intelligent innovation has been at the forefront at the MET, especially with the new productions of Madama Butterfly and Orfeo ed Euridice. The Anthony Minghella production of Butterfly that began this season, and the Mark Morris production of Orfeo that ended it (I caught its last performance at the matinée of May 12) were highlights in a year that also brought us new productions of Il Trittico and The Barber of Seville among others, as well as exciting revivals of Giulio Cesare, I Puritani, and four memorable performances of Die Meistersinger, these being the only Richard Wagner heard at the house this year.

Next year will be very busy when it comes to new productions. We will see a new Lucia di Lammermoor (badly needed, I'm sure you'll agree) as well as another import from the English National Opera, this time Philip Glass's Satyagraha. I saw this production a few weeks ago in London, and, as I reported in an earlier post, we are in for a treat next year. The staging is quite extraordinary, and I am sure that both the critics and audiences will be very impressed. I also look forward to a new staging of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. The old production of Grimes, like the MET's former production of Otello by Franco Zeffirelli, is irreplaceable, I feel, but if truth be told, it has given us decades of memories, and it is time to take a look at that great 2oth Century English opera with a new set of eyes.

The MET feels important once again after one year of having Peter Gelb at the helm. He is the new seat of eyes (and ears) that the institution needed. Let us hope that this forward drive continues into his second year and beyond.

"The Tristan Project" arrives in New York

The Tristan Project has finally arrived in New York three years after its premiere in Los Angeles. Although it is presented here differently than in L.A., it is still a rare Wagnerian event. Below you will find what The New York Times had to say about the first of the two scheduled performances.

For more information about the original performances of The Tristan Project in Los Angeles and its performances in Paris, go to my website by clicking here.

"In a New Space and Time, a Classic Story of Tragic Love" by Allan Kozinn

When “The Tristan Project” was first presented in Los Angeles, at the end of 2004, it was clear that it would be one of the highlights of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. At heart, it was a concert opera, but in a multimedia conception that promised to be so ingenious that listeners traveled long distances to catch it, and talked about it for months. The buzz started again when Lincoln Center announced that it would bring the production to New York, and now that it’s here — the first of two performances was on Wednesday evening at Avery Fisher Hall — it is a hot topic again, and a hot ticket as well: the performance was sold out, with the best seats priced at $500.

In its original version “The Tristan Project” offered Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” over three nights, each devoted to a single act, performed along with works by 20th-century composers whom Wagner influenced. “Tristan” itself was presented in two simultaneous versions: Mr. Salonen’s, in the world of sound, with stage movement directed by Peter Sellars; and Bill Viola’s on video, in symbol-heavy imagery that parallels the opera’s action and pulls its philosophical underpinnings into view. A mute (and sometimes nude) Tristan and Isolde move through water (purification) and fire (passion), or melt into a single image within a grainy video haze.

That was the original, as opposed to a high-tech concert performance of “Tristan,” which is what came to New York. Here, the auxiliary works were dropped, and the opera was played at a single sitting. For the occasion the Avery Fisher Hall stage was extended to accommodate the large orchestra and the singers, although the chorus (the Concert Chorale of New York) was in the top balcony, and soloists occasionally sang from the balconies as well. A large screen was suspended over the orchestra for Mr. Viola’s video, and monitors carried the English supertitles.

Mr. Salonen provided a hint of how his part of the performance would unfold in a sumptuous, dramatically paced and dynamically fluid account of the Prelude, in which the Los Angeles orchestra produced a magnificent sound that it maintained throughout the five-and-a-half-hour opera. Illness took at least a theoretical toll on the cast: As Tristan, Alan Woodrow was replaced by Christian Franz, and a program note said that Christine Brewer, the Isolde, “wishes the audience to know that she is still recuperating from a stomach flu.”

The caveat was unnecessary: apart from a few strident high notes, Ms. Brewer gave a regal portrayal of Isolde, and sang with a power and solidity that built toward a transfixing “Liebestod.” Mr. Franz’s deep-hued Tristan largely matched Ms. Brewer’s performance in heft, flexibility and emotional range.

The mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, also in radiant voice, conveyed the weight of Brangäne’s sense of responsibility for the lovers’ sufferings. Jukka Rasilainen’s compassionate account of Kurwenal, Thomas Rolf Truhitte’s rich-hued Melot, and John Relyea’s sepulchral-voiced König Marke contributed to the production’s emotional temperature as well.

The “Tristan Project” in New York might have been more modest than its Los Angeles counterpart, but it was an innovative conception of a core work, and we’ll take what we can get. The New York Philharmonic’s nearest efforts have been frothy musical-theater evenings, like “My Fair Lady” and “Candide.” That getting a production like this into Avery Fisher Hall requires importing it from across the continent is truly outrageous. But that’s the state of things, and it’s emblematic of the difference between these two orchestras.

Equus at the John Gielgud Theatre, London

Peter Shaffer's magnificent play Equus, the troubling story of a boy who undergoes therapy after blinding a stable of race horses, has returned to the West End once more in a high caliber production featuring Richard Griffiths as Martin Dysart, the psychiatrist who treats the boy, Alan Strang, played here by Daniel Radcliffe, best known to the world as Harry Potter.

The play was first produced in London and New York in the late 1970's. I caught the end of the run of the original Broadway production (directed by John Dexter) when I was a freshman at Fordham University. By that time, Leonard Nimoy was playing the psychiatrist, and I sat on the stage seats. It was so exciting to be on the stage of The Helen Hayes Theater somehow being a part of the performance. But that was long ago. John Dexter died of AIDS years later, and the Helen Hayes was demolished to make room for the Marriott Marquis hotel.

This run of the play in London is the first revival in the West End of this work since its original run, and it is a gold mine for its producers thanks to its stroke-of-genius casting.

Richard Griffiths comes to Equus after his incredible performance in The History Boys, a play that not only played at The National Theatre, but also went on tour around the world. It played in New York last year where it was showered with Tony nominations. It was one of the rare times when Actor's Equity allowed an entire British cast to come to Broadway. Griffiths picked up the Tony for Best Actor in a play. Boy, did he deserve it! The work allowed him to show off his talents in a way that his usual small roles do not (he has played Uncle Vernon in all of the Harry Potter films and plays one of Peter O'Toole's cronies in Venus). The History Boys was turned into a film last year, again with the cast intact.

Casting Daniel Radcliffe as Alan Strang was a monetary stroke of genius, indeed! The play is selling out in London night after night, not just because the British (and the world) want to experience Peter Shaffer's powerful play again, but because they want to see Harry Potter live and in the flesh. By now, most theater-goers know that the role of Alan Strang requires the actor to shed all his clothing during the climactic blinding scene in the second act.

What are the chances that the reason why audiences are flocking to the Gielgud Theatre is to see Harry Potter magic wand sans his Hogwarts robes? I imagine you would have to poll individual members of the audience for an answer to that question.

I sat next to one of the cello players of The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and he and his wife were very curious to know what Americans thought of their Harry Potter performing in this play. I answered them that, save for knowledgeable theater goers, most Americans didn't know what Harry Potter was up up these days, and that the New York Post referred to his participation in this play as Harry Potter doing porn!

Now, what about the production? John Napier has gone back to his original sets and has tweaked his initial concept a bit. We still have the Greek-style performing area complete with on-stage seating. This time the stage seats have the appearance of a hospital, rather than a Greek amphitheater. The horses' masks are remarkably similar to those in the original production, but the eye's light up at certain moments. Also, there is smoke which billows out from the stage floor. The horses' costumes are the familiar tight fitting body suits, but they are now brown rather than the black that I remember from the original Broadway production.

The acting is overall strong. Mr. Griffiths gives a credibly performance as an overworked psychiatrist. His costume consists of black shirt and black pants, thus achieving a more contemporary look than the dark suit and tie worn by the original Dysarts. His performance is imaginative, but surprisingly not strong. In the back of my mind, I am still wondering if Mr. Griffiths has been miscast in this role, although I am coming to the conclusion that it might not be the best of roles for him, but he does a credible job with it.

Daniel Radcliffe is a work in progress. His performances in the Harry Potter movies have been adequate, and he has been coming into his own particularly in the last two films. In this, his first major West End play, he manages to successfully convey the pain and madness of his character, making us forget his Harry Potter. This is his strongest accomplishment. I certainly hope that Mr. Radcliffe has gone around during his acting career with eyes wide opened and has absorbed and learned from the amazing list of talent with whom he has been has been very lucky to have performed in the Harry Potter films. How many teenagers can boast that they have been privileged to have acted with the likes of Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and Alan Rickman, among others? An incredible roster of educators the likes of which not even Hogwarts could rival.

If you get a chance get over to Shaftesbury Avenue to see Equus. It is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience a cultural phenomenon the likes of which you might not get a chance to see in any other city, unless they decide to bring it to Broadway -- here's hoping!

Satyagraha at the English National Opera

The new Production of Philip Glass's opera Satyagraha is now playing at the English National Opera where I saw it last night. This production is a joint effort of the ENO and the Metropolitan Opera, and it is scheduled to be performed at the MET this forthcoming season. The nearly sold-out crowd at the London Coliseum was remarkably receptive to this work written many years ago by one of the leading American minimalists, and one of the few works that the ENO has presented in a language other than English. At the request of the directors, the ENO also chose to present this work, sung in Sanskrit, without the use of super-titles.

At the helm was the creative team Improbable made up of director Phelim McDermott and set designer Julian Crouch. Theirs is a captivating and challenging production which makes extensive use of newspapers and puppetry in order to tell the story of the spiritual conversion of Mohandas K. Gandhi. They have rethought Glass's work using projections and a vast array of giant papier-maché figures of impressive size and complexity, some of which are assembled right on the stage by the cast. This aspect of the production, although quite remarkable in its stage-craft, manages to take our mind away from the music. Puppetry seems to be the order of the day at the ENO these days, with this production following on the heels of Anthony Minghella's remarkable Madama Butterfly which used several Japanese bunrako puppets.

I am quite interested in the metamorphosis that this production will undergo when it comes to these shores. The London Coliseum is a a rather large theater, as far as London venues go, but it is small compared to the vast Metropolitan Opera stage. As with Minghella's production of Butterfly there is a great danger that the dimensions of the MET will totally swallow Improbable's visual effects. We are in for a treat, I can tell you that, and I can't wait to see this production when it gets to New York. Satyagraha premieres at the MET on April 11, 2008.

Lorin Maazel to conduct at the MET

The following bit of news appeared in The New York Times on February 22. The article is by Daniel J. Wakin.

It took only 45 years, but Lorin Maazel is returning to conduct at the Metropolitan Opera.

Mr. Maazel, the music director of The New York Philharmonic will lead five performances of Wagner’s Die Walküre in a run from Jan. 7 to Feb. 9, 2008, the Met said yesterday.

Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said the appointment — which was announced a week before next season’s unveiling — was part of a long-held plan.

“It’s been my intention from the beginning of my appointment to populate the Met with the world’s greatest conductors,” Mr. Gelb, who took over this season, said in a telephone interview. “To have Lorin Maazel conducting ‘Walküre’ next season is a great coup.”

Asked why it had taken so long for him to return to the Met, Mr. Maazel said there was no particular reason. “Once in a while they would contact me about some project, which somehow didn’t work out because I was busy elsewhere, or about a revival of something I was not interested in being involved in,” he said. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles. It happens to many artists.” He also said he was busy over the years with other opera projects.

Mr. Maazel said he was particularly attracted to the tenderness of “Walküre.” “There’s that kind of warmth and passion that appeals to me greatly,” he said. The choice was a surprise because, as Mr. Gelb put it, Wagner is the “musical territory” of James Levine, the Met’s music director and one of the world’s leading Wagner interpreters.

But Mr. Gelb said that Mr. Levine decided to step back from the production because of scheduling conflicts. Mr. Gelb said he approached Mr. Maazel after a Philharmonic concert last month to congratulate him and raised the idea, pointing out how long it had been since Mr. Maazel had conducted at the Met: the 1962-63 season, when he led performances of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier.”

“He seemed pleased,” Mr. Gelb said. Remarkably, for a profession famous for dates being booked years in advance, Mr. Maazel had time free for the “Walküre” run, Mr. Gelb said.

Mr. Maazel, who has extensive experience conducting opera and running opera houses, said that at one point he had sworn off the art form.

“I was getting tired of wrestling with stage directors, and all the problems that opera houses have, organizational ones,” he said. “I’ve never been able to stand by that. I have stage dust in my nostrils.”

New Production of Tannhäuser in Frankfurt

It is good to be able to report some Wagner news. A new production of Tannhäuser is playing in Frankfurt. Here is a review from Bloomberg News:

Wagner Hero Is Aging Rocker in Frankfurt Tannhäuser

By Catherine Hickley

Tannhäuser is an aging rocker forced to choose either social respectability or degenerate exile with the bewitching and vampish Venus in Vera Nemirova's Frankfurt production of Wagner's 1845 opera.

It's the 34-year-old Sofia-born director's way of dramatizing Wagner's conflict between profane and sacred love, which has lost relevance in an age when sex is used to sell everything from tires to insurance. More typically, Tannhäuser is a medieval troubadour whose fling with Venus brings exile and misery, but also forgiveness from the saintly burg-dwelling Elizabeth.

Nemirova starts the show during the overture, bringing up the curtain on a group of young pilgrims strewing mats and backpacks on a near-empty stage. Clad in unstylish camping gear, they clamor around a large wooden crucifix, arms outstretched in ecstasy.

They then toss aside their clothes to bathe, before morphing, trance-like, into a group of writhing, heaving bodies. Remorse and more crucifix-worshipping follow.

Enter Venus (Elena Zhidkova), with a bottle of red wine and her boyfriend Tannhäuser (Ian Storey). Zhidkova looks great, with a mane of honey-blonde hair that she tosses and preens to show- stopping effect. She is beautiful and yet verges on the sluttish in her frilled spotted skirt, red fishnet stockings and cowboy boots. No aging rocker would resist.

When Tannhäuser finally escapes from Venus to find his way back to the Wartburg, the first people he meets are his former singing friends. In Nemirova's version, the Minnesänger are a bunch of middle-aged crooners of the type often invited to sing at weddings. Johannes Leiacker's inspired costumes include purple frilled shirts under black suits for the singers.

Nemirova's satirical Act Two transforms the singing contest into a modern-day provincial German fest, complete with live coverage by regional television, ribbon-cutting by a local politician, hostesses in black top hats and an advertisement for the beer company sponsoring the event beamed onto a screen at the back of a stage. It's perfect and drew a chuckle from the opening- night audience.

The third act is sparser and focuses on the emotions of the players. The singing at the premiere was wonderful, with Danielle Halbwachs giving a memorable performance as the unfortunate Elisabeth. Her voice is rich and expressive. Zhidkova skulks broodingly in the background, the light creating a halo of smoke from her cigarette, while Tannhäuser wrestles with his conscience.

Christian Gerhaher, singing Wolfram, won the loudest bravos from a largely appreciative audience. Paolo Carignani, the house music director, also earned warm applause. Nemirova, whose Dresden Euryanthe was highly acclaimed last February, had to field some boos for her lively, humorous and highly watchable take on this old tale.

Simon Boccanegra at the MET

Giuseppe Verdi found inspiration time after time in the history and literature of Spain. Some of his best works, such as that perennial favorite, Il Trovatore, not only take place in Spain, but were adapted from the work of Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez. This is also the case with that most Italian of all Verdi operas Simon Boccanegra, which was adapted from the 1843 capa y espada García Gutiérrez play Simón Bocanegra. Verdi completed the first version of this opera in 1857. It was revised many years later, and many improvements were made especially in the orchestration. It is this revised version that The Metropolitan Opera is currently presenting.

It is quite surprising that Verdi, the most nationalistic of all Italian opera composers, would find inspiration in a work from a Spanish author, given that the events of the drama take place about a 100 miles from his native Parma, and that the spirit of the great Italian humanist poet Petrarch resonates through the work. This could very well be the reason why the work's libretto (by two of Verdi's greatest collaborators, Francesco Maria Piave and Arrigo Boito) does not always seem to hang together, and oftentimes feels removed from the action it is trying to portray and the historical epoch which is trying to revive. Verdi's music is also not the most inspired. The score, many times, fails to ignite the spark of some of his best-known works, although it serves as a workshop for some musical ideas that he would later develop in some of his late works, primarily Otello, whose musical landscape is already apparent in Simon Boccanegra.

The MET has assembled a stellar cast for this production, headed by Thomas Hampson singing his first Doge of Genoa at the house. Hampson has always been an artist who carefully selects his roles, and he is at the point in his career when opera houses will mount works as vehicles for him. In turn, he always offers a studied, lyrical interpretation of the role, although his expressive singing is not always a favorite by everyone in the house, especially those that can remember the thunder and lightning approach of singers from previous generations. Angela Gheorghiu sounded somewhat small as Amelia, by comparison with the ample-voiced Jacopo Fiesco of basso Ferrucio Furlanetto. I am also very happy to report that Marcello Giordani sounded magnificent in the role of Gabrielle Adorno (isn't that the prettiest character name for a tenor?) his ringing top assuring us that he is the real deal.

The production by Giancarlo del Monaco holds up quite nicely. The elaborate council chamber of the Doge's palace set never fails to impress, although Monday night's audience was applause-happy throughout the evening, supporting the singers and the settings during times when silence would have been more in order. Conductor Fabio Luisi kept things running smoothly, and he relished the fleeting moments of tone-painting that make this one of the most unique Verdi scores.

The Last King of Scotland

I finally got around to watching Kevin MacDonald's The Last King of Scotland, the powerful film about the relationship between Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan. The film offers a powerhouse performance by Forest Whitaker as the Ugandan dictator, and James McAvoy as the young doctor who befriends the dictator. Recognizing that the young doctor is an extremely capable physician, Amin handpicks him to be his personal doctor. The film details Amin's descent into madness as he orders the death of 300,000 of his countrymen in one of the bloodiest reigns of terror in history. For Dr. Garrigan, it was supposed to be a wild adventure in a far-off country, but when the naive young doctor arrives in 1970’s Uganda hoping for fun, sun and the chance to lend a helping hand, he finds himself instead on a shocking ride into the darkest realm of the human heart.

It is one of the most enjoyable films that I have seen this year and, historically, Hollywood has been very quick to give its Academy Award to an actor who offers an outsized performance. Therefore, I definitely see an Oscar in Forest Whitaker's future. He gives a memorable portrayal of the feared dictator in a performance that combines sudden outbursts and quiet, tender moments: both extremes being equally memorable and very scary, as Whitaker crafts a performance that one does not easily forget.

I hope you get an opportunity to see this film either before or after Forest Whitaker picks up his Academy Award for Best Actor.

Of Oscars, Mexican Directors, and the Bible

With the Oscars ceremony a mere twelve days away, and the nomination of Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, and Babel for major awards, the American public is realizing that the world of cinema is experiencing a Mexican Renaissance. The directors of these three movies were all born in the country that in the 1940's and '50's gave us Emilio Fernández, María Félix, Gabriel Figueroa; and, of course, the country which harbored Luis Buñuel after the Spanish Civil War, and allowed him the artistic freedom to grow as an artist.

The present "Nueva Ola" started when the New York Film Festival premiered Guillermo del Toro's Cronos in 1993, and it continued in 2000 when the French and American public discovered Alejandro González Iñárritu's Amores Perros at Cannes and, later in the same year, again in New York City. Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También soon followed a year later. Since the press and the public likes these things in threes, the stage was set. These three film directors are the new "Los Tres Grandes," to borrow the phrase that was often used to describe the three great muralists of Mexico's Revolution (Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros).

And now, since religion and Latin America cannot really be separated, allow me to present to you a really interesting coincidence. The following excerpt is from the eleventh chapter of the book of Genesis in the Old Testament.

"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the Children of Men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

The last time that two titles of movies were taken from the same portion of the Bible it was in the 1960's when Ingmar Bergman consciously decided to use a verse from the book of Corinthians as inspiration for two of his masterpieces: "For now we see Through a Glass, Darkly; but then Face to Face."

I hope that you get to enjoy these new masterpieces from the New Wave of Mexican Cinema.

A New Ring for the MET is announced

The following exciting news was reported on Playbill arts:

Peter Gelb, the new general manager of The Metropolitan Opera, revealed some juicy casting information to New York Times chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini during a TimesTalks event on Saturday January 5.

The Times reported that, during the panel discussion, Gelb revealed that soprano Deborah Voigt will sing her first (and eagerly anticipated) complete Brünnhildes, tenor Ben Heppner will sing Siegfried and bass-baritone Bryn Terfel will sing Wotan. (The Associated Press subsequently reported that tenor Jonas Kaufmann would take the role of Siegmund in Die Walküre.) Canadian theater director Robert Lepage will direct the new staging of Wagner's four-part epic, which begins in the 2010-11 season. A full cycle will be performed in the 2011-12 season (the third that Gelb will have overseen in its entirety). Company music director James Levine is scheduled to conduct.

The Met will present its current Ring production, by Otto Schenk and Gunther Schneider-Siemssen, once more, during the 2008-09 season, before retiring it.

Saturday's TimesTalks event was presented at CUNY Graduate Center as part of the Times's annual Arts & Leisure Weekend.

American Songbook: Jason Robert Brown

Last night I was very fortunate to be a part of the American Songbook series at the Allen Room inside the AOL-Time Warner Building. As a member of the Juilliard Choral Union, directed by Judith Clurman, we sang back-up to Jason Robert Brown. If you've never heard of Jason, you should know that he is the Tony award winning composer and lyricist of the musical Parade, and one of the handful of young post-Sondheim composers who are instilling new life to what has often been called a moribund art form. Playing with Gary Sieger on guitars and Randy Landau on bass (Jason provided his own percussion via his busy stomping left foot), the evening also included two amazingly talented singers: Laura Benanti and Rozz Morehead.

The men and women of the chorus sang the stirring "The Old Red Hills of Home" from the musical Parade, the touching anthem "Music of Heaven," and "Hear My Song" from his show Songs for a New World. Regretfully, at the very last minute, Jason decided to cut one number: his poignant "Coming Together," a song which he wrote six days after the events of September 11.

The men of the chorus were fortunate to be featured in a really cute number called "Being a Geek," in which we paraded up to the stage in über-geeky fashion and served as a kind of Geek (or is that Greek?) chorus to Jason's autobiographical 1950's-style confession of what it's like to be uncool. The sold-out audience at the Allen Room ate it all up, and the number got one of the biggest hands of the evening.

It was a great way to spend a Friday evening, and if you were at the concert, let me know what you thought of it.

Wagner Limericks

Here are four limericks on Wagner’s Ring Cycle

DAS RHINEGOLD
When swimming along in the Rhine
With maidens who rarely said “nein”,
A dwarf filled with passion
A gold ring would fashion,
And really annoy the Divine.

DIE WALKÜRE
It’s no wonder your heart fills with hate,
When your wife and her brother do date;
Still, Wotan didn’t oughta
Abandon his daughter
On a hillside at regulo eight.

SIEGFRIED
The eponymous hero, strong-willed,
Takes the ring from the dragon he killed.
He follows a bird
To a tune we’ve all heard,
And runs off with his Aunty, Brunnhild.

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG
When asked the designer said “no,
I can’t make the Rhine overflow,
Nor make horses to fly
Across fire-stained sky
For a five-hour long tale of woe”.

My MET Debut

Now it can be said that I have played all three major houses at Lincoln Center. Tonight, I made my Metropolitan Opera debut in the chorus of Kristin Chenoweth's one-woman show at the Opera House. Ms. Chenoweth took the night off from her current Broadway hit The Apple Tree and sold out the MET, offering the audience a smattering of Broadway, operetta, and pop songs, which delighted everyone in the house, especially those of us sharing the stage with her.

If truth be told, Kristin was not technically on the stage of the MET: she played on the space atop the covered orchestra pit. She will step on the actual stage on March, 2010, when she will make her official Metropolitan Opera debut as Samira in John Corigliano's opera The Ghosts of Versailles. The chorus, The Juilliard Choral Union, under the direction of Judith Clurman, was placed on a narrow riser just behind the MET's gold curtain.

Backed up by an eleven-piece band, conducted by the dynamic Andrew Lippa, Ms. Chenoweth took the stage by storm offering an Act I which included songs by Irving Berlin ("You're Easy to Deal With"), Jules Styne ("If You Hadn't but You Did"), and Stephen Schwartz ("Popular"). The entire evening was directed by the talented Kathleen Marshall, last season's Tony Award winner for choreography for The Pajama Game.

I sang in the second part of the program, offering backup vocals on Kristin's rendition of Victor Herbert's "Italian Street Song," and Dennis DeYoung's "Show Me the Way," a song made popular by the heavy metal band Styx. The women of the chorus sang with Kristin in a delicious rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Poor Wandering One" from The Pirates of Penzance.

What makes these kind of events exciting is the anticipation of going on stage, together with the sheer delight of being a part of an event. Hanging out backstage at the MET, and looking at the world from the other side of the footlights was also a one-of-a-kind experience, not to mention standing a few feet from Peter Gelb, and leaving the MET via the stage entrance, elbowing my way through the crowd of adoring fans waiting outside in the cold for Kristin's autograph.

It was truly a magical night.

A December DON CARLO to remember

In the middle of a busy Christmas season, it was good to take a break from all the running around that the Yuletide usually brings and attend a performance of Verdi's Don Carlo, an opera which I have always classified as one of the composer's greatest achievements, and also one of my personal favorites. I attended the Saturday matinée broadcast of this work, and if you listened in, I think you will agree with me that it was a very solid performance of this work.

When everybody is in top form and the looming microphones of the broadcast that will carry the voices to millions of listeners worldwide have been turned on, all artists try to get to a higher level, and on December 23, they did. Johan Botha, the South African tenor, sang the title role. I have always liked him a lot since I heard his Walther von Stolzing at the MET a few years ago, the last time the house presented Die Meistersinger. Although he does not possess the most mellifluous voice, his instrument is quite secure. And although, there is a noticeable vibrato in his voice, and his acting is, at times, worthy of a silent film, his characterization of the Infante was quite memorable.

Everything that René Pape touches turns to gold these days. He is one of our great basses, and his Philip II was majestic and touching. He turned Philip's great aria "Ella giammai m'amo" into an internal monologue, complete with sotto voce phrasing. I must say that when I heard it at the house, I was a bit disappointed with this approach, but later on, I remembered that in all facets of art less is more, and pretty soon came to the conclusion that it was a valid interpretation of this monologue.

Patricia Racette and Olga Borodina were superb in the roles of Elisabeth and Eboli. I was very pleased with their characterizations and with their ability to handle the difficult Verdian melody line. Likewise, Samuel Ramey offered an imposing Grand Inquisitor. Not too many basses nowadays can muster such threatening power, and although the voice continues to descend into the throes of an ever-widening tremolo, his scene with Pape brought down the house.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sang with such splendor that he clearly was the most memorable artist on that stage. His voice no longer feels small in the house as it once did, and his audible breathing is no longer an issue as it once was. The role of Posa, perhaps the most noble of all Verdi characters, fits him like a glove, and although I have heard this role sung with greater flexibility and wealth of voice (Robert Merrill was awesome in this role), Dmitri was amazing in his final aria. When he is on, he can be quite a memorable artist, and one of our current best.

Final kudos must go to James Levine who led such an intelligent reading of this massive score that he inspired everyone around. The ovations were simply thrilling and well-deserved.

This Don Carlo was one of the best performances in a year that is proving to be a very memorable one for the new Metropolitan Opera.

Deborah Voigt's Year of Birth

Online searches come up empty if you want to know when Deborah Voigt was born. I found this a little unusual because, being a highly respected public figure, that kind of information should be readily available to everyone online. Recently, the year of her birth has been made known to me by very reliable sources, and it is now published on the sopranos section of my Wagner website. I am sure that Ms. Voigt would not mind a bit if we find out when she came into this world. At one point, she might have had a problem with us knowing her age, but now that she is looking (and sounding) better than ever, that should not be a concern.

New BARBER OF SEVILLE at the MET

I am not sure if The Metropolitan Opera needed a new production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, but the new Peter Gelb administration has brought a new one in via Bartlett Sher, the director of last year's Tony award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza. The cast of this new production of Rossini's sunny comedy features Juan Diego Flórez as Count Almaviva, and by the manner by which it is being advertised, with the young Peruvian tenor's handsome likeness all over the place, this popular young artist is the reason why this production is being mounted. Also in the cast are John Del Carlo as Dr. Bartolo, veteran Samuel Ramey as Don Basilio, the fabulous Diana Damrau as Rosina, and Swedish sensation Peter Mattei as Figaro. In the pit, conductor Maurizio Benini keeps things moving briskly, and makes the pint-sized orchestra sound bigger than it really is.

It is almost impossible these days for a new production of a favorite opera to avoid the throes of controversy. Wagner fans have dealt with, and also delighted in this trend for decades. In the past few years the age of the director has arrived in the Italian repertory, and in the recent past unusual productions of Italian warhorses (The Ana Netrebko, Rolando Villazón La Traviata in Salzburg, and the Robert Wilson's Aida ) have stretched the boundaries of Italian opera staging. This new MET production is certainly the most abstract that New York audiences have seen. The set consists mostly of multiple doors which are wielded about on stage to form geometrically pleasing patterns, and to convey the sense of claustrophobia and imprisonment. Orange trees, a staple of Seville's landscape, are also everywhere, adding a genuine touch to the setting.

The most controversial aspect of Mr. Sher's production is an extension to the stage built past the orchestra -- a passerelle, if you will -- which thrusts the entire action forward, and also manages to do some tricky unexpected turns with the sound of the human voice and the orchestra. Acoustically, the MET was designed for voices to be contained within the proscenium of the theater, and making unmiked singers perform well beyond the safe confines of the stage (and behind the conductor) reduces the sound of their voices. When they step around the orchestra to the passerelle they might be closer to the audience, but they sound miles away. The orchestra also ends up sounding muffled and confined. These directorial tricks are fine on a Broadway stage where both performers and orchestra are miked, but it does not help the natural sounds of an opera house.

Also, can anybody tell me why at the end of Act I a gigantic anvil (the kind that the Coyote would purchase from Acme to catch the Roadrunner) comes down and crushes a wagon full of pumpkins?

I would say that if Mr. Sher does away with Warner Brother's cartoon tricks and liberates the MET's acoustics once again, we might have a production of Barber worthy of Mr. Gelb's vision of the new Metropolitan.