Soprano Marnie Breckenridge has been released from her contract to sing Tytania in A Midsummer Night's Dream at Festival Opera next month. She will be replaced by former Meronlina Ani Maldjian. Breckenridge will cover the role of Sierva Maria in Love and Other Demons at Glyndebourne.
Opening night tickets for Don Giovanni at Covent Garden will be only available to readers of The Sun.
Composer Ned Rorem has withdrawn from Little Nemo in Slumberland, which was to have a world premiere at the Sarasota Youth Opera on May 8, 2009.
The Met's sputnik chandeliers are being dismantled and repaired this summer. Lobmeyr director Hans Harald Rath designed these chandeliers for the opening of the Met at Lincoln Center in 1966.
Article in the New York Times | Slide Show | The History of Lobmeyr | Lobmeyr's Official Site | The Metropolitan Opera's Official Site
Composer Keith Burstein declared bankruptcy after running up legal fees of £67,000. Burstein attempted to sue the London Evening Standard because of an unfavorable review of his opera Manifest Destiny (Soprano Bernadette Lord as Leila pictured left in a production photo).
Having read Veronica Lee's 142-word review from August 15, 2005 (it is in the PDF below), I did not get the impression that Burstein is terrorist sympathizer. It does not, however, sound like the opera was success. Compare this to the BBC review, which says the work "does not induce rousing emotion." The Telegraph commented that the "political message is banal and fatally one-sided." In all fairness, there were also some very positive reviews from EdinburghGuide.com and The British Theater Guide.
Official Keith Burstein Site | Official Production Site for Manifest Destiny | Burstein v Associated Newspapers [PDF] | Independent Article | Guardian UK Article
Wind-powered opera is forthcoming, as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Hazel Blears has approved Glyndebourne's wind turbine.
Press Statement | Official Site | Article in the Guardian UK
Teatro Colón, which was closed in 2006 and was supposed to be ready in 2008, is to reopen in 2010.
Robert LePage's production of The Rake's Progress is currently at Covent Garden. The reviews seem mixed, Rupert Christiansen found the production dull, but Warwick Thompson found it magical. I should have liked to hear John Relyea sing Nick Shadow, as I found James Morris a bit boring in that role last year.
Richard Morrison's Review in the Times Online | Evening Standard | The Stage | musicOMH.com | MusicalCriticism.com | The Telegraph | Bloomberg | Metro | Hugh Canning's Review in the Times Online
John McWhorter makes an argument for translated operas in this New York Sun article. Personally, I don't particularly like supertitles either, especially ones in English for operas in English, but I do like hearing operas in the original language. To be fair, I do have the advantage of having studied German, Latin, and Spanish, though sometimes this does mean I become distracted by exactly how words have been rendered into English. There are also times when the titles are funny when the libretto is not, or when the ordering of the punchline in the titles is paced such that the audience laughs before the line has been sung. On the other hand, there is something appealing about operas translated into English, for instance, Pocket Opera does a fine job of this.
I recently learned that the Met titles are sometimes in languages other than English, since they are individual screens one can change the language option. I've never used the titles before, which was probably very foolish for something like War and Peace. Just the thought of Doctor Atomic in German makes me giddy, too bad this production overlaps with the San Francisco Opera season.
NY Sun Article | John McWhorter at the Manhattan Institute | Met Titles
William Friedkin will direct An Inconvenient Truth, the opera, which is to open on May 11, 2011 at La Scala.
This week's The Economist has an article on Peter Gelb's simulcasts. San Francisco Opera and the Royal Opera House are also mentioned.
I especially like these two sentences from the article:
Opera purists are not at all happy about Mr Gelb's foray into cinemas. They argue that opera was made to be seen live in opera houses and they worry that cinemacasts will hasten the demise of an ailing art form.
I believe I know a good many individuals who might like to claim the title "opera purist," and yet I have not heard this sort of thing from anyone. The Met simulcasts are enjoyable, but I hardly think anyone who would normally go to the opera house would go to one in lieu of a real performance. Opera in movie theaters is a supplement rather than a replacement for opera in real life.
The July 7, 9, and 11 performances of La Bohème at La Scala have been canceled.
Soprano Joan Sutherland broke the femurs of both her legs three weeks ago because of a fall in her garden.
The world premiere of Howard Shore's The Fly happened last night at the Théâtre du Châtelet. The opera opens in the United States on September 7th at Los Angeles Opera.
Official Site | Production Site for Théâtre du Chatelet | Production Site for LA Opera
Reviews: Bloomberg | The Guardian UK | The Telegraph | IHT
The Bayreuther Festspiele is going to stream Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg on July 27th for a mere 49 Euro per online ticket.
