The Year in Reviews: Opera 2013

Superconductor recalls the best opera performances of 2013.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A bird in a gilded cage: Christine Goerke in Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Met.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

As the year is ending we are finally getting to our end-of-2013 wrapup. This was supposed be to be a Top Ten list but I think it's going to be a lucky thirteen--it was a pretty good year for opera!

Here are the best opera performances (and operas in concert) that I saw this year in chronological order. All links lead to the full reviews.

The Throwing of the Holiday Eggs

Superconductor lists The Worst of 2013.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This year's gala for The Human Fund has been cancelled due to flying eggs.
Photoshop by the author.

This is the first installment in the blog's year-end wrap-up designed to keep you all entertained and well-read as you're stuffing yourselves at your Yuletide parties. As we do every year at Festivus, it's time to air the grievances. Superconductor lists the crappiest things to happen in the year of 2013. From the unnecessary death of the New York City Opera to the orphan status of one of New York's most important orchestras, it's all here. There's probably more to add to this list, but that thought is just too depressing.

Thank You and Happy Thanksgiving!

Some holiday thoughts from Superconductor.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Milhouse and Lisa Simpson meet Tom Turkey on The Simpsons. 
Image from Treehouse of Horror XIX, © 2008 Gracie Films/20th Century Fox.

It's Thanksgiving here and I thought it might to be time to stop in the middle of hurried holiday travel packing (we're going to Connecticut and to Friday's concert at Boston's Symphony Hall) and give thanks.

Thank you for reading this blog. And if you've been here for all of its nearly seven years offering classical music and opera coverage and criticism, thank you.

Concert Review: An All-Star Team, Minus Two

The 2013 Richard Tucker Gala at Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This year's Richard Tucker Gala celebrates the singer's 100th birthday.

The annual Richard Tucker Gala is like opera's equivalent of the All-Star Game, a chance to hear today's foremost opera singers alongside the stars of tomorrow. Held to commemorate the Richard Tucker Foundation's annual awarding of the Tucker Prize to a promising young singer, this concert at Lincoln Center attracts affluent opera lovers and industry cognoscenti alike. This year's gala also celebrated the centennial of Richard Tucker's birth, and featured a new banner across the back of the stage with five portraits of the late tenor and New York native.

Aunt Petunia and the Deathly Opera

Fiona Shaw to direct Eugene Onegin.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fiona Shaw (right) receives the shocking news that she's directing Eugene Onegin at the Met.
OK. Yes. That's a still from Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone with Ms. Shaw (right,)
Richard Griffiths (center) and Harry Melling (right.) Can't fool you for a second.
Movie still from  Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone © 2001 Warner Bros.

The Metropolitan Opera announced today that actor-director Fiona Shaw, best known to American audiences as Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter films will step in for Deborah Warner to direct the company's new production of Eugene Onegin. Onegin, a collaboration with the English National Opera is scheduled to open the 2013 season.

The Superconductor Untitled Awards

The Five Best Performances* at the Metropolitan Opera...this season.
(*that I saw and wrote about.)
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Our award trophy. Well, it's really a big, weird abstract sculpture
(Untitled, by Mary Callery) in the Metropolitan Opera House.

We are at mid-May and as I start getting ready to work on next season's Metropolitan Opera coverage, it's time to wrap up 2012-2013 at the big house. Here are the five best shows I attended in a very long opera season. I've done this before, but this year, the winners get to print out this article with a nice digital blow-up of the Untitled sculpture located over the proscenium in the Sybil Harrington Auditorium. (Shipping, handling and sculpture not included.)

Before you ask, I couldn't get a ticket for Dialogues of the Carmelites. I heard it was great.

Since this year's schedule was heavily loaded toward Wagner and Verdi, (with five operas by one and seven by the other) it's not surprising to see that three of this year's top five are in fact, Verdi operas. Other honorable mentions this season include Pretty Yende in Le Comte Ory, Lyudmila Montyrska in Aida and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in pretty much anything they played, but especially in Parsifal, Götterdämmerung and The Tempest.

And the winners are....