Opera Preview: La Fanciulla del West

New York City Opera will kick off its season with Puccini's most American opera.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Cards with a stranger: Emmy Destinn (right) and Enrico Caruso (center) in Act II
of La Fanciulla del West. Photo © 1910 the Ricordi Archives.

The resuscitated New York City Opera has reclaimed its position as the leadoff hitter of the 2017 fall cultural season in New York City, as they prepare to open Sept. 6 with a staging of Giacomo Puccini's La Fanciulla del West.

Opera Review: Wings Without Zing

The New York City Opera offers a bland Angels in America.
by Paul J. Pelkonenppelkonen@gmail.com

All night angel wrestling match: Angels in America at New York City Opera.
Photo by Sarah Shatz for New York City Opera.

It takes some guts to put on an adaptation of a popular contemporary play, especially a loaded and political work that unflinchingly addressed the AIDS crisis in the 1990s. That's the challenge facing New York City Opera with its last production of the season: Peter Eötvös' 2004 adaptation of Tony Kushner's award-winning two-part play Angels in America. Unfortunately, this version of Angels, seen here in its New York premiere, dilutes the play instead of distilling its message.

Opera Review: A Tale of Two Opera Companies

The resuscitated City Opera offers a verismo double bill.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

That's show biz: Canio (Francesco Anile) menaces his unfaithful Nedda (Jessica Rose Cambio)
in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. Photo by Sarah Shatz © 2016 New York City Opera

Those who have followed the New York City Opera through its recent cycle of death, rebirth and reincarnation know that the man at the helm of this new version of New York's "other" opera company is Michael Capasso. For many years, Mr. Capasso helmed Dicapo Opera, a boutique company on the Upper East Side that provided a welcome alternative to New Yorkers not wanting to make the pilgrimage to Lincoln Center. His company folded in 2013, around the same time that City Opera did, and it makes a kind of sense that he is the head of that larger company's revival effort.

City Opera Resurrection Enters Next Stage

"Renaissance" dropped from name as company announces spring season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"It's alive!" As Baron von FRONK-en-steen, Gene Wilder exults in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.
Image from Young Frankenstein © 1975 Universal Pictures.

Today, the New York City Opera took the next steps toward regaining its place in the city's operatic community. The company, which sputtered back to life with a new production of Tosca last month, has announced a slate of a concert and two operas for the spring season, and dropped the word "Renaissance" from its name.

The Return of New York City Opera?

New York's "other" opera company may be back from the dead.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Back from the dead? The City Opera may be rising from the ashes.
Art by John Byrne from X-Men #135 © 1978 Marvel Comics.

In an astonishing early Christmas gift for the opera lovers of New York, the New York City Opera may be about to rise from the ashes of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. An agreement was reached today between the remaining City Opera and New York City Opera Renaissance, a new 501(c) organization dedicated to resurrecting the destitute opera company and returning it to the campus of Lincoln Center.

Obituary: Gerard Mortier (1943-2014)

A trail-blazing impresario who put directors first.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Gerard Mortier at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Image © 2012 Teatro Real.

Gerard Mortier, the Belgian opera impresario and director who carved a unique and controversial path through four major European opera houses in the course of a long international career, died yesterday from pancreatic cancer, the New York Times reported. Mr. Mortier was 70 years old.

The Business of Revivals

Impresario Michael Capasso may save two failed opera companies.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

In his proposal for a New York City Opera Renaissance, impresario Michael Capasso
suggests mounting Franco Zeffirelli's production of Tosca (above)
in Lincoln Center's intimate Rose Theater.
Act I of Tosca. Photo © Teatro Opera di Roma.

In a dramatic turn of events worthy of the operatic stage, two recently darkened New York opera companies have unveiled a plan to join forces and come back to life. The proposal, linked to yesterday on parterre.com (and readable here) comes from Michael Capasso, the general director of the recently dimmed Dicapo Opera. The new hybrid opera company would be called (wait for it)

NEW YORK CITY OPERA RENAISSANCE.

The Domino Theory

A Reflection on World AIDS Day.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

(Ed. Note: The inspiration for this article was Fred Cohn's excellent The Ballad of NYCO first published in Opera News in 2007.)

Today is World AIDS Day, and Superconductor woud like to take a moment to reflect on the death of Christopher Keene, and its ultimate effect: the 2013 demise of the New York City Opera.

For six years, Mr. Keene was at the helm of New York City Opera, steering that company into the 1990s with productions of classic operas and rarities like Zimmerman's Die Soldaten, Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Hindemith's Mathis der Maler. Following in the footsteps of the last general manager Beverly Sills, Mr. Keene was tabbed as the man who would ensure a long future for Lincoln Center's 'other' opera company into the next century on beyond.

Obituary: New York City Opera (1943-2013)

Opera company to file for bankruptcy Oct 2.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Quote by Puccini. Graphic made on tombstonebuilder.com.

The New York City Opera, founded in 1943 by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia has announced that it will file for bankruptcy on Oct. 2. This is the end of a 70-year run for the financially troubled company, which began as the "People's Opera."

Opera Company Seeks Sugar Daddy

It may be curtains for New York City Opera.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

The City Opera may cease operations and declare bankruptcy next week.

Like Anna Nicole Smith, the subject of what may be the final opera produced by the New York City Opera this season, the once-proud oper company has found itself in dire need of a sugar daddy to save its existence.

Unfortunately, J. Howard Marshall (played by Robert Brubaker in Anna Nicole) the oil billionaire who married the Texas Playboy bunny and stripper is dead. That much is certain.

Opera Review: Goin' Bust

As New York City Opera teeters, Anna Nicole shines.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

J. Howard Marshall II (Robert Brubaker, in wheelchair) gives an interview
pushed by the title character (Sarah Joy Miller) in Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole.
Photo by Stephanie Berger © 2013 Brooklyn Academy of Music/BAM NextWave/New York City Opera.

The impending doom hovering over the New York City Opera's plans for the rest of its 2013-2014 season did not affect the second U.S. performance of Mark Anthony Turnage's opera Anna Nicole. On Thursday night at the BAM Opera House, Mr. Turnage's opera revealed itself to be a gaudy, sleazy and fiercely funny retelling of the life of Vickie Lynn Hogan, the Texas waitress whose path of celebrity and perpetual self-reinvention ended with her death by overdose (at the age of 39) in 2007.

City Opera Faces Doomsday

Company announces emergency September fund-raising drive.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The New York City Opera faces an imminent fiscal crisis.
Image of Mike Myers as Dr. Evil from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
© 1997 New Line Cinema.. Caption by the author.

The New York City Opera dropped a bombshell this morning when it announced that the company is facing the possibility of cancelling most of its 2013-14 season--and plans for 2014 as well.

In a press release received by Superconductor on Monday morning, general manager George Steel announced that the company must raise $20 million in order to continue operations following its September production of Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Of that sum, $7 million is urgently needed.

Opera Rewind: Foxy, Foxy

New York City Opera's classic The Cunning Little Vixen.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Frame grab of The Cunning Little Vixen with Gianna Rolandi in the title role of "Sharp-Ears."
Image © 1983 Live From Lincoln Center/New York City Opera.

Presented purely here for the dual purpose of nostalgia and education, this is a video of the New York City Opera's classic Maurice Sendak production of Leos Janacek's magical opera The Cunning Little Vixen. (Which will never be seen again as the sets and props were dumped at the company's auction over the winter.)

Opera Review: The Viceroy's New Groove

The New York City Opera presents La Périchole.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pineapple express: Marie Lenormand in the title role of La Périchole.
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2013 New York City Opera.

The New York City Opera wrapped up its spring season this week with Jacques Offenbach’s 1868 opéra bouffe La Périchole.  The show marks the return of director Christopher Alden, whose surreal sensibility has become one of the company's hallmarks under general manager George Steel. The opera in question is a rarity: , originally set in the “exotic” city of Lima, Peru and reimagined here as a modern screwball sex comedy with visual tropes from the Marx Brothers comedies and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Opera Review: Hi-Def on the Nile

City Opera comes home with Mosé in Egitto.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

As Moses, baritone David Salsbery Fry (center) prepares to part the Red Sea.
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2013 New York City Opera.

The New York City Opera launched the second half of its 2012 season this week with a new production of Rossini’s Mosé in Egitto, ("Moses in Egypt") the first of two productions at City Center this month. The show marks the company’s return to that ornate W. 55th St. theater after four decades. It is also the famously low-tech City Opera's first embrace of digital scenery, the en vogue  alternative to props, backdrops and flats.

Opera Preview: Mosè in Egitto

City Opera reaches its promised land: City Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

This is not a digital projection from the City Opera's new Mosè en Egitto .
It's a political cartoon from Cote d'Ivoire. But we like the octopus.

The New York City Opera's transformation from a staid Lincoln Center company to a run-and-gun company staging four operas a year around New York City has been a painful one. But this month, the company returns to its roots at City Center for the first of two shows: the Gioachino Rossini's Mosè in Egitto ("Moses in Egypt").

New York City Opera Announces 2013-14 Season

Four Operas, More Performances and a Blonde.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The City Opera opens its season with the U.S. premiere of
Mark Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole.

The New York City Opera announced its 2013-2014 season on Tuesday morning, with a slate of programming that sticks to general manager George Steel’s four-opera formula but also offers some cautious, optimistic expansion on the previous and current seasons.

The press conference opened with the announcement that the company had balanced its books for this fiscal year. This balance was mainly accomplished by leaving Lincoln Center and avoiding traditional operatic expenses of livable orchestra salaries, unionized stage hands and a regular chorus.

Opera Preview: The Turn of the Screw

New York City Opera gambles on young talent. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

What about the boy? Benjamin P. Wenzelberg (center) finds himself in a supernatural
custody battle in this new City Opera production of The Turn of the Screw.
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2013 New York City Opera.

The Turn of the Screw is Benjamin Britten's creepiest operas. The British composer (who celebrates his centennial later this year) transformed Henry James' Gothic ghost story into a tale of innocence corrupted and evil triumphant. The clock-like score is one of Britten's tightest creations, a concise re-telling of the story with key changes that serve to increase dramatic tension, placing stress on the listener.

Britten's opera (the libretto is by Myfanwy Piper) is not a straightforward adaptation of  Henry James' ambiguous ghost story. In Ms. Piper's version, the ghosts Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are actual supernatural forces, preying on two innocent children at the Essex country estate of Bly. (James' novella leaves the reader unsure if the Governess is seeing things or slowly going insane.)

Opera Review: Acts of Congress

City Opera opens its season with Powder Her Face.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Bangers and buns: Alison Cook as the "Dirty Duchess" in Powder Her Face.
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2013 The New York City Opera.

The New York City Opera (finally) opened their 2013 season at BAM this weekend with the company's first production of Powder Her Face, the controversial 1995 opera that is the first stage effort of bad-boy British composer Thomas Adès. In keeping with the company's entrümpelung philosophy under the stewardship of general manager George Steel, Powder featured a cast,conductor and director all making their City Opera debuts.

This opera is an account of Mrs. Margaret Campbell, the British debutante, socialite (and eventually) the Duchess of Argyll. She lost that title in 1963 when her (very public) divorce was granted for her "perverse and insatiable" behavior, including  reported acts of congress with eighty-eight other men. (This production, in a nod to good taste and the stage limitations of the Howard Gilman Opera House, includes twenty-five naked dudes in the Act I finale.) What really did her in though was a set of Polaroids obtained by her husband, that showed the good lady engaged in sexual acts while still wearing her trademark triple strand of pearls.

Mr. Adès sets these events against a brash, spiky musical fabric that incorporates a wide variety of musical styles. There are liberal references to other 20th century composers (most prominently Richard Strauss and Dmitri Shostakovich.) Jonathan Stockhammer supervised the sometimes unusual orchestral and percussive sounds emanating from the pit. Although Powder earned a BBC ban for his graphic Act I portrayal of oral sex, (a half-hummed, half-sung number) but Strauss wrote better simulated sex in his Viennese comedies.

Opera Preview: Powder Her Face

She slept with 88 men...and had the Polaroids to prove it.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Three views of Margaret Campbell, the "Dirty Duchess."
Photo montage by the author, who no longer owns a Polaroid.

The New York City Opera is back, once again operating a short split season with performances at BAM and City Center.  On Friday night, the company kicks off its 2013 season with Thomas Adés' Powder Her Face, a saucy English opera from 1995 that takes on the scandalous subject of Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyll.

Known in the British tabloids as the "dirty Duchess", Mrs. Campbell hit the headlines when her 1963 divorce erupted in the courts as her husband brought forth accusations of infidelities with eighty-eight other lovers and a set of naked Polaroids including one of the Duchess engaged in oral congress with a "headless" man who might have been a son-in-law of Winston Churchill. To be fair, the Polaroids featured Mrs. Campbell still wearing her signature triple strand of pearls.