Metropolitan Opera Preview: Tosca

Two new casts take the stage in two runs of the Puccini potboiler.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

It's good to be the chief: Željko Lučić as Scarpia in the Met's Tosca.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

On New Year's Eve 2017, the Metropolitan Opera raised the curtain on its new production of Tosca. This staging returns the opera to its original Roman setting in a budget-friendly version of one of Puccini's most opulent shows.

Opera Review: We Didn't Start the Pyre

The Metropolitan Opera locks up Il Trovatore.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Azucena (Anita Rachvelishvili) pleads with Manrico (Yonghoon Lee) in Act II of Il Trovatore.
Photo by Karen Almond © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

Much as the Metropolitan Opera would have it differently, it is virtually impossible to write about performances at that house in this current season, without mentioning James Levine. The currently suspended music director emeritus looms large over everything this season, including this week's latest revival: the company's red-blooded staging of Verdi's Il Trovatore. What made this Trovatore interesting for the regular Met-goer is it also marked a sort of passing of the torch: from the Netrebko-Hvorostovsky school to a brave new world of lesser known singers taking on the opera's four difficult central roles.

Opera Review: The Unknown Nose

The Met ends its season with Cyrano de Bergerac.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The rapier wit: Roberto Alagna as Cyrano de Bergerac.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2017 the Metropolitan Opera.

In the closing month of the Metropolitan Opera season, the company's renaissance of French opera is in full swing. The reason: the company's first revival of its 2005 production of Cyrano de Bergerac, with Roberto Alagna as the swashbuckling swordsman whose enormous nose arrives 15 minutes before he does. Mr. Alagna is a proven star, but Cyrano is an unknown opera. Written by Franco Alfano (himself best remembered as the unlucky soul assigned to complete Puccini's Turandot) it had the misfortune to debut in 1936, as the clouds of World War II gathered and people didn't seem that interested in opera.