Metropolitan Opera Preview: Dialogues des Carmélites

Francis Poulenc's dark opera combines religion, politics and history to devastating effect.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Isabel Leonard is Sister Blanche de la Force in Dialogues des Carmélites.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera. 

The Met ends its season with this grim and brilliant 20th century opera, in its justifiably famous staging by John Dexter. Three performances only.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Adriana Lecouvreur

A new production for a New Year, with Anna Netrebko.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

All About Anna and Anita: a scene from Adriana Lecouvereur.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

Anna Netrebko stars in the title role of this wonderful but somewhat old-fashioned drama: the story of the lives, loves and demise (by truly bizarre means, more on that in a minute) of a famed Parisian stage actress. This glamorous new production pairs the diva with Piotr Beczala.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Otello

Gustavo Dudamel makes his Met debut. There's singing, too.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Baritone Željko Lučic returns as the evil Iago from Verdi's Otello.
Photo © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

Verdi's tragedy returns to the Met stage for a short run of performances. This is the first revival of the Met's 2015 production of Verdi's opera. Otello is one of the hottest tickets of the early winter, mostly because of who's conducting....

Metropolitan Opera Preview: La Traviata

The Met appeases its audience with a new, traditional staging of Verdi's tragic masterpiece.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Juan Diego Floréz and Diana Damrau in the climax of the Brindisi from Act I of La Traviata.
Image © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

Michael Mayer, the director who put Verdi's Rigoletto on the Vegas strip, offers his vision of La Traviata, a staid staging of the composer's tragedy, set in good old 1853. Diana Damrau and Juan Diego Floréz star.

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.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Don Giovanni

Two casts retell the story of the great seducer who gets his comeuppance.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Luca Pisaroni (left) here as Leporello and Peter Mattei (second from right) both return to
sing the title role in Don Giovanni this season. Photo © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

Frolicking, fun, fire and fury. That's the world of Don Giovanni which returns to the Met for two runs of performances. It's a dull production but it's got really good singers.

The Verdi Project: Macbeth

The composer escapes the galley with his first Shakespeare adaptation.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.

In his later life, Giuseppe Verdi referred to the period from 1842 to 1850 as his "galley years". In those years, the composer applied his energies to writing thirteen operas (counting revisions) for the Italian stage as well as opera houses in London and Paris. Of these, one work stands out: his 1847 adaptation of the Shakespeare tragedy Macbeth.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Parsifal

A wounded king. A community in crisis. A lake of blood. Wagner's final opera returns.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

It ain't ketchup: Klaus Florian Vogt (center) surrounded by flower maidens
in Act II of Parsifal. Photo by Ken Howard © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met brings back the most eagerly anticipated revival of the season: François Girard's staging of Wagner's medieval "Grail opera" Parsifal. This is a story of suffering, sin and redemption and this astonishing staging employs 1,250 gallons of stage blood. All at once.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: L'elisir d'Amore

This Donizetti comedy hits you right in the...grapes.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The stars come out: Matthew Polenzani and Pretty Yende in L'elisir d'Amore.
Photo by Karen Almond © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

Donizetti's charming pastoral comedy is the ideal warm-up for a New York City winter. It returns to the Metropolitan Opera stage with soubrette star Pretty Yende in the role of Adina and Matthew Polenzani reprising the role of the persistent, love-struck Nemorino.

Festival Preview: Kicking the Tires

Superconductor breaks down this year's Prototype Festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Images from four of the operas at this year's Prototype Festival:
(clockwise from upper left: Fellow Traveler, Acquanetta, The Echo Drift and IYOV).
All images © 2018 Prototype Festival.

The two weeks of the New York-based Prototype Festival are the first important event of the new calendar year. Here is the cutting edge: fearless contemporary composers presenting bold, brilliant new works (OK sometimes they're less than brilliant) but they are always at least interesting. Superconductor offers this short field guide to this year's Festival, which opens on Sunday, January 7th with this year's Festival Soirée. The operas are....

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Norma

The Bellini bel canto classic returns with a new cast.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Angela Meade (top) and Jamie Barton in the 2013 production of Norma at the Met.
Photo © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Norma is one of those operas that is all about the soprano singing the title role. In this case, the Metropolitan Opera opened ts 2017-18 season with a new production by Sir David McVicar, starring Sondra Radvanovsky as the knife-wielding pagan priestess who reacts badly when she learns her boyfriend (the leader of the opposing Roman forces) is cheating on her....with her handmaiden. Now in the first revival of the show Angela Meade takes over the title role.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: The Exterminating Angel

Thomas Adès' new opera arrives, where no-one is allowed to leave.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The party's not over: a scene from The Exterminating Angel.
Photo by Monika Rittershaus from the Salzburg Festival, courtesy the Metropolitan Opera.

A group of strangers are held in place by a mysterious force. Is it Stephen King's Under the Dome? The Eagle's "Hotel California?" No, it's The Exterminating Angel, a new opera based on the work that may have inspired those works of art,  The opera is based on the surreal 1962 film by Luis Buñue. At a strange dinner party, the guests find out that they are not allowed to leave. Their imprisonment turns comedy into drama and reveals the base nature of the many protagonists.

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.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Jenůfa

Leoš Janáček's harrowing drama of Czech village life returns.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Oksana Dyka in the title role of Jenůfa, opening at the Met on Oct. 28.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2016 The Metropolitan Opera.

The last time the Met staged its production of Jenůfa, Karita Mattila shone in the title role. Now, the Finnish diva graduates to the role of the Kostelnicka, the original operatic stepmother from hell. t
his bucolic tragedy is one of Janáček's masterpieces and the opera tht made the Czech composer a sensation late in life.

Superconductor Preview: Met Outdoor HD Festival

The Met does its annual big show in Lincoln Center Plaza.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The annual MET Live in HD festival attracts 3000 opera lovers each night to Lincoln Center Plaza.
Photo © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera likes to do things big. And nothing is bigger than their annual ten-day series of free opera screenings, shown on an enormous digital projection screen mounted on the balcony of the Grand Tier of the Metropolitan Opera House. There are 3,100 seats for each screening and no tickets are required. This year's series starts Friday night and continues through Labor Day. Superconductor has a preview.

Opera Preview: The Tempest Songbook

The Gotham Chamber Opera rehearses up a storm.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Director Luca Veggeti (back to camera) gives direction to
 Jennifer Zetlan (left) and bass-baritone Thomas Richards as dancers look on. 
Photo by the author. 

It is a freezing cold day in New York City, on the tail end of a bitter winter. Bright sunshine streams through the arched windows of the rehearsal space, on the top floor of an old loft building in the extreme west of Greenwich Village. Outside, drills whine and bite into brick. Inside are rehearsals for the world premiere (on March 27) of The Tempest Songbook, the third and final production of Gotham Chamber Opera's 2014-15 season.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Wozzeck

Berg's blood-soaked psychodrama returns to the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson make their role debuts in Wozzeck March 6.
Photo by Cory Weaver © 2014 The Metropolitan Opera.

Thomas Hampson makes his first appearance in the title role of Wozzeck, the story of a soldier whose lowly life is nothing but suffering. Deborah Voigt appears as Marie, his perpetually unfaithful common-law wife. (Neither artist has sung these difficult roles before.) James Levine is scheduled to conduct these performances.

The Superconductor Fall Preview: The Metropolitan Opera

Breaking down the 2013-14 season by degree of difficulty.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Nathan Gunn seeks advice in a scene from The Magic Flute.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera. Captions by the author.

Attending a performance--even a bad one--at the Metropolitan Opera is an amazing experience. But for a lot of first-timers, the idea of attending any opera at all is off-putting, intimidating, maybe even elitist. It takes  money to afford a night out at the Met--if the average $100 ticket prices don't get you, the tiny sandwiches ($13 last season, probably going up this year will.

Opera Preview: What Goes On in the Capital

Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble's Standard Repertoire Project goes to Rome.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Roman emperors Nero (left) and Titus (right) are the stars of the
summer Standard Repertory Project as Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble
celebrates its tenth anniversary season.

For the past decade, Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble has provided a home for young singers, and its Standard Repertoire Project has gotten those singers opportunities on the stage. For its tenth anniversary season music director Christopher Fecteau has put together a formidable one-two combination of operas: Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea.

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").