Opera Review: Never Send Flowers

The Met uncorks its new La Traviata.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Soprano Diana Damrau and her four-legged friend in the new Metropolitan Opera
production of La Traviata. Photo by Marty Sohl © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

Ask the typical Metropolitan Opera-goer which productions were liked least  in the last decade, and you'll get two answers: One, Michael Mayer's 2013 production of Rigoletto, which moved that drama to 1960s Las Vegas. Two, the 2010 La Traviata by Willy Decker, who set the opera in a sterile white space dominated by a gigantic clock, a heavy metaphor for the heroine Violetta's impending death from tuberculosis. To replace Mr. Decker's production, Met general manager Peter Gelb brought back Mr. Mayer. His assignment: to create a more congenial setting for the death of Verdi's heroine, one  would do less to offend the delicate sensibilities of the audience.

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.