Metropolitan Opera Preview: Falstaff

Verdi has the last laugh in this new production.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Falstaff (Ambrogio Maestri) goes out on the tiles in this new
Des McAnuff production, coming to the Met on Nov. 6.
Photo by Catherine Ashmore © 2012 The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

For most of his long career Giuseppe Verdi was known for writing tragedies, from the family drama of his first opera Oberto to his masterpiece Otello. For his final opera and last musical utterance, he finally turned to comedy. Working with librettist Arrigo Boito (his collaborator on Otello), he created Falstaff from the Shakespeare play The Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Rigoletto

The Met unveils its new production...set in...Las Vegas?
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Vega$, baby! Zeljko Lucic stars in Verdi's tragedy.
Promotional image for Rigoletto © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

When Verdi announced Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'Amuse as the subject of his 17th opera, Venetian forced the composer and his librettist to retitle the opera, change the names of all the characters, and move the action to Mantua. With this new production, director Michael Mayer goes the censors one better, moving the action to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. (At least he didn't re-name the characters.)

Mr. Mayer's production (his first for the Met) is meant to evoke the "Rat Pack" era of the 1950s, when Frank Sinatra and crew held sway over the Strip. Wherever it's set, this remains the powerful tragedy of an overprotective father, his beautiful daughter and his lecherous boss. It is Rigoletto's own "fear and loathing" that inadvertently brings about the demise of the one person he truly loves.

Despite the uprooting of the characters, the cast is consistent with last year's Rigoletto. Zeljko Lucic returns as Rigoletto, opposite the Gilda of German soprano Diana Damrau. Piotr Beczala should be a handsome-voiced Duke, but don't expect him to break into "Fly Me to the Moon."

Rigoletto premieres Jan. 28, 2013.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Otello

Johan Botha and Renée Fleming return in this anticipated revival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A formidable general: Johan Botha as Otello.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2009 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met continues its 2012 celebration of Giuseppe Verdi's 200th birthday (which isn't until October 10, 2013) with this revival of Otello. The fall performances reunite South African heavyweight tenor Johan Botha with the glamorous Renée Fleming as the jealous Moorish general and his wife: desperately in need of couples counselling. Falk Struckmann is an oily, Germanic Iago. Semyon Bychkov, who led this opera at the Met in 2010 with the same cast conducts the fall performanc