Season Preview: 2019-2020 The Year of Not Living Dangerously

The Metropolitan Opera unveils next season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"...and that escalator to nowhere." Anthony Roth Costanzo climbs the stairs of destiny
in the Met's upcoming first presentation of the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten.
Photo from the Los Angeles Opera used by permission of the Met press office © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera revealed its new schedule at 1pm today, confirming a lot of what was already known about next year.  The two remaining shows by Franco Zeffirelli (Turandot and La bohéme return. Also, this is the first time in years that the company is mounting revivals of operas by Tchaikovsky (The Queen of Spades) and Janacek (Kat'a Kabanova) alongside its usual French, Italian and German fare.

Opera Review: A Fatal Heroine Overdose

A new Lulu tears up the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

lu·lu: ˈlo͞olo͞o/ noun (informal), noun: lulu; plural noun: lulus
1. an outstanding example of a particular type of person or thing. Usage: "as far as nightmares went, this one was a lulu"

Smoking hot: Marliss Petersen as Lulu in the new Met production.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

Alban Berg's Lulu is an opera that lives up to the above definition. For his second and final opera Berg set two plays (Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora) by Franz Wedekind and set them to a dizzying score that uses a wide range of techniques: chromaticism, serialism, atonality and even jazz to a kaleidoscopic rush through the life of a femme fatale who destroys every man and woman who crosses her path. This new Met production (seen Monday night) is the second in the history of this illustrious company, who have made this kinky, knotty opera something of a specialty.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Lulu

William Kentridge re-imagines Alban Berg's visionary, violent opera. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Isn't she lovely: Marliss Petersen is the femme fatale in Lulu.
Photo by Kristian Schuller © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

One of the most eagerly anticipated new productions of the 2015 season is Lulu, staged by the South African artist and director William Kentridge. Mr. Kentridge's previous effort for the Met, The Nose met with critical and audience acclaim. Can he do the same for the sordid story of Lulu, the female "earth spirit" who leaves a trail of broken hearts and dead bodies in her wake?

He-Dropped a Lulu, It Was His Baby

James Levine pulls out, we don't mean maybe.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She's dangerous: Marliss Peterson's Lulu has claimed her first victim.
Photo by Kristian Schuller © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera's new production of Lulu, the Alban Berg tale of a femme fatale who leaves a trail of bodies in her wake has claimed its first victim: music director James Levine.

Opera Review: It's Off...and Running

The Metropolitan Opera re-tweaks The Nose.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Doctor (Gennady Bezzubenkov) administers to the nose-less Kovalyov in a scene from The Nose.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

This year's Metropolitan Opera season is full of unlikely gems, revivals of opera productions that combine the best aspects of the unique and unexpected. One of those is the current revival of The Nose, the first opera from the pen of Dmitri Shostakovich. This revival marked the return of the innovative, kinetic staging by William Kentridge, whose imaginative use of multi-media and the Met's enormous stage allowed this thoroughly Russian farce to play out with the force of a titanic sneeze.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: The Nose

The Shostakovich comedy is back for another run.
(For the Superconductor review of The Nose, visit this link.) by Paul J. Pelkonen

The Nose makes a run for it as the Met revives William Kentridge's 2010 production.
Image © 2010 The Metropolitan Opera.

Opera fans, rejoice: the beezer is back.

The Nose, based on a story by Nikolai Gogol is Shostakovich's first opera, a wild, absurdist comedy that recounts the story of Kovalyov, an unfortunate bureaucrat (Paulo Szot, reprising his performance from 2010) who receives an unexpected total rhinectomy from his barber one morning.

Opera Review: Pick a Winner

The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera.
by Paul Pelkonen
"This is the story of a man who lost his nose.
It ran away, grew to human size, and eventually came back to him."

Sketch for The Nose by William Kentridge
© 2010 The Metropolitan Opera/William Kentridge

An unlikely idea for an opera, Nikolai Gogol's story is one of the great comic works of Russian literature. Shostakovich set the work when he was 22, and it was quickly banned in Russia for 44 years. The Nose finally arrived at the Met this season, in a brilliant new production by William Kentridge.