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.

The Verdi Project: La Traviata

Verdi breaks new ground and causes controversy.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She's dying here: Angela Gheorgiu as Violetta Valéry in the Met's old La Traviata.
Photo by Ken Howard © The Metropolitan Opera.

There is so much to write about La Traviata that it's difficult to know where to begin. Verdi's 1853 adaptation of the play La Dame aux Camélias was like nothing that came beforee it: a contemporary story with a heart-rending ending that took a bold and unblinking look at a profession and a way of life that was simply not talked about in so-called "polite" society: especially not in Venice where the opera would have its premiere!

Opera Review: She's Back on the Clock

A new Violetta in the Met's La Traviata.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Carmen Giannatasio as Violetta in the Met's La Traviata.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2017 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera's current staging of Verdi's La Traviata is indicative of a demographic split in the company's audience. Older opera-goers (the company's dwindling subscription base) bemoan its stark visuals, longing for the Franco Zeffirelli-designed puff pastries of seasons past. The younger set (whose loyalty is needed for the opera company's survival) like its simple iconography, stark social commentary and snazzy costumes. On Tuesday night, several women in the orchestra seats even cosplayed as Violetta, donning red heels and that scandalous red dress in homage to the opera's fallen heroine.

Opera Review: If Love is a Red Dress

Sonya Yoncheva triumphs in La Traviata.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Champagne supernova: Sonya Yoncheva in La Traviata at the Met.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

On Wednesday night,  the penultimate La Traviata of this current Metropolitan Opera season featured Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva. In a thrilling performance, she met both the challenge of this role and this peculiar, demanding production, one which has divided audience members since its 2011 premiere.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: La traviata

The little red dress returns. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

A boy, a girl and a timepiece. Marina Poplavskaya (right) in La Traviata.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2010 The Metropolitan Opera.

This stripped-down Willy Decker staging of La Traviata (introduced at the very end of 2010)
eliminates the elegance of 19th century Paris for a bare, clinical room, a single curved bench and a giant clock that ticks down the remaining minutes in the life of Violetta, the courtesan who is at the heart of Verdi's most intimate tragedy.

Opera Review: Stripped (Again)

La Traviata returns to the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

No way out: Diana Damrau as Violetta.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

No production in the current repertory of the Metropolitan Opera divides opinions like Willy Decker’s stripped-down La Traviata. Mr. Decker reduces the tragedy of Violetta to its bare essence, relying on a geometric white set and simple, modern costumes to frame the tragedy of a Paris prostitute’s last shot at true love. This Spartan approach to Verdi puts the attention squarely on the singers.

Natalie Dessay Out of Traviata Premiere

Hei-Kyung Hong gets the nod as Violetta.
by Paul Pelkonen

A trip to IKEA, on gossamer wings: Act I of La Traviata at the Met.
Photo by Marty Sohl © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

The saga of the Little Red Dress continues. 

Last night the Metropolitan Opera press office quietly announced that tonight's performance of La Traviata will be sung by soprano Hei-Kyung Hong. Ms. Hong will replace Natalie Dessay, who is ill.

It is not known at press time whether Ms. Dessay will be available to sing the remaining seven performances in the run, starting with next Tuesday night and leading up to the Met Live in HD broadcast on April 14. 

Willy Decker's production of La Traviata, which bowed at the Met on December 31, 2010, is more physical than most productions of this Verdi opera. Violetta is required to careen across a slanted, curved acting surface, to be hoisted on a red couch by the choristers, and to meet the physical challenges of the characters medical condition (she is dying of tubeculosis) head-on. 

The production, which was originally mounted at Salzburg with Anna Netrebko (currently singing Manon at the Met) premiered with Marina Poplavskaya making a splash in the title role. Ms. Hong was the "cover" for those performances, and also sang the dress rehearsal earlier this week when Ms. Dessay announced that she was ill.

Regulars at the Metropolitan Opera are familiar with this talented Korean soprano, who has been something of a fixture at the house over a long career. She has sung over 300 performances at the theater, starting in 1984. Her wide repertory includes Butterfly, Gilda, the Countess (in the Marriage of Figaro), Liu, and of course, Violetta.

Last season, Ms. Hong was thrust into the limelight as Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette  after soprano Angela Gheorghiu abruptly cancelled her entire run, claiming illness. 

This year's cast also features Matthew Polenzani as Alfredo Germont, and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Giorgio Germont.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: La Traviata

Natalie Dessay slips into the little red dress.
by Paul Pelkonen.

Lover boy: Matthew Polenzani returns as Alfredo Germont in the Met's revival La Traviata.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera

Willy Decker's stripped-down La Traviata was the most controversial production at the Met last year. For its first revival, French soprano Natalie Dessay takes on the role of Violetta, a courtesan who finds love just as her time is running out. Matthew Polenzani returns as Alfredo, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky is Giorgio Germont. Fabio Luisi conducts.

The feeling of dread is heightened by Mr. Decker's staging, originally presented at the Salzburg Festival. The opera is presented on a unit set with one exit: a steep, bare stage with curved white walls that might be in a hospital or asylum. The room is dominated by an enormous clock, and haunted by Dr. Grenville, a silent, death-like figure who is onstage for most of the opera. The party-goers of Paris (male and female) are in tuxedos, faceless figures in Violetta's empty life.

La Traviata is Verdi's most intimate tragedy. A setting of Alexandre Dumas fils La dame aux camilles, this is an opera about suffering, illness and time running out. Verdi was inspired to set the younger Dumas' play by his longtime relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi, a former opera singer. For this work, Verdi wrote some his most memorable music. Highlights include the brindisi in Act I, the soprano showpiece Sempre libera, and Di provenza il mar, Germont's appeal to his wayward son.

Recording Recommendations
Verdi's most heart-rending opera has been lucky on disc. So we're giving four recommendations.

Coro e Orchestra de La Scala, cond. Antonio Votto (DG, 1963)
Violetta: Renata Scotto
Alfredo: Gianni Raimondi
Germont: Ettore Bastianini
The glories of this 1963 recording are the young Renata Scotto (in prima voce as Violetta) and the rock-solid presence of baritone Ettore Bastianini as the elder Germont. I still recommend it, especially at bargain price.

Bavarian State Opera Orchestra cond. Carlos Kleiber (DG, 1977)
Violetta: Ileana Cotrubas
Alfredo: Plácido Domingo
Germont: Sherrill Milnes
Carlos Kleiber was an extraordinary conducting talent who made very few recordings. This was one of his best, a studio-made, note-complete Traviata with a sensitive heroine in Ileana Cotrubas. The redoubtable team of Sherrill Milnes and Placído Domingo recorded a lot of operas together in the 1970s, but they manage to convince the listener as father and son.

Coro e Orchestra de La Scala cond. Riccardo Muti (Sony, 1992)
Violetta: Tiziana Fabbricini
Alfredo: Roberto Alagna
Germont: Paolo Coni
Expert Verdi conducting and a compelling performance by Roberto Alagna as Alfredo. Tiziana Fabbricini is a very good, involving Violetta who is helped by the live, theatrical recording made in Italy's most famous opera house. Reissued last year.

Vienna Philharmonic cond. Carlo Rizzi (DG, 2005)
Violetta: Anna Netrebko
Alfredo: Rolando Villazón
Germont: Thomas Hampson
I will also put a word in for this entertaining live recording from the Salzburg Festival. Anna Netrebko, captured in great form as Verdi's bird in a gilded cage. Rolando Villazon before he lost his voice. And like the Muti set, this has the immediacy of a live recording.
Return to the Metropolitan Opera Season Preview!

Contact the author: E-mail Superconductor editor Paul Pelkonen.

Opera Review: A Girl Dies in Brooklyn

City Opera presents La Traviata at BAM.

Violetta (Laquita Mitchell) confronts Germont in Act II of La traviata. 
Photo by Carol Rosegg © 2012 New York City Opera.

The New York City Opera came to the end of a long and rocky year off on Sunday, making a fresh start with La Traviata, presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. This is City Opera's first fully staged performance since an April 2011 announcement that the company would leave its longtime home at Lincoln Center.

This production is a nod to the company's past, designed by Jonathan Miller and imported from their former partners upstate at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY. The staging is a familiar Miller configuration, right-angled walls forming a triangular acting surface, and a corridor in the back to facilitate exits, entrances and any offstage action. The unit set was simple art nouveau, matching the elegant surroundings of BAM's Gilman Opera House. The minimal, elegant rooms allowed focus on the drama without distraction. 

Violetta is one of the most well-known but challenging roles in the soprano repertory. Laquita Mitchell was suited to those challenges, creating a complex, nianced portrait of the doomed courtesan. She flew above the stave in Sempre libera, interjecting doubt into each stanza of the famous aria every time it was interrupted by Alfredo offstage.

Ms. Mitchell was even better in the second act, bringing a quiet dignity to Violetta in her confrontation with the elder Germont. It was good to see this scene played with understated 19th century gravitas, but one could sense the emotions boiling underneath. 

Stephen Powell was a strong presence as Germont, bringing out the complicated facets of this bourgeois gentleman. He even overcame a slight, audible wardrobe malfunction in the second act, getting a fast pants change before delivering a moving "Di provenza il mar." 

Tenor David Pomeroy should be better known to New Yorkers. Often assigned as a cover at the Metropolitan Opera, he is frequently stepped over as that company's general manager signs faded stars in the interest of box office dollars. Today, the Canadian singer had his coming-out party in front of a packed house, delivering an ardent performance with few peccadilloes. 

Mr. Pomeroy has a robust instrument and an enthusiastic stage presence. His Alfred is an innocent fool, made wise through the sacrifices of Violetta and the ultimate compassion of his father. There was real tragic weight in his duets with Ms. Mitchell in the fourth act. No heavy symbolism was needed--just a girl dying on a simple bed as the world moved on outside. 

Stephen White conducted a brisk, energetic performance, doubling as orchestra leader and prompter for the singers onstage. The City Opera orchestra demonstrated their worth to this troubled company, playing Verdi's innovative score with rhythmic snap and panache. The chorus showed their quality in the opera's complex party scenes, which kept the choreographed matadors and bulls to a tolerable minimum.

City Opera Preview: La Traviata

Troubled company relaunches with tubercular trollop.

The grim spectre of death: Act III of La traviata at Glimmerglass.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2009 Glimmerglass Festival.

After a turbulent off-season that saw New York City Opera uproot itself from its Lincoln Center home, the company prepares to make a return with La Traviata. In keeping with the company's new economic policies, there will be just four performances, through Feb. 18.

La Traviata is the last of the "big three" Verdi operas, a tryptich of works that marked the composer's transition to full maturity. It is a searing tragedy: the story of a courtesan wooed by one of her customers--only to have their relationship nixed by his overbearing father and the onset of terminal illness. 

Although this is advertised as a "new production" on the City Opera website, this is really an import. The staging, by Jonathan Miller, first appeared at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2009. This run stars two artists new to City Opera: Brooklyn-born soprano Laquita Mitchell as Violetta and Canadian tenor David Pomeroy as Alfredo. 

Watch a Glimmerglass trailer for the production here:

Recording Recommendations:

As Violetta is one of the most coveted, yet challenging roles in the repertory, there are a lot of "Trav" recordings to choose from. Picking one is largely a matter of individual taste, and may rest with one's opinion of a particular soprano. That said, here's a few good ones:

Coro e Orchestra de La Scala, cond. Antonio Votto (DG, 1963)

Violetta: Renata Scotto

Alfredo: Gianni Raimondi

Germont: Ettore Bastianini

The glories of this 1963 recording are the young Renata Scotto (in prima voce as Violetta) and the rock-solid presence of baritone Ettore Bastianini as the elder Germont. I still recommend it, especially at bargain price.

Bavarian State Opera Orchestra cond. Carlos Kleiber (DG, 1977)

Violetta: Ileana Cotrubas

Alfredo: Plácido Domingo

Germont: Sherrill Milnes

Carlos Kleiber was an extraordinary conducting talent who made very few recordings. This was one of his best, a studio-made, note-complete Traviata with a sensitive heroine in Ileana Cotrubas. The redoubtable team of Sherrill Milnes and Placído Domingo recorded a lot of operas together in the 1970s, but they manage to convince the listener as father and son.

Coro e Orchestra de La Scala cond. Riccardo Muti (Sony, 1992)

Violetta: Tiziana Fabbricini

Alfredo: Roberto Alagna

Germont: Paolo Coni

Expert Verdi conducting and a compelling performance by Roberto Alagna as Alfredo. Tiziana Fabbricini is a very good, involving Violetta who is helped by the live, theatrical recording made in Italy's most famous opera house. Reissued last year.

Vienna Philharmonic cond. Carlo Rizzi (DG, 2005)

Violetta: Anna Netrebko

Alfredo: Rolando Villazón

Germont: Thomas Hampson

I will also put a word in for this entertaining live recording from the Salzburg Festival. Anna Netrebko, captured in great form as Verdi's bird in a gilded cage. Rolando Villazon before he lost his voice. And like the Muti set, this has the immediacy of a live recording.

UPDATE: City Opera Ends Lockout

Orchestra, Chorus to vote on new deal Thursday.
by Paul Pelkonen

UPDATE: The New York City Opera has ratified a deal with its orchestra and chorus, ending a bitter labor dispute that was stymied. A lockout of Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists has ended, with both companies making deep concessions in the interest of maintaining the future of the troubled opera company.

The lockout's end was reported by Jennifer Maloney in the Wall Street Journal. The company's ratification was reported on Thursday by Daniel J. Wakin in the New York Times.

According to a Wednesday afternoon report on local news channel New York 1, the contract is for three years. Dan Wakin in the New York Times reported that "core" health care benefits will be included. Orchestra wage details were not released.

Starting in 2013, orchestra members will make a contribution to their health care costs. The deal is subject to a vote by union members and approval by the New York City Opera board of directors.

In a statement, general manager and artistic director George Steel said that the deal will insure the opera's solvency. 

The last decade has seen City Opera in decline, from a vibrant house that produced 13 operas in a two-part "split season" to a pale shadow of its former self. A myriad of problems (chronicled in past posts on this site under the tag "Opera Company Goes Dark") led to this appalling situation.

The spiral started in 2007, with the board's decision to hire Belgian impresario Gerard Mortier as its new general manager. Mr. Mortier's tenure was largely an absentee one, and it ended in 2008 after a budget dispute. That same year, renovations to the former New York State Theater forced the company to go "dark" for an entire season. Since this happened when the chorus and orchestra were still under contract, City Opera was forced to raid its endowment to meet obligations. 

After re-opening the house in 2009, new general manager George Steel reduced the number of operas produced to five and sold the fall season time-slot to the New York City Ballet. In 2011, he removed music director George Manahan. He also cut back on important programs like VOX, the company's initiative to workshop experimental operas by young composers. 

Things came to a head when Mr. Steel moved the opera company out of Lincoln Center, abandoning its home of 45 years. This move took place around the same time that the company's contracts with Musicians Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists expired. Last summer, the City Opera unveiled its plan to make "all of New York" its stage, offering four operas in three different theaters. 

But negotiations with both unions proved contentious. With only 16 performances scheduled, orchestra musicians were offered $4,000, a mere tenth of their former salaries. Matters came to a head when talks broke down, resulting in a lockout that threatened the company's truncated season. 

Rehearsals for season opener La traviata took place today with a piano at an undisclosed location. Orchestra rehearsals for the February 12 premiere are scheduled to begin February 1.

Time Running Out for City Opera

Doomsday clock ticks for New York's second opera company.
by Paul Pelkonen

If only this were a production design for L'heure Espagnole.

A series of decisions and disasters may spell "das Ende" for the New York City Opera.

The opera company has locked out two unions: Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists in a dispute over a new contract that has turned ugly.

City Opera was founded in 1943 by then New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Hizzoner wanted an opera company that was the working man's alternative to the Met, with its ritzy Opera Club and Diamond Horseshoe. The company originally performed at City Center.

In 1967, NYCO moved to the then-new New York State Theater on the south side of Lincoln Center Plaza. They continued to offer an eclectic mix of repertory favorites, with Verdi, Puccini and Bizet mixed in with lesser-known works like Boito's Mefistofele and Douglas Moore's The Ballad of Baby Doe.

The opera company also served as the launching point for a number of great careers, featuring tenor Plácido Domingo, soprano Beverly Sills, and basses Norman Triegle and Samuel Ramey. Many of these singers went on to sing at the Metropolitan Opera and to international careers, but some, like Ms. Sills, and later, Lauren Flanigan, made City Opera the center of their New York careers.

The City Opera was also where a young future opera journalist had his first encounter with the art form. I saw everything from Turandot (my first opera) to Leonard Bernstein's Candide, Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, The Mikado and Sweeney Todd in that burgundy-and-bronze theater. It was a diverse mix of operas, operettas and the occasional musical, a dizzying flow of laughter, tears and music that helped form me into the writer I am today.

I ran through its corridors, rode in its elevators, and sat with Mom and Dad in our subscription seats, located in the Third Ring with a nice view of the whole house. A lonely kid--I read books (and libretti) at intermission. I well remember missing the entire second act of La bohème once because I was engrossed in the "Mines of Moria" section of The Fellowship of the Ring.  And I remember how thrilled we all were when City Opera introduced super-titles in 1983.

Those were good days. I saw stagings by Hal Prince and Maurice Sendak. We were thrilled by Sam Ramey in Attila. Even after my father died in 1985, Mom and I still went to City Opera. (She preferred orchestra seats.) Partially in his memory, but we had also become addicted. We still went there in 1990, which was when Mom bought her first subscription to the Met.

In 1996, I completed my education and started working in this industry as an Associate Editor at Citysearch.com, formerly MetroBeat. I was covering Opera, Sports, and Fitness. (Classical Music came later.) I well remember the first City Opera performance I wrote about in those days, Der Rosenkavalier with Gwendolyn Jones as Octavian. I was even more shocked when an up-and-coming heldentenor who wanted some publicity brought Ms. Jones with him to our office. I think the word "gobsmacked" applied.

Ten years ago, following the horrors of 9/11, it was City Opera that started the ball rolling again at Lincoln Center, with a curiously grim and zombie-like revival of The Mikado. The date was September 15th. I guess we were all feeling a little shell-shocked.

Now, City Opera has left that home at Lincoln Center, opting for a "run-and-gun" approach, marketing themselves as a "leaner" and "fitter" operation. Now that they've locked out its chorus (and starting on February 1) its orchestra, it may starve to death. There's one month until the scheduled premiere of La Traviata at Brooklyn Academy of Music. Let's see if they can find a way to stay alive.

City Opera Goes to the Mattresses

Negotiations break down (again). Labor lockout begins.

Union delegates Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano, l.) and Paulie Gatto (Johnny Martino, r.)
 attempt to find new, innovative solutions to the current crisis at New York City Opera.
Image from The Godfather © 1972 Paramount Pictures.

11th-hour negotiations between representatives of the New York City Opera, Musicians Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists broke down on Saturday night. According to a report on Parterre Box, the negotiations failed after the New York City Opera rejected an offered wage concession at 9pm on Saturday Night.

In a press release Saturday night, Local 802 stated that the opera company is planning to lock out its musicians starting on Monday. That date marks the start of scheduled rehearsals for the company's season-opening production of La Traviata, slotted for a February 12 premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Howard Gilman Opera House.

According to a New York Times report published Sunday by Daniel J. Wakin, the City Opera will lock choristers out of planned piano rehearsals, starting Monday. Orchestral rehearsals are supposed to start on Feb. 1.

The lockout leaves 114 choristers, musicans, and conductors without a salary or health care. City Opera press spokeswoman Risa B. Heller says that the company has no plans to hire replacements in the event of a strike. Ms. Heller also maintained that the company still plans its 16-performance season as scheduled.

At the end of the Spring 2011 season, the City Opera claimed to be operating on the brink of insolvency. General Manager George Steel undertook a tumultuous series of changes. The company left its home at Lincoln Center, announced a drastically reduced budget. The City Opera also released longtime music director George Manahan from his contract.

For 2012, the company has planned four operas, in three different theaters located in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Planned offerings include Traviata, the New York premiere of Prima Donna by Rufus Wainwright, and new productions of Mozart's Così fan tutte and Georg Philipp Telemann's version of Orpheus. But all this may be moot without the chorus and orchestra, two key components of any opera company.

But the big story this year has been the company's reluctance to negotiate a fair working wage with its musicians and choristers. The City Opera has offered to reduce orchestra members from a $40,000/year salary to a reported wage of just $4,000 with very minimal insurance. Musicians and choristers even offered to work for free for a year in order to keep their health insurance. This offer was rejected last year by the City Opera.

This story comes on the heels of an on-line plea from composer Rufus Wainwright to save the City Opera season (and Prima Donna, which bows at BAM on Feb. 19. Mr. Wainwright said: "If talks break down and there's a strike, the company will likely be decimated, thus leaving the city of New York with only one large opera house where as all the great cultural cities of the world have at least two."

After this offer was rejected, the City Opera requested the intervention of a federal labor mediator late in 2011. Negotiations have been held under a condition of press blackout. That blackout may be lifting with tonight's published interview with chorus member Neil Eddinger, which appears in its an entirety on Parterre Box.

Mr. Eddinger has thirty years experience in the City Opera chorus, and is a member of the AGMA negotiating committee. He said: "If you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage, you can't afford an opera company. I'm tired of rich people trying to get something for nothing."

He added: "The board would like to traipse around...masquerading as patrons of the arts but they won't pay their artists. NYCO should put up or shut up. And by that I mean, pay or shut down."

Mr. Eddinger's statement seems to respond to Mr. Wainwright. "If George Steel had started his own company to book interesting musical events (e.g.. Rufus) and try to add another facet to our musical-artistic life, I would say 'Go for it!' But to hijack an existing repertory company with a noble history and so pervert it from its original intention is criminal."

Further Down the Death Spiral

City Opera orchestra, chorus plans strike.

The intrepid City Opera scouts Japanese locations
for a planned 2012 staging of Madama Butterfly. 
Naruto Whirlpools by Utagawa Hiroshige.

Even as socialites and royalty celebrated a "new era" for New York City Opera at a gala fund-raising bash this week,  plans for the 2011-2012 season have been jeopardized. 

Talks have broken down between City Opera's management (led by current General Manager George Steel) and representatives for Musicians' Local 802 and the American Guild of Musical Artists. These two unions represent the orchestra and chorus, the backbone of any opera company. 

Mr. Steel plans to rip out that backbone, and essentially pay artists like freelancers, with minimal salary and almost no health benefits. The cash-strapped opera company abandoned its Lincoln Center home last year, and is planning a "roving" season of just five operas, to be staged in various venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The abbreviated season and new, smaller venues, also carry higher ticket prices than the former New York State Theater.

According to a New York Times report by Daniel J. Wakin, the company's current offer to the musicians reduces orchestra salaries from a livable $40,000 a year to a "reduced" rate of $4,000. The offer came after City Opera deliberately let the old contracts expire at the end of April, 2011.

In an e-mail obtained by and published by parterre.com, Mr. Steel reported that negotiations were "at an impasse." You can read the whole e-mail here.

Also stripped in the new contract offer: health benefits. Earlier this fall, Local 806 representatives offered to play "for free" if they were allowed to keep their old health benefits. That offer was rejected by Mr. Steel last month.

Other recent sacrifices made by City Opera include the axing of music director George Manahan and the slashing of the Vox program, a workshop which allowed young composers working on new operas to get an airing.

The planned strike will probably not affect the company until January, when rehearsals start for the City Opera's planned performances in February. Those performances, planned for the Brooklyn Academy of Music include an imported Glimmerglass Opera staging of La Traviata and the New York premiere of Rufus Wainwright's new opera Prima Donna. For a full preview of the City Opera's truncated season, click this link.

In other news, the City Opera board recently voted to extend Mr. Steel's contract for three years. According to the Times, Mr. Steel's recent tax returns list his salary at $407,000/year. He did not get a raise.

Who Are You, New York City Opera?

The 2011-2012 New York City Opera Preview

Act III of Jonathan Miller's production of La Traviata from the Glimmerglass Festival. 
Photo by Richard Termine. © 2007 Glimmerglass Festival.

The New York City Opera has fleshed out some of the details of its skeletal 2011-2012 season, the company's first since its April announcement that it was leaving Lincoln Center.

However, as the company has not yet reached a deal with Local 806 or AGMA over union contracts for its musicians and choristers, these performances may be met with picket lines and large inflatable rats.

The Fall schedule (which, in happier days started in early September and ran into early November at the former New York State Theater) will consist of one concert.

The songwriter Rufus Wainwright, possibly thinking about Puccini.
Photo from his official site.

This show, entitled Who Are You New York: The Songs of Rufus Wainwright will be performed at the medium-sized Rose Theater in the Time Warner Center on Nov. 17. The concert will feature Mr. Wainwright and a collection of young City Opera singers. They will perform his song cycle All Days Are Nights: Songs For Lulu, followed by selections from Mr. Wainwright's song-book.

"Who are you, New York?" is an apt question for this company, as it forges ahead into strange new territory under the guiding hand of general manager George Steel. The City Opera's Spring opera season will start in February of 2012, with two works performed in repertory at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's historic Howard Gilman Opera House.

The first of these is Verdi's La Traviata, presented in a Jonathan Miller staging imported from the City Opera's old friends at the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY. Tenor David Pomeroy makes his company debut as Alfredo. Brooklyn native Laquita Mitchell is Violetta. Steven White, who led this opera at the Met in 2009, will conduct.

La Traviata will play in repertory with the New York premiere of Mr. Wainwright's opera Prima Donna. Melody Moore will sing the lead in this French-language opera, which was originally commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera until Met general manager Peter Gelb insisted that Mr. Wainwright write his libretto in English.

March sees the City Opera migrate to the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, just two blocks away from their old digs at 20 Lincoln Center. The opera: Mozart's Così fan tutte in an eagerly anticipated new staging from director Christopher Alden. Mr. Alden's version of Don Giovanni (set in a funeral parlor) was the first success of Mr. Steel's term as general manager, and the company is hoping for a repeat of that success in this smaller theater.

In May, the City Opera packs its bags again and moves to El Museo del Barrio on the Upper East Side. They will perform Orpheus, another version of the myth about the legendary musician from Greek mythology. This one is by German baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann, and may prove to be an intriguing way to end this abbreviated season. Baritone Daniel Teadt makes his company debut in the title role.

Angela Ankles Faust

Marina Poplavskaya to sing Marguerite in new Met production.

Angela Gheorghiu,
in between cancellations.

Angela Gheorghiu is out of the Metropolitan Opera's current run of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, but the dark-eyed Romanian diva continues to make headlines. The latest: she has dropped the bomb on her commitment to sing Marguerite in the Met's new production of Gounod's Faust. The cause was cited as that old stand-by: "artistic differences."

The cancellation is the latest by Ms. Gheorghiu, a soprano who rose to international fame after she was cast (by Sir Georg Solti) in a 1994 Covent Garden production of La Traviata. The string started in 1998, when she and her husband, tenor Roberto Alagna, attempted to inflate their fees to appear in Franco Zeffirelli's second Met production of that same opera. They were replaced by soprano Patricia Racette and Argentinean tenor Marcelo Álvarez, and the show went on anyway.

More recently, Ms. Gheorghiu pulled out of the Dec. 31 2009 prima of the Met's new David McVicar staging of Bizet's Carmen. An early 2010 run in La Traviata (that same Zeffirelli production) featured the singer, although conductor Leonard Slatkin was fired withdrew for personal reasons after the prima.

The Roméo cancellation is the most recent. Ms. Gheorghiu pulled out of all seven performances of the opera this season, citing what was reported to be a month-long case of the flu. Her replacement is the experienced Korean soprano Hei-Kyung Hong, who was initially engaged to "cover" these performances.

A gilded cage: a scene from the ENO Faust.
Photo by Catherine Ashmore © 2010 English National Opera.

Faust was one opera that Ms. Gheorghiu actually sang at the Met recently, taking the role of Marguerite in the company's laughably bad 2005 staging of the opera, the one that featured a cadre of choristers waving tricolor French flags and René Pape attempting to look "menacing" in a rubber devil suit. It has never been repeated.

Its replacement is this new staging by Canadian director Des MacAnuff. Mr. McAnuff updates the opera to the 20th century and makes Goethe's medieval mystic into a mad scientist working to finish the atomic bomb, is bound to be some improvement. It is a collaboration between the Met and the English National Opera, and has already run in London to generally positive reviews.

Ms. Gheorghiu will be replaced in Faust by Russian diva-on-the-rise Marina Poplavskaya, who made an excellent impression at the Met this season in new productions of Verdi's Don Carlo as well as the lead role in La Traviata. Hopefully, Ms. Poplavskaya will be able to sing in French as well as she does in Italian.

For more about the Met's 2011-2012 plans, check out this preview of the upcoming season.

Opera Review: Guilt Without Gilt

The New La Traviata at the Met.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Couch surfing: Marina Poplavskaya in La Traviata
Photo by Ken Howard © 2010 Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera's new Willy Decker production of La Traviata was a complete success on Tuesday night, from the stark, simple staging to the bravura performance of Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta. Gianandrea Noseda conducted, leading the performance with a specific vision for the work that matched the production and showed a thorough understanding of this subtle, complex score.

Verdi's most intimate opera benefits from the Decker approach: a bare, curved, white room set on a steep rake. Its only adornments: a long white bench, the occasional couch, and a gigantic clock, solemnly reminding the viewer that this is an opera about a woman whose time is running out. It is a vast improvement over the pouffes, gilt, and frou-frous that adorned the Met's past two Traviatas. Both were by Franco Zeffirelli. Each recalled the worst excesses of Busby Berkeley and Martha Stewart.

Despite some early problems adjusting her big voice to match the dynamic level of the orchestra, Ms. Poplavskaya settled in and delivered a nuanced portrayal of Violetta. Whirling about the stage in high scarlet pumps and a red dress, she went from being every man's fantasy to every man's victim--a potent interpretation that will resonate in the minds of opera lovers for years to come.

But there is more to this performance than singing coloratura while balancing atop a couch. Ms. Poplavskaya plays Violetta as Verdi intended, capturing every facet of this jewel of a part. She tossed off the fearless fioritura of "Sempre libera" in the first act, moving her big voice with an impressive agility above the stave. As the evening progressed, (and her world collapsed) she seemed to wither away both vocally and physically. Yet her singing did not suffer: she broke hearts with the equally challenging "Addio, del passato" in the final act.

The breaking heart in question, Matthew Polenziani, was an ardent Alfredo, singing with a flood of warm tone. He coped admirably with Mr. Noseda's urgent, spitfire conducting. Alfredo is another victim in this production, of his father's bullying and the mob mentality of the Parisian party scene. The Act III re-staging of the ballet--which featured a male dancer (choreographer Athol Farmer) in Violetta's red dress and the crowd of black-tie revellers charging like a giant bull became a terrifying sequence.

As Germont père, Andrzej Dobber was a brutal figure, most notably when he struck his wayward son across the face in their Act Two confrontation. This Polish baritone took a stark, stern approach to the role that suited Mr. Decker's conception perfectly. Even the old favorite, "Di provenza il mar" sounded vaguely threatening when delivered in his growling voice. Bass Luigi Roni was onstage for most of the opera as Dr. Grenvil, playing Violetta's physician as a specter of impending Death. This, along with the giant, omni-present clock, underlined the mortal nature of La Traviata, elevating the opera to the status of Verdi's greatest tragedy.

Opera Preview: Learning to Love La Traviata

Ed. Note: This is a preview/recording recommendations piece for the new Met production of La Traviata. To read the Superconductor review of the January 4, 2011 performance at the Met, click here.

I used to "hate" La Traviata.

Marina Poplavskaya as Violetta in La Traviata. Photo by Klaus Lefebvre © The Netherlands Opera

Yes, I know. It's one of Verdi's greatest works. The passionate story of the courtesan Violetta Valery and her race against the clock of tuberculosis is one of the most personal, and moving works Verdi ever wrote. The music is great: from the famous Brindisi to "Sempre libera," "Di Provenza il mar" and other great highlights.

But it took me a long time to "like" it.

Part of that is because I associate Violetta's illness with the final sickness and (eventual) death of my father when I was 11 years old. Traviata was the first opera that we went to without Dad--he was too ill to attend. Even after he passed away (in Feb. of 1985), Mom and I kept going to the opera--which is part of why I do this now.

As I got into this business, I made sure over the years that I saw very few Traviata performances. I saw both productions by Franco Zeffirelli at the Met, but when the opera came up on my regular subscription I'd exchange it for something else, make an excuse, or simply stay home. I couldn't handle it.


I compensated. I learned everything I could about it, so I could write confidently and convincingly. I owned one recording (more on that in a bit) but it sat in its jewel case, silent. I even interviewed a soprano (Patricia Racette) debuting as Violetta in the '99 Met production.

Last year, a good friend of mine got sick. Really sick. She has cancer--a different kind than my Dad. She's still alive as I write this, fighting like hell and hanging on to her life with both hands.

That experience gave me a whole new perspective on Traviata. I started listening to it. Getting recordings. Working my ears around the notes of the score--learning what makes it tick, something that a certain conductor failed to do at a Met performance I attended last April. All this exposure to Traviata helped immeasurably. It made the fear and trauma of going through the (repeated) experience of having someone close to me sick easier to deal with.


Now, the Met will end 2010 with a new Traviata, a spare, intense staging from German director Willy Decker. Premiereing on New Years Eve, this is the same production that was recorded and filmed for Salzburg with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon. At the Met, Marina Poplavskaya stars as Violetta. The Russian diva is fresh off her success as Elisabeth in Don Carlo, and should bring all the fire to Violetta that she had to rein in for that opera.

She is paired with the American tenor Matthew Polenzani, well known for his Met performances of Mozart and Wagner. Gianandrea Noceda conducts. At the press conference last week, he promised a driving rendition that emphasizes the central crisis of the opera--the leading character running out of time.

On to the recording recommendations:
Coro e Orchestra La Scala, cond. Antonio Votto
Violetta: Renata Scotto
Alfredo: Gianni Raimondi
Germont: Ettore Bastianini
The glories of this 1963 recording are the young Renata Scotto (in prima voce as Violetta) and the rock-solid presence of baritone Ettore Bastianini as the elder Germont. I've recommended it before, and will continue to do so.

Bavarian State Orchestra cond. Carlos Kleiber
Violetta: Ileana Cotrubas
Alfredo: Placído Domingo
Germont: Sherrill Milnes
Carlos Kleiber was an extraordinary conducting talent who made very few recordings. This was one of his best, a studio, note-complete Traviata with a sensitive heroine in Ileana Cotrbas. The redoubtable team of Sherrill Milnes and Placído Domingo recorded a lot of operas together in the 1970s, but they manage to convince the listener as father and son.



Coro e Orchestra della Scala cond. Riccardo Muti
Violetta: Tiziana Fabbricini
Alfredo: Roberto Alagna
Germont: Paolo Coni
Expert Verdi conducting and a compelling performance by Roberto Alagna as Alfredo. Tiziana Fabbricini is a very good, involving Violetta who is helped by the live, theatrical recording made in Italy's most famous opera house. Just reissued.