Friday, July 30, 2010

For those who saw the Mostly Mozart opener(s)

How was Louis Langree's "Haffner" so much more alive and spirited than his work with the Met?

(Yes, I've seen some summer operas. No, they didn't seem to require posts -- not even of the "Before I Forget" sort.)

Thursday, July 01, 2010

If it's July...

Then summer opera season must be here. Although there were some interesting local offerings in June, the meat of the reasonably-local schedule seems to arrive this month.

The Castleton Festival's Il Trittico (July 2-24), Turn of the Screw (July 3-11), and Beggar's Opera (July 15-17) (all in Castleton, VA)
Puccini invades the formerly all-Britten opera fest.

Lake George Opera's Carmen (July 8-18) and Viva la Mamma (July 9-17) (both in Saratoga Springs, NY)

Wolf Trap's Turk in Italy (July 9-13) and Midsummer Night's Dream (August 13-17) (all in Vienna, VA)

Glimmerglass Opera's Tosca (July 9-August 24), The Tender Land (July 10-August 21), Figaro (July 17-August 22), and Tolomeo (July 18-August 23) (all in Cooperstown, NY)
Lise Lindstrom looks to be promising Tosca, if you can bear another one.

Caramoor's Norma (July 10-16) and Maria di Rohan (July 24) (both in Katonah, NY)
Angela Meade as Norma.

Opera New Jersey's Don Giovanni (July 11-August 1), Don Pasquale (July 17-August 1), and Faust (July 18-31) (all in Princeton, NJ)

The Metropolitan Opera's summer recital series (July 12-29 in NYC parks)
Mostly young singers again including documentary star Michael Fabiano.

Lincoln Center Festival's La porta della legge (July 20-22)
Need more Italian contemporary opera in your life?

Tanglewood's concert Abduction from the Seraglio (July 23) and staged Ariadne auf Naxos (August 1, 2, and 4) (both in Lenox, MA)
All were supposed to be conducted by Levine, but his recovery from the latest back issue continues. Abduction, starring last summer's revelatory Lucia Lisette Oropesa, will be conducted by the Canadian Opera Company's Johannes Debus, while the first two Ariadnes gets a star replacement in Christoph von Dohnányi (the last will be led by a conducting fellow of the festival).

Bard SummerScape's Der ferne Klang (July 31-August 6) and The Chocolate Soldier (both in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)