What's On Tap For The Metropolitan Opera Next Season
The next season of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center will feature a diverse and interesting collection of operas ranging from the 18th century to the present day , and as usual , the world's foremost singers, conductors , opera directors and stage designers will be there .
There are several new productions which appear like something worth looking forward to , and some notable debuts by eminent conductors . Opening night in late September this year will be Wagner's sweeping mythical epic Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold) , which inaugurates the Met's new Ring , and will continue later in the season with the second of the Ring operas Die Walkure (The Valkyrie) .
The brilliantly innovative Canadian director Robert Lepage is responsible for the new Ring, and this is supposed to feature bold new computer technology in the sets and staging . This production replaces the controversial previous Met Ring , which was damned by some critics for being too old-fashioned but beloved of audiences for its freedom from the Eurotrash gimmickry which has been so common in European Wagner productions .
Master Wagnerian James levine, the Met's veteran and beloved music director ,will conduct , and some of today's leading Wagner singers will be in the casts .
Gioacchino Rossini's zany comic opera "Le Comte Ory "(Count Ory ) will have its first Met staging , and Verdi's sombre and powerful "Don Carlo" will have a new production. This is based on 16th century Spanish history and deals with the conflict between prince Carlos of Spain and his imperious father King Philip of Spain , and the conflict between the tyranny of the Spanish inquisition and freedom fighters in occupied Flanders .
The Met's first new production of Modest Mussorgsky's epic "Boris Godunov" in nearly 40 years will feature the great German bass Rene Pape (Pah-peh) as the tormented Russian Tsar Boris , and Valery Gergiev, incomparable master of Russian music , will conduct .
John Adams, one of America's foremeost composers , will conduct the Met's new production of his strikingly original opera "Nixon In China" , which is about Nixon's historic visit to China in 1972. Other characters in the opera are believe it or not, Henry Kissinger, Mao Zedong and Chou En Lai ! The opera had its world premiere at the Houston Opera in 1987, and has gone on to become one of the most acclaimed operas of our time .
The other operas are such staples of the repertoire at Puccini's La Boheme,Tosca , Donizetti's Lucia Di Lammermoor, Bizet's Carmen, a new production this season , Verdi's Rigoletto, Il Trovatore , Gluck's Orfeo&Euridice , Donizetti's Don Pasquale , a return of this season's new Tales Of Hoffmann , Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte and The Magic Flute , and Gounod's Romeo& Juliette .
Other operas include Alban Berg's Wozzeck , Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, Debussy's Pelleas &Melisande , Puccini's La Fanciulla Del West , Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride , Rossini's Armida (new this season) , Verdi's Simon Boccanegra (also done this season), and the final opera of Richard Strauss , Caprioccio .
The distinguished English conductor Sir Simon Rattle, currently head of the Berlin Philharmonic , makes his Met debut with Debussy's Pelleas , and baroque specialist William Christie , an American conductor and harpsichordist based in Paris , makes his debut with Cosi Fan Tutte .
Among the starry names in the casts are such outstanding singers as Renee Fleming , Karita Mattila, Deborah Voigt , Natalie Dessay , Diana Damrau , the indestructable Placido Domingo , now almost 70 and still going strong , Olga Borodina, Rene Pape, Dolora Zajick , Stephanie Blythe , Daniele De Niese , Angela Gheorghiu , Joyce DiDonato , Anna Netrebko, Sondra Radvanovsky , Jonas Kaufmann, Matthias Goerne , Elena Garanca , Patricia Racette , Nathan Gunn , David Daniels, Susan Graham , Juan Diego Florez, and Ildar Abdrazakov , to name only some . It's a who's who of opera today . Keep in touch with the Met's website metopera.org, for further information shortly .
And even if you can't make it to New York , you can attend the HD broadcasts in movie theaters around the country , listen to the Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts and see Met performances on the internet .