Week of March 26 - April 2, 2015

This week on Rhode Island Public television,

WSBE:  (Comcast 294, Cox 808, Full Channel 109, and Verizon 478)

Great Performances at the Met

Saturday, March 28, 2015, 8:00pm

Sunday, March 29, 2015  3:00am

Monday, March 30, 2015 12:00am

Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Christopher Maltman as Figaro; Lawrence Brownlee as Almaviva

Great Performances at the Met

Il Barbiere di Siviglia 
(The Barber of Seville)

In Bartlett Sher’s effervescent production of Rossini’s most popular opera, Isabel Leonard is the beautiful and feisty Rosina, who won’t be kept under lock and key. Lawrence Brownlee is her conspiring flame, Almaviva, and Christopher Maltman is the omnipotent barber, Figaro. Michele Mariotti conducts.

Approximate running time 3 hrs. 0 min.

SYNOPSIS:

http://www.metopera.org/metopera/season/synopsis/barbiere?customid=6

Isabel Leonard as  Rosina

To watch Ms. Leonard and  Mr. Maltman rehearse, go to

http://www.metopera.org/opera/il-barbiere-di-siviglia-rossini-tickets

The Rabbit of Seville

https://youtu.be/_954jkgbWmc

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OPERA ON THE INTERNET 

WITH  

DAVE  D' AGUANNO

Several internet radio stations this coming Saturday afternoon (March 28) will be carrying the LIVE broadcast from the Met of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" with tenor Joseph Calleja in the cast, once again singing the role of Edgardo which he performed a few seasons back in the HD-transmission of this opera (with Natalie Dessay as Lucia).

(www.wrti.org/)

If you happen to be a Mozart enthusiast, you're in luck this weekend with 2 separate broadcasts on the schedule, one of which is a recent performance from Amsterdam of "The Magic Flute" to be heard on Radio 4 (the Netherlands).

(www.radio4.nl/)

The other Mozart work on the schedule is his earlier singspiel "The Abduction from the Seraglio" in a LIVE performance from Wiesbaden, to be broadcast on German Radio.

(www.dradio.de/dkultur/)

If you have a soft spot for 19th century Russian opera, you might want to tune in to ORF (Austria) for an October 25, 2014 performance from the Bolshoi of Tchaikovsky's "The Maid of Orleans" -- an opera that should probably be heard as often as his far more popular "Eugene Onegin" (IMO).

(http://oe1.orf.at/)

From Swedish Radio: A LIVE performance from Stockholm of Verdi's "Otello." As is often the case with operas being performed in Sweden these days, on paper the cast may not look too impressive with many unfamiliar names, but the quality of their singing is often top-notch.

(http://sverigesradio.se/p2/)

If listening to "Otello" on Saturday doesn't satisfy your longing to hear the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, the Met is coming to the rescue with 2 more of his operas, FREE & performed LIVE on their website's audio-stream: next Monday evening at 6:55 pm, there's "Don Carlo" in its 5-act version. And if you can't wait till then, tomorrow evening (Thursday) there's "Ernani" with tenor/baritone Placido Domingo singing the role of Carlo.

(www.metopera.org/)

Enjoy!

DAVE

P.S.:

From La Scala, a recent performance of Mozart's "Lucio Silla" (with Italian subtitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=462Dh348usM

A performance from Brussels of Wolfgang Rihm's 1978 opera "Jakob Lenz" is now available for streaming, with subtitles available in either French or Dutch:

http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/mymm/related/event/426/media/2248/Jakob%20Lenz%20-%20Wolfgang%20Rihm/

 You should be able to access the video anytime within the next few weeks

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May choirs of angels lead you to your rest.

Germanwings Airbus A320 plane crash: Opera singers Maria Radner and Oleg Bryjak among 150 dead

Singing "Ulricht" from Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNKtYLJiacw

http://www.olegbryjak.com/

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/french-alps-plane-crash-first-5394571

There will be more memorials--in English--and links to more of their performances in the days to come.  I will  post links to them next week. 

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Mass and Magnificat 

March 28-29, 2015

Antonín Dvořák’s Mass in D major, composed in 1887, was an immediate and lasting success in its orchestrated version. The Singers will perform Dvořák’s original version for chorus and organ, which was not published until 1963. Arvo Pärt’s Magnificat (1989), for chorus a cappella, is a gentle, minimalist work that develops unexpected power and presence. Also on the program are two works of Felix Mendelssohn (Verleih’ uns Frieden and Hear My Prayer), Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria, Charles Villiers Stanford’s Te Deum in B-flat, and John Tavener’s Song for Athene, performed as the recessional at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28, 2015 — Central Congregational Church, Providence  (Directions)

3 p.m. Sunday, Sunday, March 29, 2015 — St Mary's Church, Bristol  (Directions)

Program details 

BUY TICKETS 

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The Met

Saturday afternoon radio broadcast March 28, 2015
12:00 pm ET*

Donizetti's

Lucia di Lammermoor

Benini; 

Shagimuratova, Calleja, Salsa, Miles

*Note earlier starting time

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Leonard Nimoy's Boston
http://www.wgbh.org/programs/Leonard-Nimoys-Boston-2672/episodes/-52363

No opera on 
WGBH this week!

Week of March 19 - March 26, 2015

This week on Rhode Island Public television,

WSBE:  (Comcast 294, Cox 808, Full Channel 109, and Verizon 478)

Saturday, March 21, 2015, 8:00pm

Sunday, March 22, 2015  3:00am

Monday, March 23, 2015 12:00am

Great Performances at the Met

Borodin's

Prince Igor

PRINCE IGOR - Borodin's defining Russian epic, famous for its Polovtsian Dances, comes to the Met for the first time in nearly 100 years. Dmitri Tcherniakov's new production is a psychological journey through the mind of its conflicted hero, with the founding of the Russian nation as the backdrop. Star bass-baritone Ildar Abdrazakov takes on the monumental title role, with Gianandrea Noseda conducting.

SYNOPSIS: http://www.metopera.org/metopera/season/synopsis/prince-igor?customid=786

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Metropolitan Opera Board to

 Have a New President

By MICHAEL COOPER

 MARCH 6, 2015 6:09 PM

The Metropolitan Opera, which has been grappling with serious financial challenges, will soon have a new president of its board of directors.

The current president and chief executive of the board, Kevin W. Kennedy, has decided not to stand for re-election at the Met’s annual meeting in May, and the board’s executive committee has recommended Judith-Ann Corrente be nominated to succeed him, according to an email sent to board members on Friday afternoon that was obtained by The New York Times.

The changing of the guard is being made as the board embarks on a new campaign to double the size of the Met’s endowment fund, which was been weakened by larger-than-usual withdrawals in recent years and is now smaller than a single year’s operating budget.

Ms. Corrente, who is the co-chairwoman of the Met’s new fund-raising campaign, joined its board in 2007 and currently serves as its secretary. Mr. Kennedy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, has been the president of the board since 2011, leading during a tumultuous time in which the Met, facing big expenses and weakened box office receipts, turned to its workers for concessions.

“After standing with management and my fellow board members through the historic negotiations of this past summer, it is time for me to pass the leadership baton,” Mr. Kennedy said in a statement in which he expressed support for Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager.

Ann Ziff will remain the chairwoman of the Met’s board.

The Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, faces big challenges. Its deficit swelled to nearly $22 million last year on an operating budget of $315 million. While the Met has become a prodigious fund-raising machine in recent years, its board members warned last year that donations could not continue to rise faster than the company’s costs.

After acrimonious labor talks, the company’s orchestra, chorus and other unionized workers all accepted their first pay cuts in decades, but the cuts were not as deep as those that were initially sought by management. In the fall some of the Met’s top stars — including Anna Netrebko, Joyce DiDonato, Plácido Domingo and Renée Fleming — agreed to voluntarily cut their fees to help the company in its moment of need.

Mr. Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in an interview that the company was on target to have a balanced budget this year. He praised Mr. Kennedy for his work on behalf of the Met during the past four seasons. “These years, with the added pressure that is on grand opera, maybe every year should count for two,” Mr. Gelb said.

Even with all the cost-cutting, financial risks remain. The Met has once again had to use the enormous Chagall paintings that hang behind its famous arched windows as collateral to secure its line of credit with Bank of America. And Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the company’s credit rating in December, citing the company’s “weakened financial profile.”

The Met is hardly alone: A number of opera companies around the nation and the world have struggled recently, including New York City Opera, which declared bankruptcy and closed; the San Diego Opera, which threatened to shut down last spring but was revived after an outcry; and several European companies that have seen cuts to the government subsidies they rely on.

Mr. Kennedy has been nominated to become an honorary director of the board. In his statement he praised Mr. Gelb for “maintaining the Met’s high artistic quality and giving close attention to its financial challenges.”

Ms. Corrente also serves on the boards of the Lawrenceville School, the Lang Lang International Music Foundation and Emily’s List.

William C. Morris, the chairman of the executive committee of the Met’s board, praised both of them in the email that was sent Friday afternoon to board members.

“We offer our thanks to Kevin for his years of dedicated service on the board and, in particular, for steering us successfully through the most recent union negotiations,’’ he wrote, “and our appreciation to Judith for her willingness to help guide the Met forward in the coming years.”

A version of this article appears in print on 03/09/2015, on page C3 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Change Ahead in Board at Metropolitan Opera.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/metropolitan-opera-board-to-have-a-new-president/?_r=0

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The New Yorker: 

Peter Gelb and

A Fight at the Opera

by JAMES STEWART

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/a-fight-at-the-opera

The New Yorker  has just published an assessment of General Manager Peter Gelb's handling of  the Met Opera’s financial problems; the link is above his photo. 

Here is a link to his profile on the Met web site if you want a little background: 

http://www.metopera.org/metopera/about/whoweare/gelb.aspx

Here is a 2013  New York Times assessment of Gelb:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/magazine/the-epic-ups-and-downs-of-peter-gelb.html?pagewanted=all

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Conductor jokes

http://www.dianewittry.com/tnj_conductor.html

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OPERA ON THE INTERNET 

WITH  

DAVE  D' AGUANNO

Several internet radio stations this coming Saturday afternoon (March 21) will be carrying the LIVE broadcast from the Met of Massenet's "Manon" with soprano Diana Damrau as Manon + tenor Vittorio Grigolo as Des Grieux.

(www.wrti.org/)

French Radio, on the other hand, will be offering a LIVE performance from Lyons of one of Gluck's most popular operas: "Orphee & Eurydice."

(http://sites.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/accueil/)

In addition to recent performances (and even a video) of Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor", Radio 4 (the Netherlands) is bringing us yet another performance of this delightful comedy. This time it's a performance from Lausanne. (BTW, Radio 4's website is being very secretive about when this performance was actually given.)

(http://radio4.nl/)

However, if comic operas are not to your liking, you can always tune in to German Radio this Saturday for a broadcast of Czech composer Zdenek Fibich's incredibly tragic opera from 1884 -- "The Bride of Messina" -- which has been described as "the most Wagnerian" of all his operas. The performance being aired took place in Magdeburg last Saturday (March 14).

(www.dradio.de/dkultur/)

 A performance from Brussels of Wolfgang Rihm's 1978 opera "Jakob Lenz" is now available for streaming, with subtitles available in either French or Dutch:

http://www.lamonnaie.be/en/mymm/related/event/426/media/2248/Jakob%20Lenz%20-%20Wolfgang%20Rihm/

You should be able to access the video anytime within the next few weeks.

Enjoy!

DAVE

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The Met

Saturday afternoon radio broadcast March 21, 2015
12:30 pm ET*

Massenet's

Manon

Villaume; Damrau, Grigolo, Braun, Testé

*Note earlier starting time

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No opera on 
WGBH this week!