Monday, January 07, 2008

'Tis the Season for Season Announcements

And first out of the box is LA Opera, from which I received a press release today with season details. You can find the information posted on their Web site here. Highlights include:
  • Robert Wilson's production of Madama Butterfly
  • The first two installments of the new Ring production, directed by Achim Freyer
  • Il Trittico, with directorial duties shared by William Friedkin and Woody Allen
  • Howard Shore's The Fly, with libretto by David Henry Hwang, directed by David Cronenberg
  • Walter Braunfels's The Birds, part of James Conlon's Recovered Voices project

6 comments:

Henry Holland said...

Wow, an LA Opera season that I'm actually interested in!

Top priority for me is Braunfel's beautiful Die Vogel; what a wonderful opera. Of course, they list the dates wrong, it's April 23 & 26th, not January.

The Ring installments look interesting, though I still wish it was Industrial Light & Magic doing the production. :-)

Love Il Trittico but the rest, meh. You'd have to pay me to sit through another Robert "Total Fraud" Wilson production, because I know exactly what's going to happen without seeing it.

Do you know when SFO is going to announce their season? There had better be Die Tote Stadt on the list or else.....

:-)

Lisa Hirsch said...

Ahaha, SFO is announcing on Jan. 16, a week from Wednesday.

Rumors are Simon Boccanegra with Hvorostovsky; Boheme with Gheorghiu; the new opera The Bonesetter's Daughter, and, yes, Die tote Stadt. I read this in SFCV. :)

Henry Holland said...

Hahaha, SFCV, should have known. :-)

Yes, Die Tote Stadt at SFO, but with Torsten Kerl. :-(

At least the LAO and SFO didn't do the usual "Produce rare opera in the same season" kind of thing. LAO will be doing either Die Tote Stadt or Schreker's incredible Die Gezeichneten in the subsequent two seasons to round off the Recovered Voices project.

For some reason, I've really had a hankering recently of going to a production of Lulu, which was one of the very first operas I attended, back in the late 80's in San Francisco. No chance of *that* under David Gockley, I'd imagine...

Anonymous said...

I *like* Robert Wilson!
well, thats because anyone who does a production with Tom Waits gets my vote, but I digress...
@Henry: is the ILM reference a joke, or have they actually done an opera production or two?

Lisa Hirsch said...

This is the second time LA Opera has announced a forthcoming Ring. The first time, ILM was supposed to be responsible for the production design and effects.

Henry Holland said...

I *like* Robert Wilson! Well, thats because anyone who does a production with Tom Waits gets my vote, but I digress...

It's just that it's all so very predictable, it's the same look, the same gestures, the same total indifference to whatever the composer and librettist indicated they want. For me, his productions are a study in frustration because they don't *add* any understanding to the text or the music but instead just meander along with the singers moving a hand 3 inches over the space of 10 minutes. I mean, Butterfly without any passion or angst? WTF?

The ILM thing was during the Alberto Vilar days, when he was funding opera companies left and right. Once he went belly-up, they had to ditch ILM and go "traditional".