- Seven new productions, sixteen revivals.
- There are five operas written after 1900, but with one exception, they're as musically mainstream/conservative/popular as can be: La Rondine, Turandot, Francesca da Rimini, Dialogues of the Carmelites, The Tempest. Alex Ross put it differently: only two operas written since 1950.
- There are four operas written before 1800, and Mozart wrote three of them: Giulio Cesare, Don Giovanni, Nozze, Clemenza di Tito.
- We get more Ring cycles - without Bryn Terfel! - and Parsifal.
- There's a lot of Verdi but it's all popular middle/late Verdi: La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Don Carlo, Un Ballo in Maschera, Aida, Otello. Um, the guy actually knew what he was doing before Rigoletto.
- No Britten. No Adams, no Glass.
Putting it another way, while there's some nice casting, there are only 4.5 (or 5.5) operas I've never seen. The half is Le Comte Ory, which I saw on HD broadcast. The 4 or 5 is because I'm not sure what I saw at Covent Garden in 1982. It might have been Clemenza. I've never seen Maria Stuarda, The Tempest, Francesca or Troyens.
If I lived in NYC, I'd be most excited by The Tempest and Les Troyens, which my regular readers could have guessed. I think had both of them in the first season of Fantasy Opera! Well, okay, I'd be excited by Jonas Kaufmann and Peter Mattei in Parsifal. And by Francesca, a score I like a whole lot. But the cast of Troyens....well, hmm. And although I am not a fan of Dialogues, I'd go for the cast.
Overall, not a season to get super excited about, and it seems a step backwards from the last couple of year's repertory.
Go for the production of DIALOGUES. It's one of the John Dexter ones and the opening scene of the nuns prostrate on the stage is alone worth the ticket.
ReplyDeleteIt's not only the bicentennial of the births of Wagner and Verdi but the centennial of the birth of Benjamin Britten. But Britten does not generally play well at the Met. There's only three performances of BILLY BUDD this year.
That's why I noted that there's no Britten next year.
ReplyDeleteWhether I come for Dialogues depends on what's playing at the same time. I don't like the music much.