- The production of Don Pasquale seen in 2014 at Santa Fe Opera is a co-production with SFO and the Liceu
- The David McVicar production of Andrea Chenier seen at the ROH is a co-production with SFO. (Somehow I doubt we'll have JK in the title role.)
As I noted a while back, that Les Troyens was on its way to San Francisco was the worst-kept secret in the world....because it was a co-production with SFO that appeared in London and Milan before being seen here.
13 comments:
I'm looking forward to the Andrea Chenier, the production looks like it's *gasp* set in the period that libretto specifies.
Wait, you missed Troyens but you'd come for Andrea Chenier?
(I should have told you 'drive up, stay at my house, and I'll buy your ticket,' because I did wind up buying tickets for several friends. Sorry!!)
Oh, all my trips have big asterisks next to them, my finances are so woeful now that I can't afford to go to a movie, let alone travel anywhere. :-(
I knew about the Pasquale and Chenier and am looking forward to both. The McVicar Adriana Lecouvreur that Paris recently did with Angela Gheorghiu is another SFO co-production. The pictures AG was posting on FB look sumptuous. Since the production has passed the official web page for it is no longer coming up but there's this:
http://www.opera-online.com/en/items/productions/adriana-lecouvreur-opera-national-de-paris-2015-2015
And speaking of co-productions, before our 2015 - 16 season was announced I was sure the Carmen that Houston did in 2014 would be the one we would get since we, along with Chicago were listed a co-producer of it. I was glad that didn't turn out to be as I am really excited for the Bieito production. Maybe the HGO one will pop up later down the line.
Yeah, Bieito! I haven't gone to a Carmen performance in ten years or something and would have skipped this if it weren't him!
Oh, Adriana! I have heard rumors but would it be AG? I thought she was not loved around the opera house these days.
Any other ideas or rumors about future productions very welcome. :)
I don't have any wildly esoteric suggestions, I'm afraid. I do like my Verdi, Rossini, and Puccini.
However, I would like to see at SFO The Passenger by Weinberg, Silent Night by Puts, Béatrice et Bénédict by Berlioz, The Ghosts of Versailles, and Wuthering Heights by Floyd. (The last one on my list is due to my reading the novel at the moment.)
Wuthering Heights is a wild novel - such an intense portrayal of family violence through several generations.
That's a great list, and there are productions around of most of them. There is a Wuthering Heights by Bernard Herrmann as well as the Floyd. I'd be interested in hearing either...no, wait, BOTH of them.
Aha! I want to hear both of them now. BTW, this is my first time with the story of Wuthering Heights in any format, so I don't know the ending! I'm only reading it because of a months' long earworm of the Kate Bush song.
There is a recording of the Herrmann, don't know about the Floyd. The Herrmann was also staged a few years back in Minnesota.
Oh, man! Looking forward to your reaction to the book. Presuming you have not seen any of the many film versions, which range from gauzily beautiful and WRONG to dead-on and RIGHT.
I finished Wuthering Heights and it managed to surprise me. I'd not seen any film or TV adaptation, so I didn't know that [SPOILER ALERT] Cathy died so early and that the effects of Nelly's secrets and broken promises would destroy another generation. I've been told the Olivier film effectively ends with the Cathy and Heathcliff story. I'm curious to know/hear how Herrmann and Floyd deal with the second half of the book, if they do at all. When Cathy and Heathcliff go at it, in love and in argument, the book burns white hot, IMO, and feels fresh and newly written. I think the second half would be a severe challenge for an opera audience because much of the arc is a repeat of the first half, just with different characters. The challenge wouldn't be insurmountable with a clever librettist and a skillful composer. An interpretation revealing Nelly as the major villain in the story could be interesting. This is, no surprise, my own take on the story.
Despite being frustrated by the travails of Catherine 2 and Linton Heathcliff, I'm still haunted by some of the imagery (the snowstorm near the beginning is particulary good, as is the scene where Heathcliff digs up Catherine's coffin), the feelings of being caged felt by both Catherines, and Heathcliff's and Hareton's desperate desire to feel worthy of love and acceptance.
The Olivier film is, very seriously, a travesty. There's a lot of sweet misty romance and heartbreak, none of the violence of the novel.
I have the Herrmann and should at least read the libretto some day. :)
I'll skip the Olivier film, then.
I did find a recording of an excerpt from another operatic treatment of the story: "Vocalise" from Frédéric Chaslin's Wuthering Heights, sung by Diana Damrau. It's more atmospheric than anything else.
Two recordings of "I Have Dreamt" from Herrmann's adaptation are available, one by Kate Royal and the other by Renee Fleming. I know nothing about Royal, but too much about Fleming.
Ahahahaha!
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