The top opera companies apparently went on a hunt this summer for the very best appetizers to get us crazies cozy for the 2015-2016 season, and they definitely hit the lazy mechanic square in the forehead. The Met's "Otello" turned out to be, in a word, phenomenal, and the "Il Trovatore" that was the big button for this year's HD series was nothing less than triumphant, thanks in no little part to Dmitri Hvorostovsky's return to the stage. Those closest to him are rightly concerned about his recovery more than they are concerned about his contribution to great music, but he has found a will and a way to make his fans clap and whistle once again, (They kept him standing for an extra few minutes before and after the three- hour opera, shouting and applauding, but the orchestra tossed him some roses to perfume his tiredness) waving legato around like a twenty-year-old on a "Tannhauser" trip in the role of Count di Luna. We're all hoping that the "Silver Fox" doesn't push himself too far as he continues with his greatly anticipated comeback. La Scala hasn't been as hyper in its advertising, but that may not mean that the cast of their planned "Wozzeck" is one that will be unworthy of any critic's gold. The greater possibility is that they've aimed for a smash hit at the outset but want us to be surprised somehow when they make the bullseye, as if we're totally in the dark on the subject after the success of their run of "L'Elisir d'Amore" performances. Whatever the case, there's plenty to be excited about as autumn continues to march with winds of music that just might blow some of us five hundred feet toward a restraining order (Some are a little more passionate about their favorite divas and divos than others... Or, so I've heard...).
The Stars
It seems the calves in the corral are getting their horns and are thrusting toward the bull ring, ready to compete with the fame of such thundering former stage animals as Mirella Freni, Victoria de Los Angeles, and Mario del Monaco. While we see a Russian trend in the training and career- making of most of the popular sopranos lately emerging (Our thanks to the Mariinsky and Bolshoi.) including Aida Garifullina, Ekaterina Gavrilova, and Olga Peratyatko, still more talent comes to us from places many reviewers ten or fifteen years ago wrote their lamentations over as having lost long kept reputations for churning out one legend after another. Okay, so I'm talking specifically about Italy, but should I be criticized for not wanting to point fingers? Anyway, Maria Agresta, Cecilia Bartoli, and Vittorio Grigolo have been working to show us that all the chatter doesn't matter now. Born and trained in the opera world's Mesopotamia, each of them has stridden across the planet boasting a repertoire that can raise the eyebrows of anyone who's nuts for the twentieth century greats. Agresta, having taken on several other giant Bel Canto roles since having begun her career officially in 2007, will debut as Elvira from Bellini's "I Puritani" in November. The seasoned Bartoli, now near the end of her twenty- sixth year on stage, will tour Europe with top Mexican tenor, Rolando Villazon, in December. Grigolo, who holds the record as the youngest tenor to ever sing at La Scala, Milan, is presently powering up for what is to be for him almost a full season of Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore," (Twice in a post. Must be good, no? Wink, wink...) intending to get his name into the mix of just a few others associated with making one of the most intimidating parts in the repertory sound as easy as Stevie Wonder's "Too Shy to Say."
The Stars
It seems the calves in the corral are getting their horns and are thrusting toward the bull ring, ready to compete with the fame of such thundering former stage animals as Mirella Freni, Victoria de Los Angeles, and Mario del Monaco. While we see a Russian trend in the training and career- making of most of the popular sopranos lately emerging (Our thanks to the Mariinsky and Bolshoi.) including Aida Garifullina, Ekaterina Gavrilova, and Olga Peratyatko, still more talent comes to us from places many reviewers ten or fifteen years ago wrote their lamentations over as having lost long kept reputations for churning out one legend after another. Okay, so I'm talking specifically about Italy, but should I be criticized for not wanting to point fingers? Anyway, Maria Agresta, Cecilia Bartoli, and Vittorio Grigolo have been working to show us that all the chatter doesn't matter now. Born and trained in the opera world's Mesopotamia, each of them has stridden across the planet boasting a repertoire that can raise the eyebrows of anyone who's nuts for the twentieth century greats. Agresta, having taken on several other giant Bel Canto roles since having begun her career officially in 2007, will debut as Elvira from Bellini's "I Puritani" in November. The seasoned Bartoli, now near the end of her twenty- sixth year on stage, will tour Europe with top Mexican tenor, Rolando Villazon, in December. Grigolo, who holds the record as the youngest tenor to ever sing at La Scala, Milan, is presently powering up for what is to be for him almost a full season of Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore," (Twice in a post. Must be good, no? Wink, wink...) intending to get his name into the mix of just a few others associated with making one of the most intimidating parts in the repertory sound as easy as Stevie Wonder's "Too Shy to Say."
The Big Opus Openings
Aficionados always get excited when new music comes to the stage, and I'm thinking the classical recording industry will be treating us all sometime within the next few months to some very sweet stuff. This year of premieres has already started with Matthew Aucoin's "Second Nature," which, composed with the crowds of "Little Einsteins" and Tim Burton in mind, was greeted with quite a bit of excitement in August. With the success Aucoin's already found at twenty-five, he continues to inspire directors, critics, and conductors to take up writing desk corner poetry about the comeback of the Mozart type and the shrinking they feel their own creative reps doing in its wake. On December 7, "Bel Canto" will have its world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The musical miracle worker of this package is Jimmy Lopez, who, at thirty- six, is near the top of the list of the active composers critics just luhhhhv to brag about. The work is based on Ann Patchett's literary hurricane of the same title, which only serves to build extra thrill, most of the best operas out there having been based on literature of one kind or another. Perhaps the most interesting event this coming season will be the initial performance of Emily Hall's "Found and Lost," set for January of 2016 at London's Corinthia Hotel, where the audience will get grand and gussied to "move with the music," promenading from door to door, scene to scene, surrounded by song that begins upon a step off an elevator or the opening of a door and develops a night very literally lived in opera. Maybe Hall knows a story she can set to music that involves, say, a movie theatre in the Southwestern U.S.? What? Can't a guy dream of local operatic innovation?
More Stuff for Buffs
So, I'm still bumming over the fact that I've not yet gotten in on the joy of the biggest operatic recording smash of the decade, "Callas Remastered," but there is other work of the studios for me to be excited about, or, at least, deeply amused by the knowledge of, as I dry my cheeks and shake a bottle of Belvedere over a shot glass for one last poisonous drop, muttering "Maria" over and over like a man with greater regrets. Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu, and Jonas Kaufmann may all perch on plates of the music industry's royal gold at the end of the day, but their passion for great art hasn't been muted by their lives' polygamus matrimony with critical success, and it shows in their latest recorded efforts, "A Night with Renee Fleming," "Werther," and "Last Night of the Proms." Always getting and giving, these love-ed ones. Don't forget to lend a little of your operatic psychosis to this year's winner of the "Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording," Paul O'Dette's, Steven Stubbs's, Aaron Sheehan's, and Renate Wolter Seever's studio production of Charpentier's "La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers."
Aficionados always get excited when new music comes to the stage, and I'm thinking the classical recording industry will be treating us all sometime within the next few months to some very sweet stuff. This year of premieres has already started with Matthew Aucoin's "Second Nature," which, composed with the crowds of "Little Einsteins" and Tim Burton in mind, was greeted with quite a bit of excitement in August. With the success Aucoin's already found at twenty-five, he continues to inspire directors, critics, and conductors to take up writing desk corner poetry about the comeback of the Mozart type and the shrinking they feel their own creative reps doing in its wake. On December 7, "Bel Canto" will have its world premiere at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The musical miracle worker of this package is Jimmy Lopez, who, at thirty- six, is near the top of the list of the active composers critics just luhhhhv to brag about. The work is based on Ann Patchett's literary hurricane of the same title, which only serves to build extra thrill, most of the best operas out there having been based on literature of one kind or another. Perhaps the most interesting event this coming season will be the initial performance of Emily Hall's "Found and Lost," set for January of 2016 at London's Corinthia Hotel, where the audience will get grand and gussied to "move with the music," promenading from door to door, scene to scene, surrounded by song that begins upon a step off an elevator or the opening of a door and develops a night very literally lived in opera. Maybe Hall knows a story she can set to music that involves, say, a movie theatre in the Southwestern U.S.? What? Can't a guy dream of local operatic innovation?
More Stuff for Buffs
So, I'm still bumming over the fact that I've not yet gotten in on the joy of the biggest operatic recording smash of the decade, "Callas Remastered," but there is other work of the studios for me to be excited about, or, at least, deeply amused by the knowledge of, as I dry my cheeks and shake a bottle of Belvedere over a shot glass for one last poisonous drop, muttering "Maria" over and over like a man with greater regrets. Renee Fleming, Angela Gheorghiu, and Jonas Kaufmann may all perch on plates of the music industry's royal gold at the end of the day, but their passion for great art hasn't been muted by their lives' polygamus matrimony with critical success, and it shows in their latest recorded efforts, "A Night with Renee Fleming," "Werther," and "Last Night of the Proms." Always getting and giving, these love-ed ones. Don't forget to lend a little of your operatic psychosis to this year's winner of the "Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording," Paul O'Dette's, Steven Stubbs's, Aaron Sheehan's, and Renate Wolter Seever's studio production of Charpentier's "La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers."
Certainly this isn't the end of the list of anti- unmusical-life-related-brain-buzz pills the theatre will shove at us this season, but, having finished my opera buff bibbabbling for the night, I'm definitely hyped. Keep coming back here for more on the goings on these next few months, and don't forget to give Everyone's Opera's Facebook page a look for video content. Until next time, my friends, happy opera loving!
All photos and their owners are protected under the creative commons license here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ The photos here used are "Thunderstorm Cloud Reflection" by Tim Hamilton, The Knight's Foundation's "Florida Grand Opera," and "Sydney Opera House at Night," by Andrew Fysh
All photos and their owners are protected under the creative commons license here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ The photos here used are "Thunderstorm Cloud Reflection" by Tim Hamilton, The Knight's Foundation's "Florida Grand Opera," and "Sydney Opera House at Night," by Andrew Fysh
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