Opera

Subterms

    Latest story

    113 Shares145 Views

    Renée Fleming, Star Soprano, Tries Out the Director’s Chair

    by

    A young soprano was rehearsing a difficult aria from Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” when the director stopped her and made a suggestion.“I always liked to lay down for this part,” the director said, “because it lets the body relax.”It’s not every opera director who can talk about performing choices in the first person. But on that summer afternoon in Aspen, Colo., the woman staging the scene was Renée Fleming, perhaps the most famous soprano of recent decades. Fleming was passing on a career’s worth of accumulated wisdom to a cast in which the oldest singer is 32.Among her lessons was when to say no.“Just remember, you’re going to be more nervous onstage than you are now,” Fleming said as the group worked on some aerobics-style choreography for the production, set in the early 1980s. “So maybe don’t do these jumps, because even if you can sing while you’re doing them now, you’re going to be out of breath on opening night.”Fleming is making her directing debut with this “Così,” which opens on Monday at the Wheeler Opera House as part of the Aspen Music Festival and School, one of the country’s most prestigious summer programs for rising artists.The soprano Lauren Carroll (left, with Fleming) is singing Fiordiligi, Fleming’s old role.Matthew Defeo for The New York TimesShe joins a select group of divas (and divos) turned directors. This fall, the tenor Rolando Villazón’s production of Bellini’s “La Sonnambula” comes to the Metropolitan Opera. And the mezzo Denyce Graves is staging Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha” for Washington National Opera next year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 125 Shares156 Views

      in Movies

      A New ‘Billy Budd’ Opera Premieres at the Aix Festival

      by

      An adaptation of the Benjamin Britten opera, in turn based on Melville’s classic novella, joins a lineage of beautiful enigmas.Billy Budd is a beautiful mystery. He is young, with a smooth and feminine face, but he doesn’t know his background; all he can say is that, as a baby, he was found in a silk-lined basket, hanging from the knocker of a door.One thing is certain in Herman Melville’s novella “Billy Budd”: This handsome sailor is good, gentle by nature and loyal to his shipmates, who call him Baby and find peace just by being in his presence.To Billy’s “good” Melville adds allegorically pure evil in the ship’s master-at-arms, John Claggart, and unbending virtue in Captain Vere. Like the legs of a stool, those characteristics hold up the drama of “Billy Budd,” which was left unfinished at Melville’s death in 1891 and wasn’t published until the 1920s.The story of Billy Budd, stammering and precious, then sacrificed to a strict idea of justice after he accidentally but fatally strikes Claggart, has intrigued readers ever since with its opacity and open-endedness. E.M. Forster called the novella “an easy book, as long as we read it as a yarn.” But tug at the thread, and it unravels into a pile of unanswerable questions: about desire, about morality, about the microcosmic world of a ship at sea.Perhaps that is why adaptations of “Billy Budd,” onstage and onscreen, have been so different. Each is as much an act of interpretation as translation, adopting a specific perspective, examining Billy’s tragedy through a particular character or idea.The latest version, a sexy and ingenious one-act called “The Story of Billy Budd, Sailor,” ran at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France earlier this month. It’s an adaptation of an adaptation: a chamber treatment, by the director Ted Huffman and the composer Oliver Leith, of Benjamin Britten’s 1951 opera “Billy Budd.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares148 Views

      in Theater

      John Conklin, Designer of Fantastical Opera Sets, Dies at 88

      by

      Realizing a childhood dream, he created scenery that was highly conceptual yet playful for the Glimmerglass Festival, New York City Opera and other companies.John Conklin, a celebrated designer of scenery for opera and theater, who tapped a boundless knowledge of music and art history, as well as an instinct for disruption, to create memorable sets for New York City Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera and, most notably, the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York, died on June 24 in Cooperstown, N.Y. He was 88.His death was confirmed in a statement by Glimmerglass, the nonprofit summer opera company in Cooperstown.Mr. Conklin was the scenic designer for all four shows of this year’s summer season at the Glimmerglass Festival, including “Tosca,” above.Kayleen Bertrand/the Glimmerglass FestivalMr. Conklin designed the scenery — and, in some cases, the costumes — for more than 40 Glimmerglass productions, starting in 1991. He remained active with the company even after his retirement in 2008, and he served as the scenic designer for all four shows of this summer’s season: “Tosca,” “Sunday in the Park With George,” “The House on Mango Street” and “The Rake’s Progress.”Mr. Conklin also designed the 2025 Glimmerglass production of “Sunday in the Park With George.”Brent DeLanoy/the Glimmerglass FestivalThe term “prodigy” rarely applies to set designers, but Mr. Conklin’s instincts were on full display in his youth. Growing up in Hartford, Conn., he attended symphonies and operas with his family, and by 10, he was building his own models, based on photographs he found perusing the magazine Opera News.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares90 Views

      in Music

      A New Era at the Berlin State Opera Begins With Strauss

      by

      Christian Thielemann’s inaugural new production as the general music director of the Berlin State Opera is the rarity “Die Schweigsame Frau.”Richard Strauss’s opera “Die Schweigsame Frau,” or “The Silent Woman,” was already a relic from a disappearing world by the time it was first performed.In this rarely seen work from 1935, an old man longs for company but is enraged by bustle and noise. When a beloved nephew reveals that he has taken up with a troupe of performers, the man, Sir Morosus, disinherits him and vows to marry. The nephew, Henry, responds with an elaborate prank, tricking Morosus into a fake wedding.The ostensible lesson: There is no such thing as a quiet wife.Despite feminist progress at the time, the opera reprised stereotypes about women as nags; in a period of musical experimentation, it worked largely within traditional idioms. And it made withdrawal seem noble when engagement was urgent.A year before the opera opened, its librettist, the eminent Jewish author Stefan Zweig, fled his home in Austria for London. After the premiere, it was quickly banned by the Nazi Party; Strauss was forced out of his post as president of the Reich Music Chamber even though he wrote an ingratiating letter to Hitler.“Perhaps it sparkles too much with soul and wit for today’s world,” Strauss wrote about the opera in a letter. “But there is still the 21st century!”Indeed. On Saturday, a new production of “Die Schweigsame Frau” will open at the Berlin State Opera. The event will be a first three times over: the first performance of the piece at the house, where Strauss worked regularly for 20 years and led over a thousand performances; the first new production overseen by Christian Thielemann as the company’s general music director; and Thielemann’s first time leading the opera after conducting most of Strauss’s other stage works.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares87 Views

      in Music

      Damiano Michieletto Is Bringing ‘West Side Story’ to Rome

      by

      It was the morning of the dress rehearsal for Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” at the Baths of Caracalla, the ancient ruins that are the traditional summertime venue for the Rome Opera, and the show’s director, Damiano Michieletto, was concerned.“Some of the Jets have problems with precise pronunciation,” he said.After deciding to do the musical in English rather than in translation, he did not have the funds to hire a full American cast for the Jets, a gang rumbling to take the streets of New York. You could tell, he fretted. (The diction was less of a problem with the Sharks, the rival Puerto Rican gang, he said, “because Italian, you know, that works.”)That might have been his least concern. This year, Michieletto was given free rein to come up with the program for the Rome Opera’s summer Caracalla Festival, which runs until Aug. 7, keeping in mind that 2025 is a Jubilee year for the Catholic Church expected to draw millions of pilgrims with varying musical tastes to Rome. In a break from past programming, he decided that the first major new production would be “West Side Story.” A musical — gasp — was headlining one of Italy’s most highbrow cultural stages and was an unusual choice in a country where musicals are considered a minor genre and often dismissed.A musical headlining one of Italy’s most highbrow cultural stages is an unusual choice in a country where musicals are often dismissed.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesThat did not faze Michieletto, who over the past 20 years has built a reputation as a visionary, nonconformist, at times over-the-top, director whose work is in demand across Europe. In September, he will make his debut at a major American opera house with Rossini’s “Il Viaggio a Reims” at Opera Philadelphia. There he will be presenting a revival of a much-lauded version first staged in Amsterdam in 2015 and reprised several times since.For his new work at the Caracalla Festival — which this year is titled “Between the Sacred and the Human” because it casts a wide musical net, from a staged production of Handel’s oratorio “The Resurrection” to “West Side Story” — he opted to focus on the electric energy of a work that was directed and based on an idea by Jerome Robbins, one of the great choreographers of his generation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares175 Views

      in Music

      Salzburg Festival Welcomes Peter Eotvos’ Opera “Three Sisters”

      by

      Peter Eotvos’s “Three Sisters,” based on the 1900 play by Anton Chekhov, is at the festival this year for the first time.On a hot, drizzly afternoon in late June, a rehearsal of Peter Eotvos’s “Three Sisters,” one of the four new opera productions at this summer’s Salzburg Festival, erupted in dainty tinkling.The opera’s cast members sat in the middle of a rehearsal room and tapped spoons against empty teacups. The conductor Maxime Pascal, flanked by two pianos, nodded approvingly at the sounds of clinking, clattering and rattling. On the large copy of the score that lay in front of him, each tap was precisely notated, and there was a visual key illustrating different techniques: tapping with the tip or the stem of a teaspoon, continuous stirring, and setting a spoon down on a saucer.“Peter wrote this moment because it’s a bit boring,” Pascal explained with a slight chuckle during a break in the rehearsal. “The three sisters are very bored, and there is this kind of melancholy.”Based on Anton Chekhov’s 1900 play about siblings in a Russian provincial town who dream of a better, more fulfilling life in Moscow, the opera is unconventional in ways that are, by turns, playful and daring.The four main female characters — Olga, Masha and Irina as well as their sister-in-law, Natasha — are performed by countertenors, the highest male voice type. In addition to china and cutlery, the score calls for two musical groups: a pit band (referred to as the ensemble) of 18 instruments that are identified with specific characters, and a 50-piece orchestra that plays from elsewhere in the theater. (For the Salzburg performances, the orchestra will play from a large hidden balcony that is behind and above the rows of seating in the Felsenreitschule, a cavernous indoor theater that is carved into a cliff.)Alphonse Cemin conducting instrumentalists during a “Three Sisters” rehearsal. Eotvos wrote the score for two musical groups, a pit band featuring 18 instruments, and a 50-piece orchestra that plays elsewhere in the theater.Matteo de Mayda for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares175 Views

      in Music

      Asmik Grigorian Brings “A Diva Is Born” to the Salzburg Festival

      by

      Asmik Grigorian will return to the role of Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s “Macbeth” and present her pop-infused comic recital “A Diva Is Born.”When the soprano Asmik Grigorian took on the title role of Strauss’s “Salome” at the Salzburg Festival, in 2018, the summer event found a new reigning diva.With a voice of lush power and a raw authenticity that shines through in every character, the Lithuanian artist has become one of today’s most sought operatic performers, in Vienna, currently her home city; London; Milan; and beyond.But she has flouted conventions of stardom and challenged audiences’ expectations. Onstage, she pushes well-known characters to dramatic extremes; offstage, she often stares into the camera with a defiantly non-glamorous expression.In August, she will return to Salzburg as Lady Macbeth in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s staging of Verdi’s “Macbeth,” first seen there in 2023. And on Aug. 24, with the pianist Hyung-ki Joo, she will present the comic recital “A Diva Is Born.”The “Diva” show debuted in May of last year at the Vienna State Opera — where it will return this December — and was recently performed in Vilnius, Lithuania, where Grigorian was born and raised.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares171 Views

      in Music

      This Year’s Aix-en-Provence Festival Is Pierre Audi’s Last Act

      by

      This year’s edition of the Aix-en-Provence Festival was planned by Audi but opened without him, following his death in May.As a small, invited audience trickled into the Grand Théâtre de Provence on Sunday morning, they were greeted with a large portrait of Pierre Audi projected above the stage. It was a solemn photograph, black and white, with Audi staring directly into the camera. But on closer inspection, it was surprisingly casual: His collar was imperfect, as was the lapel of his jacket, and a slight smile hinted at a deeper warmth.The crowd, made up of his friends, colleagues and family, had gathered at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France to memorialize Audi, a mighty force in the performing arts, who died in May at 67. As the festival’s general director, he had already finished plans for this year’s edition, which began last week. But Audi was never really done with a show until opening night. He was known to visit the rehearsals for each Aix production, gently offering what help he could.“When I think of Pierre,” the opera director Claus Guth said in a speech at the memorial, “I always have immediately one image of him in front of me: Pierre sitting in the audience like a rock, listening.”Guth paused, then added that “pierre” is French for “rock,” and that “audi” suggests listening. “He was watching the actors, he was listening, but there was something parallel, as if he would look through what was happening onstage,” he said. “He would look into the soul of a composer, the soul of the artist performing, of the person inventing. He had deep knowledge and intuition, and could look beyond.”What did Audi see in those moments? Having spent his career as an impresario and director restlessly seeking new ways to present the performing arts, he might have been seeing possibility. He looked at a building in London that had fallen on hard times and pictured the groundbreaking Almeida Theater; he looked at an abandoned, graffiti-covered stadium off a Provençal highway and saw a cavernous new stage for Aix. In his last decade, he programmed the Park Avenue Armory, whose enormous drill hall he filled with the kind of shows found almost nowhere else in New York.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares195 Views

      in Music

      In Des Moines, Big Operas and Big Ambitions Fill a Tiny Theater

      by

      Richard Wagner may be the opera composer most associated with epic grandeur: huge orchestras, huger sets. I never imagined I’d hear a full performance of one of his works while sitting just a few feet from the singers.But Des Moines Metro Opera, a four-week summer festival founded in 1973 and running this year through July 20, has made a specialty of squeezing pieces usually done in front of thousands into a startlingly intimate space. The company’s 476-seat theater wraps the stage around the pit and juts deep into the audience, drawing even the last row into the action.At the opening of Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” in the last week of June, the bass-baritone Ryan McKinny could brood in a murmur as the endlessly wandering captain of the title, while the choruses of raucous sailors were ear-shakingly visceral. It registered when the subtlest Mona Lisa smile crossed the face of Julie Adams as Senta, whose romantic obsession leads her to sacrifice everything for the Dutchman. Try that at the Met.Miye Bishop as the Dragonfly in “The Cunning Little Vixen,” with high-definition LED video by the designer and filmmaker Oyoram.Kathryn Gamble for The New York Times“When you first get here, it’s a little intimidating,” said the mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce, a Des Moines regular in recent years. “There’s no hiding, or even trying to. Everything is in hyper detail. Everything is in close-up.”The effect would be striking enough in Mozart or chamber opera. But the company has made a habit of putting on big, challenging works of a sort rarely if ever done in theaters so small: “Salome,” “Elektra,” “Pelléas et Mélisande,” “Billy Budd,” “Peter Grimes” and “Wozzeck,” with modest adjustments to some orchestrations, given a pit that fits about 65 musicians.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More