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      Europe’s Opera Stages Next Season: What to See

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      Among our critic’s recommendations are multiple “Ring” cycles, a premiere by Ellen Reid and the soprano Lise Davidsen in Strauss’s “Salome.”Keeping up with opera in Europe is a nearly impossible task. There never seems to be enough time, or money, to see all that the continent has to offer across its many storied houses. Many of the most important among them have announced their 2023-24 seasons. Here are some highlights, in chronological order.‘Das Rheingold’The Royal Opera House in London embarks on the multiseason effort of staging Wagner’s four-opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen” with its first installment (Sept. 11-29) right as its music director, Antonio Pappano, enters his final season there. He will be back to conduct the other three, though, lending a sense of cohesion to this new staging by the reliably entertaining Barrie Kosky, starring Christopher Maltman as Wotan. Not long after, another major “Ring” begins at the Monnaie in Brussels, where the symbol-happy abstractionist Romeo Castellucci’s productions of “Das Rheingold” (Oct. 24-Nov. 9) and “Die Walküre” (Jan. 21-Feb. 11) will follow in quick succession.Antonio Pappano will conduct “Das Rheingold” at the Royal Opera House in London. This season will be Pappano’s last as the house’s music director.Victor Llorente for The New York Times‘Das Floss der Medusa’As the Komische Oper in Berlin closes for renovations, the company enters a nomadic period familiar to its neighbor, the Berlin State Opera, which for years operated out of the Schiller Theater, where many of the Komische’s productions will be presented next season. But it will also branch out, including with its new staging, by the sleekly smart Tobias Kratzer of Hans Werner Henze’s “Das Floss der Medusa” (“The Raft of the Medusa”), inside a hangar at the disused Tempelhof Airport (Sept. 16-Oct. 2).‘Aida’The provocateur Calixto Bieito’s production of Verdi’s “Aida” at Theater Basel over a decade ago has been described as a difficult, even disturbing depiction of immigration in Europe. His new staging, at the Berlin State Opera (Oct. 3-29), is being billed more modestly, as homing in on the work’s intimacy, and as mining the tension between the opera and the politics of its time. Nicola Luisotti conducts a cast that includes the tenor Yusif Eyvazov as Radamès and the bass René Pape as Ramfis.‘Masque of Might’Masques, which were something like variety shows in the 17th century, get contemporary treatment in this Opera North pastiche from the inveterate director David Pountney touring northern England (Oct. 6-Nov. 16). The hope is to give Henry Purcell — one of his country’s essential composers and, in Pountney’s view, its greatest creator of stage music until Benjamin Britten — his due as a writer for the theater. So, rather than revive Purcell’s only opera, “Dido and Aeneas,” Pountney has assembled bits and pieces from elsewhere in his output for a new show on topical contemporary themes.‘Antony & Cleopatra’After its premiere in San Francisco this season, John Adams’s latest opera, an intricate yet flowing adaptation of Shakespeare, travels to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain (Oct. 28-Nov. 8). One of the stars it was written for, the soprano Julia Bullock, missed the earlier run because she was pregnant, but she will be back, with the rest of the principal cast, for this revival, directed by Elkhanah Pulitzer. Adams, who famously revises his scores, will be at the conductor’s podium.John Adams’s “Antony & Cleopatra” will come to the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain, in the fall after an earlier staging in California.Cory Weaver‘Götterdämmerung’Yes, more of the “Ring.” The Zurich Opera House’s cycle, conducted by its general music director, Gianandrea Noseda, and directed by Andreas Homoki, its artistic leader, reaches its conclusion with the premiere of “Götterdämmerung,” starring the elegant, mighty soprano Camilla Nylund as Brünnhilde and the ethereal-voiced tenor Klaus Florian Vogt as Siegfried (Nov. 5-Dec. 3). Then, the whole “Ring” will be presented in cycles in spring 2024, with performers including Tomasz Konieczny as Wotan and Christopher Purves as Alberich (May 3-9 and 18-26).‘Le Grand Macabre’György Ligeti’s only opera — an apocalyptic dark comedy of dizzying eclecticism — was widely seen in the years immediately after its 1978 premiere. These days, a performance of it feels like more of a special occasion; but next season, there are two to choose from. At the Vienna State Opera, Jan Lauwers, who directed a strident revival of Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza 1960” at the Salzburg Festival, helms a new production conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado (Nov. 11-23). Then, at the Bavarian State Opera, the work will be presented in a new staging by the cerebral Krzysztof Warlikowski, conducted by one of that house’s former general music directors, Kent Nagano (June 28-July 7).Gustavo Dudamel, the Paris Opera’s music director, will conduct a new production of Thomas Adès’s “The Exterminating Angel.”Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images‘The Exterminating Angel’Thomas Adès’s third opera — one of the finest so far this century — seemed to have a future threatened by its own ambition. With an enormous (which is to say expensive) cast of principal characters and an orchestra of Wagnerian scale, it was not exactly inviting revivals. Yet there it is on the schedule for the Paris Opera’s coming season — with a less starry cast than its early runs at the Salzburg Festival and the Metropolitan Opera, perhaps, but with a new production from Calixto Bieito, and the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, the company’s music director and a sure hand in Adès’s music (Feb. 29-March 23).Ellen Reid presents her opera “The Shell Trial” at the Dutch National Opera in March 2024.Erin Baiano‘The Shell Trial’The Dutch National Opera, which in the past couple of seasons has been a font of successful world premieres like Michel van der Aa’s “Upload” and Alexander Raskatov’s “Animal Farm,” has now commissioned the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ellen Reid, whose “The Shell Trial” will be introduced at the house’s Opera Forward Festival (March 16-21). Inspired by a Dutch court’s 2021 ruling that the Shell company was legally responsible for contributing to climate change, it will feature Julia Bullock, a star of “Upload,” in the dual role of the Law and the Artist.‘Salome’Everything on this list has been a new production or a premiere. But opera is an art form that thrives on revivals of repertory classics, and on hearing the stars of today revisit the works, and productions, of the past. One of those singers is the soprano Lise Davidsen, who tends to astonish in her role debuts, like her Marschallin in “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Metropolitan Opera recently. Coming soon is more Strauss, when she takes on the title character in his “Salome” at the Paris Opera, in Lydia Steier’s staging, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth (May 9-28). More

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      A Drone Opera, Brought to You by General Dynamics? A Company Clarifies.

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      “Grounded,” a new work about the psychological toll of drone warfare, drew scrutiny after its presenter, Washington National Opera, advertised the support of a major military contractor.When the Washington National Opera announced that it would open its coming season with the premiere of “Grounded,” a new opera exploring the psychological toll of drone warfare, its star composer, Jeanine Tesori, got less attention than its listed sponsor: General Dynamics, the military contractor.Anger erupted online, with critics accusing Washington National Opera of serving as a mouthpiece for the defense industry. A think tank that advocates military restraint labeled it a “killer drone opera.” New York magazine gave the opera a “despicable” rating on its Approval Matrix, describing it as “the drone-bombing opera ‘Grounded,’ sponsored by General Dynamics.” RT, a state-owned Russian news outlet, said the work showed the strength of the American military-industrial complex.The creative team behind “Grounded,” an adaptation of an acclaimed Off Broadway play, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which commissioned the opera, grew disturbed by how the new opera was being portrayed. They worked behind the scenes to push the Washington National Opera to make it clear that General Dynamics, which has been a major sponsor of the opera company since 1997, had nothing to do with the creation of the opera.“I felt action was needed to guarantee that the audience would see ‘Grounded’ knowing that it is solely the work of its creators,” Tesori, a major Broadway composer who has expanded into opera, said in a statement to The New York Times. She added that she had only recently become aware of the philanthropic support of General Dynamics.The composer Jeanine Tesori said that “action was needed to guarantee that the audience would see ‘Grounded’ knowing that it is solely the work of its creators.”An Rong Xu for The New York TimesOn Tuesday, after days of negotiations, Washington National Opera posted a statement seeking some distance from its benefactor.“For the sake of clarity,” the statement said, “no sponsor or supporter of W.N.O. had any involvement in the creation of ‘Grounded’ or in the contents of its libretto.”The company changed its website, whose “Grounded” page had described General Dynamics as its “presenting sponsor,” to clarify that the company is a “W.N.O. season sponsor.” It also rewrote its promotional text for the opera, removing some militaristic language, including a line that had described its protagonist as a “hot shot F-16 fighter pilot, an elite warrior trained for the sky” and a line noting that “war ‘with all the benefits of home’ isn’t clear-cut.” The new description cut a reference to the “horror of war.”An early rendering of the set of the opera “Grounded.”Design and rendering by Mimi LienThe episode highlights the difficulties that cultural institutions sometimes face in protecting the integrity of their art while cultivating rich donors. The Kennedy Center, the parent organization of Washington National Opera, has in recent years faced pressure to cut ties with some benefactors, including tobacco companies.General Dynamics has long been a sponsor of Washington National Opera, providing more than $500,000 to the company each year in recent years. Gregory S. Gallopoulos, a senior vice president at General Dynamics, is a member of the opera company’s board.Timothy O’Leary, the general director of Washington National Opera, said in an interview that General Dynamics had no input on “Grounded,” or any other works.“No sponsor has any say in our artistic decisions, or ever could,” he said. “Any sponsor who tried to interfere in that way is not a sponsor from whom we would accept support.”The “Grounded” opera, adapted from a play by George Brant, was announced by the Met in 2017, part of an effort by the company to promote contemporary opera. The Met agreed to co-produce the opera with Washington National Opera ahead of its planned Met premiere in 2025.The New York Times described the play it is based on as a “haunting portrait of a woman serving in the United States Armed Forces coming under pressure as the human cost of war, for combatants as well as civilians, slowly eats away at her well-armored psyche.”Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, described the work as an “antiwar opera” and said that it provided a nuanced portrayal of the costs of war. He said he had advised his counterparts in Washington to take swift action once concerns started spreading on social media about the opera’s support from General Dynamics.“If this misperception was not corrected, it would be very bad for the work,” he said in an interview. “The work would be somehow tainted before anybody ever got a chance to see it.”General Dynamics on Tuesday declined to comment on the controversy, but said in a statement, “We are proud to support the arts.”Phebe N. Novakovic, the chairman and chief executive of General Dynamics since 2013, is an opera buff who grew up listening to recordings on a Victrola record player with her Serbian grandmother. Shortly after she rose to the top of the company, General Dynamics became a full-season sponsor of Washington National Opera.When asked in a 2016 interview why the company was such a big supporter of the opera, Novakovic cited her grandmother’s influence.“I have honored both her memory and my love of that form of human expression through supporting the opera,” she said at the Economic Club of Washington. “We get folks from all over our company coming to the opera.” More

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      When La Scala Is Sold Out, You Can Still Get In (Online)

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      The opera house’s new streaming service provides live and on-demand performances, as well as extras like backstage glimpses and educational programs.La Scala’s audience can now be anywhere.The opera house in Milan is sharing select performances online through LaScalaTv, a platform that started streaming in February. Its first live offering was a broadcast of Verdi’s opera “I Vespri siciliani,” conducted by Fabio Luisi and featuring such soloists as Marina Rebeka and Luca Micheletti.The program also includes concerts and ballets. On May 11, Alberto Malazzi conducts “Petite Messe Solennelle” by Rossini, to commemorate the anniversary of La Scala’s restoration and reopening after World War II. The ballet “Romeo and Juliet” by Sergei Prokofiev takes the screen to choreography by Kenneth MacMillan on June 28.The on-demand library also includes performances for children, starting with a staged concert based on carnival celebrations called “Lalla & Skali and … the Enchanted Mask.”The platform is part of a wider effort to modernize La Scala’s infrastructure, including an extensive educational outreach program using the technology and plans for subtitles on seat backs.Mirjam Schiavello, left, and Matteo Sala in a performance of “Lalla and Skali and … the Enchanted Mask” at La Scala, part of the house’s on-demand offerings for children.Brescia and Amisano/Teatro alla ScalaDominique Meyer, the theater’s current artistic director and chief executive, said that technological advances in recent years had made it easier for an opera house to widen its reach.“It is a real leap,” he said, recalling the difficulties he faced in 2013 when starting a platform for the Vienna State Opera during his tenure there. “Most people have a faster internet connection, which is extremely important when viewers want to watch a stream in 4K.”The equipment available for in-house operations has also advanced rapidly. Small, robotic cameras can capture performances in the dark without necessitating changes of light, leaving on-site viewers undisturbed. And microphones can easily transmit quality sound.Performances on LaScalaTv are available in either ultra high definition or high definition. The most expensive offering, a live program at the highest resolution, costs 11.90 euros (about $13), while a children’s program at the lower resolution costs €2.90. The audio track is uniformly transmitted in AAC, a compression format of a higher grade than MP3.Mr. Meyer has prioritized a wide view of the stage. “It was important to me to respect a certain distance,” he said. “One doesn’t need close-ups that show the sweat on the face of Gilda at the end of ‘Rigoletto.’”He also wants to capture dance performances at a healthy distance. “If you come too close, it looks like the dancer’s head is about to hit the top of the screen,” he said. “A principle of the whole project was that there would not be too many cuts, and that the viewer would have the liberty to focus where he or she pleases.”Cameras at La Scala can capture performances for online audiences without disturbing viewers in the opera house itself. Brescia and Amisano/Teatro alla ScallaIntermissions provide glimpses backstage and facts about La Scala’s history. Recent offerings have included a tour of the theater’s museum, home to such treasures as a manuscript page from Verdi’s “Nabucco” and a portrait of the soprano Maria Callas.Mr. Meyer said that the house had just scratched the surface of the possibilities and that “there was a lot to tell,” citing “the rehearsals, what happens behind the scenes, the [costume and set] workshops.”Of central importance is bringing some of these stories to younger viewers. The theater has started by creating a network of 200 schools in Italy to bring students into contact with opera.For example, a live rehearsal of Puccini’s “La Bohème” was recently followed by a livestream of the performance itself. A documentary about Bellini’s “I Capuleti e i Montecchi” was combined with an on-demand viewing of the opera itself. This September will bring the first ballet program, revolving around Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.”The house is also teaming up with RAI, Italy’s state broadcaster, to share footage from the 1970s and ’80s, including performances under the conductors Claudio Abbado and Riccardo Muti. The main sponsor of LaScalaTv is the bank Intesa Sanpaolo, and the Cariplo Foundation is supporting the dissemination of content to schools.A scene from “La Bohème” at La Scala. A recent stream of a rehearsal for that opera was followed by a livestream of the performance itself.Brescia and Amisano/Teatro alla Scalla“We brought in about €40.5 million in sponsorship revenue last season,” Mr. Meyer said. “That is huge in Europe. All these projects are being financed.”In the theater, subtitles will be installed this summer on the backs of chairs with translations in Italian, English, French, German and Spanish, using the same software as the streaming platform (eventually there will be eight languages). On May 29, La Scala unveils its new website — which includes a digital magazine — coinciding with its presentation of the 2023-24 season.Italian viewers thus far make up half the streaming service’s audience. Another fourth comes from other European countries. Outside Europe, the highest numbers are currently in the United States and Russia.In-house, Mr. Meyer said, La Scala has regularly sold out this season. “We of course can’t create more seats,” he said. “This technology allows us to expand our audience, also to children.” More

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      Dvorak’s Opera ‘Rusalka’ Prepares to Debut at La Scala in Milan

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      The opera by Antonin Dvorak about a water nymph’s journey into the human world, first performed in 1901, is making its debut at La Scala in June.Poor Rusalka. The title character of Antonin Dvorak’s opera is a love-struck water nymph, misunderstood and scorned. She has long been appreciated but was not exactly celebrated as an operatic heroine for decades before slowly emerging as a darling of the opera world.But now, “Rusalka” is having a moment that may charm even the most jaded of water nymphs. The opera will make its debut at La Scala in Milan next month, 122 years after it first delighted audiences in Dvorak’s native Czech homeland in 1901. Many might say it’s long overdue at one of the world’s most prestigious opera houses, but for the creative team assembled at La Scala it’s a chance to discover, or rediscover, an opera still being interpreted more than a century later.“Rusalka,” playing six performances from June 6 to 22, is based on Slavic folklore (with parallels to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Little Mermaid”). Rusalka lives in a lake with her water-goblin father and falls in love with a prince. With the help of a local witch and a potion, she decides to become a human to win her prince. Let’s just say that things don’t exactly go her way.The design for the character Rusalka, a love-struck water nymph. “This Rusalka won’t have the fish tail like a mermaid, but she will have tentacles like an octopus,” the director, Emma Dante, said.Vanessa SanninoThe opera is known mostly for its first-act aria “Song to the Moon” — championed by many high-profile sopranos over the last few decades, including Renée Fleming — which has helped cement its position at several major opera houses. And now at La Scala.“I have directed at many opera houses and in the repertoire of each of them there was at least one opera that was conspicuously absent,” Dominique Meyer, the artistic director and chief executive of La Scala, said by email. “When I was directing the Vienna [State] Opera, we realized that ‘Anna Bolena’ had never been performed there. At La Scala, something similar happened with ‘Rusalka.’”Mr. Meyer said the debut production was the ideal vehicle to bring back Emma Dante, a theater and film director known for her 2013 movie “A Street in Palermo” as well as avant-garde theater and opera productions. Mr. Meyer cited her “imagination and sensitivity.”“I’m happy to come back to La Scala with an opera whose protagonist is a woman,” Ms. Dante said in a video interview. “My first time was with ‘Carmen,’ and I felt a strong connection with this woman, just as I do now with Rusalka.”Ms. Dante said she feels Rusalka’s journey into the human world — and her desire to be accepted there — is a timeless topic and applicable today in a world of refugees and political turmoil worldwide.A drawing of one of the sets for “Rusalka” with the title character at left.Carmine Maringola“She arrives in a land that is not her land, so I’m interested in that transformation,” Ms. Dante said. “I’m also deeply interested in how the community does not accept her diversity.”She worked with the costume designer Vanessa Sannino and the set designer Carmine Maringola, both of whom she has collaborated with before, to do more than emphasize the fairy-tale aspect of the story.“This Rusalka won’t have the fish tail like a mermaid, but she will have tentacles like an octopus, which you can see in a wheelchair when she first comes onto land,” Ms. Dante explained. “Also, we won’t have a lake, but instead the church and the prince’s palace will both be flooded to represent a world adrift. This flooded world is a catastrophic cause of nonacceptance, of intolerance toward those of different origins and appearance.”Ms. Sannino also wanted to emphasize the witch and the prince in this otherworldly setting.“We wanted the witch to be like a madonna, monochromatic red and immense and made of muscle fibers,” she said. “And the lightness that we decided to give the prince can be found in the flowers and butterflies in his cloak and in the armor he wears.”The costume design for the prince. “The lightness that we decided to give the prince can be found in the flowers and butterflies in his cloak and in the armor he wears,” the costume designer said.Vanessa SanninoThis approach seems fitting for an opera based on folklore, and not, say, a romantic Italian opera based on a famous book and specific to its time and place. It’s also open to discovery from a musical perspective.“It’s genius music, but Dvorak was not known as a typical opera composer, and therefore it comes with some difficulties that might not always sell the piece,” said the Czech conductor Tomas Hanus in a phone interview from his home in Brno, Czech Republic. He is making his debut at La Scala with “Rusalka,” which he also conducted at the Vienna State Opera (in his debut there in 2017) and in Copenhagen, Helsinki and Munich. “The Czech composing schools did not always teach how to write these big romantic operatic scores. It’s very dependent on the interpretation of singers and conductors.”That is a sentiment echoed by the Ukrainian soprano Olga Bezsmertna, who will sing the title role, which she has come to adore (she sang it at the Vienna State Opera in 2014 and 2020 and last year in Bratislava, Slovakia). It becomes more layered each time she sings it, she said.“It’s a very difficult opera, but my voice feels at home because I don’t have to push,” Ms. Bezsmertna said in a phone interview from her home in Vienna. “My first time in Vienna, I jumped in five days before the first performance. I honestly didn’t have time to think about what to do. But it’s perfect for a lyric soprano voice.”Ms. Bezsmertna has grown into the character more in the past few years, she said, especially the journey Rusalka takes both emotionally and musically.“The second act is so completely different from the first act because she is destroyed,” Ms. Bezsmertna said. “It’s not a fairy tale anymore. She’s alone, and the prince loves another woman. Life has changed completely.”And it’s in that fairy-tale-versus-real-world situation where “Rusalka” seems to flourish, despite its dark corners, for those who know the opera or for first-time viewers at the debut at La Scala.“Death is very present in ‘Rusalka,’ but we have to keep this idea of lightness,” Ms. Dante said. “It’s a tragedy, but it’s still a fairy tale. And we always have to look at death as an occasion for rebirth.” More

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      How an Architect Gave La Scala a 21st-Century Update

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      Mario Botta, who just finished leading a second round of updates to the 18th-century opera house in Milan, discussed his work and his inspiration.Over the past two decades, La Scala, completed by the architect Giuseppe Piermarini in 1778, has experienced its most profound changes since after World War II, when it suffered severe damage from Allied bombing raids.The recent updates to the opera house in Milan have been led by the Swiss architect Mario Botta, renowned for designing luminous, formidable spaces worldwide, including the Church of Santo Volto in Turin, Italy, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.Mr. Botta’s first phase of work at La Scala was carried out from 2002 to 2004, and the second, begun in 2019, has just wrapped up. He discussed his work in a video interview. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.What is the scope of your work at La Scala? And what have your goals been?The work has been about creating a dialogue between the 18th century and modernity. This theater was born as a space to create dreams, illusions, adventures. It’s still a place of collective imagination. But to effectively make it work today, it needed to be much more flexible and capable than what existed in the 1700s. It had run out of space to perform effectively. We’ve created a series of elements designed to make the theater function for the 2000s.The work completed in 2004 included conserving the opera’s interiors [including restoring original elements that had been abandoned or hidden over the years], a much taller fly tower for stage sets and an elliptical building. For the most recent work, we’ve added a 17-story structure [six floors are underground] parallel to La Scala on the Via Verdi. At the base of this tower is an orchestra practice room, and on top is an airy dance studio. In between is needed functional space like offices, storage and rehearsal space.Mario Botta. “I work in the realm of modernity, but within a culture that traces back to the total history of architecture,” he said.Matteo Fieni, via Mario Botta ArchitettiThe new forms you’ve created feel modern but also timeless. Your work seems especially inspired by the tension between history and modernity. How has that informed your design process here?We’re working with the materials and techniques of today. But at the same time, this is a space that was created in a different lifetime. We want to merge the two. It’s an effort that goes on all the time in the city. The city is constantly transforming; it is a discussion between centuries. Piermarini had an image; now I need to listen to what the opera needs.When I was younger, I looked for a language inspired by futurists like Antonio Sant’Elia. They wanted to create a completely futuristic city. Over the years, my design has evolved to be about the confrontation between times. A collage of different languages. It’s about the functions, needs and realities of today merging with the continuation of historical representation.The facade of the extension of La Scala.Theatre La ScalaWhat does your creative process look like?In my work, the pencil is the protagonist. I don’t work with computers. I work with models. With solid pieces, like an artisan. As all the issues come to the table, I find a synthesis. History is the mother; the pencil is the father. History stays history, but it provides endless inspiration. Without history, we don’t exist. I work in the realm of modernity, but within a culture that traces back to the total history of architecture. We have so many examples of images of the past. Without history, there is no inspiration.For this project, you’ve created substantial new buildings clad in Botticino marble. This diverges from the work of many modern architects, who tend to highlight lighter materials like glass and steel.Glass as a material is less inspiring, less honest. Stone is honest. With glass, you can see it’s transparent, but you can’t really understand what’s inside. I look for forms and materials that speak to the function of a building: a church, a library, a museum. Something with a familiar presence. A gravity. If a building has no gravity, it doesn’t exist. I look for the truth of a material, and of a building. Buildings today all look the same. You can’t read their function. This is the homogeneity that’s been created by globalization. It’s destroyed the symbolic power of buildings; the value of architecture. Now, a McDonald’s can resemble a theater. We’ve lost the capacity to express the true value of architecture.You’ve got a long history with Milan — you studied there when you were young. How has it played a role in your design?Milan has very specific characteristics. Its history is very much about strength and gravity, and there are so many buildings that express themselves through verticality and honesty.This is because Milan is a city of work. More than other cities in Italy, it’s a city of industry, of promotion, of entrepreneurship. It needs buildings like that.You’re well known for your weighty but uplifting sacred architecture. The work here seems to have a sacred component to it. Can you talk about that?I find that architecture is always a sacred act, because it transforms nature and it represents our entire world. The architecture of sacred spaces is very close to the architecture of theaters or museums. You’re trying to create a type of value and strength. You’re attempting to embody a certain message. To try to understand our world. I only do work that I consider sacred. I’m trying to interpret and build a kind of spirit. I leave McDonald’s to America. More

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      The Pains and Privileges of Staging Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’

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      Three artists preparing a new production of this classic at the Metropolitan Opera discuss what makes it so difficult yet satisfying.There are operas that are challenging for their sheer technical demands — the density of Berg’s “Lulu” or the heroic immensity of Wagner epics. And then there are those that seem simple but are actually some of the most difficult.In that second category fall Mozart’s three collaborations with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte — “Le Nozze di Figaro,” “Don Giovanni” and “Così Fan Tutte” — works of slippery psychology, frank humanity and, crucially, crystalline construction that punishes any mistake onstage or in the orchestra pit.Particularly tough to stage is “Don Giovanni,” which returns to the Metropolitan Opera in a new production on May 5, with Peter Mattei in the title role. Its score runs nearly three hours with major events at the beginning and end — Giovanni murders the father of a woman he nearly rapes, then later is dragged to hell — but little in between other than characters repeating mistakes, as if in loops of unhealthy habits.Without the hand of a confident director, the story rapidly sags. And, in true operatic fashion, its telling is equally dependent on a conductor’s momentum, and actorly, complex expression from the singers. When all the pieces fall into place, “Don Giovanni” unfurls with a sublime, graceful beauty that a casual listener might find straightforward, even light.But, the conductor Nathalie Stutzmann said, “the simpler this opera sounds, the more difficult it is to create.” As she prepares to open the Met’s new “Don Giovanni,” she and two other members of its team — Ivo van Hove, the director, and Ying Fang, a leading Mozart soprano who stars as Zerlina — discussed the work’s challenges and gifts. Here are edited excerpts from those conversations.Ivo van Hove“This man has been idolized as a libertine — his mission is “Viva la libertà” — but his own freedom, not the freedom of other people,” said van Hove.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesI’ve seen some famous productions. There was Peter Brook in 1984, with Peter Mattei; it was a minimalist staging but very powerful. I’ve seen Michael Haneke’s in Paris, and that was modern, with Don Giovanni as the C.E.O. of a big firm. And I’ve seen another one in Salzburg by my idol, Patrice Chéreau, whose work I used to see in Paris all the time when I was young, with my little car and no money, driving back after the show was over.A challenge is that it’s very long. The first act is sharp as a knife, and the second is almost repeating the things we have seen, but developing them deeper. And that’s where it gets even more challenging — there are these buffa parts, that even those huge directors that I’ve seen fail at. They get lost in there. If you start to do comedy, it doesn’t work; then it’s about nothing. You have to deepen the emotions, not play it light or funny, which is not really what it is anyway.My starting point was something that people often forget: The original title was “Il Dissoluto Punito, Ossia il Don Giovanni” [“The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni”]. When I saw this title, a lot of doors opened. Mozart had a clear point of view on the character. I had always found it a bit difficult to accept that Donna Anna is a little bit in love with him while she’s raped in the first scene, and then a few minutes later he kills, without any reason, her father. This man has been idolized as a libertine — his mission is “Viva la libertà” — but his own freedom, not the freedom of other people. “Don Giovanni” became for me suddenly a very contemporary opera.When I studied the score and the text, I discovered that it talks about power structures in our society: Don Giovanni, servants like Leporello, but also the farmers’ community in Masetto. Don Giovanni seduces Masetto’s fiancée, Zerlina, with the promise of a fabulous future of riches and a house, and all these things. Then there’s the sexual, emotional dominance of Donna Elvira; these power structures are about control at the detriment of others, and Don Giovanni is at the top while the others resist him.And the libretto is so well written, the characters are all complex and ambivalent individuals. They are a bit like Ingmar Bergman characters: neither good nor bad, just human. So, all of this becomes almost like a description of the times we live in.The ending can be very difficult, but I wanted Don Giovanni to go to hell, and burn in hell forever. What we show is something you don’t expect. But he, as a person, is a problem that has to be dealt with. And with this ending, now that he is dealt with, everybody can move on with their lives. They have closure. It is actually a conventional, happy ending. But I think that is necessary: You see them taking up daily life, as if they were starting again.Nathalie Stutzmann“My idea is to make it really alive, and very much about the story,” Stutzmann said.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesMozart is a kind of doctor for any singer or musician’s playing: Every note that is not right, every dynamic, every articulation, every balance is hearable immediately. Everything that you can cover in later Romantic music — you can hide much more in Wagner — you can’t with Mozart.This orchestration in “Don Giovanni” is so precise. I’ve never seen in Mozart so many fortepiano dynamics; it’s abrupt and a permanent change of color. Which is interesting, but also tiring and very hard to play for three hours. You can never relax. It is a nonstop race — a race that goes to the abyss at the end.The arc of it is already in the first measure of the overture. Those notes are the abyss; you have them again at the end. So you have to build the overture so that people understand. Then there is everything in between.There is the party, which is a virtuoso moment for the orchestra and singers. A lot is connected to the words, the phrasing, but you cannot do that if you are singing every note égal. You don’t have time. So, you have to respect the appoggio [breath support] of the language, and you have to be super strict with the rhythm. When it’s not precise, it’s like a sugar crash. But when it is, it works like a Swiss clock.I’ll never forget a phrase that I read in a book: Mozart said, one of the most difficult, important and crucial things to realize in playing my music is simply the right tempo. In this opera, it’s one key for me. The phrasing seems simple, but the realization is incredibly difficult. The pulse needs to be organic, and one thing needs to be related to the next.There are many places where we need to make a connection; for me that is the recitativo. My idea is to make it really alive, and very much about the story. I also include the pianoforte instrument in the arias, sometimes, for joyful moments — like the kisses of Zerlina, a little bit in the spirit of Mozart, what he would do.What I try to achieve is less of a gap between the recitativo moments and the arias. Typically at this time, the story was told by the recitativo, and the aria described the feeling. But in this opera, the recitativo has so many stories, while the arias are also telling them. It’s a very modern opera in that respect.Ying Fang“To interpret this, you have to be faithful to what Mozart has already written,” Fang said.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesWhen you sing the music right, Mozart is like medicine, a balm for the voice. It’s indescribably beautiful, and just so genius. But it can be deceptive. It sounds very simple and effortless, but it takes a lot of hard work to achieve that.You have to have perfect legato, and perfect breath control, to get through a lot of long phrases. Mozart also writes runs with crazy coloratura, as well as some dramatic moments. To do all that requires secure technique. It’s very different from verismo, or Verdi. Clarity and purity: When you’re singing Mozart’s music, you have to use particular muscles to be flexible yet keep the purity of the tone. This is all a testament of healthy, and good, technique.Mostly in the recitatives, Zerlina gets more dramatic. In the scene right before “Batti, batti,” when she goes back to Masetto after almost being seduced by Don Giovanni, she displays her capability in dealing with Masetto, saying: “What, you don’t believe me? Then kill me. Please, let’s just make peace.” It’s completely human, and so relatable. That’s another thing about these roles; you can see yourself, and you know you could be that person.But to interpret this, you have to be faithful to what Mozart has already written. He is a great vocal composer; a lot of things are already written into the score, stressed in how the language is expressed. If you follow that, the emotions speak for themselves. So, the interpretation has to be a little more strict, but it should seem effortless.The hard work to do that is in the preparation. You’ve got to know other people’s lines, and be aware and listen to whatever is happening around you. Once you know all that, everything is clear, and you can stop thinking too much and just enjoy being in your character. Then, the beauty of it is just so satisfying. It really is one of the greatest joys. More

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      Putting the Brutality of a Prize Fight on the Met Opera Stage

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      Terence Blanchard’s “Champion,” about the fighter Emile Griffith, is the rare opera to engage with sports. A boxing consultant helped keep it gritty.Emile Griffith fought Benny Paret on March 24, 1962, in a highly anticipated welterweight championship bout at Madison Square Garden.In the 12th round, Griffith knocked Paret into the ropes and pounded him with more than a dozen unanswered blows. As The New York Times put it the next day, “The only reason Paret still was on his feet was that Griffith’s pile-driving fists were keeping him there, pinned against the post.”Paret never regained consciousness and died 10 days later. The fight and its terrible aftermath were high drama. One might even call the story operatic.There has been little overlap between the high drama of sports and the high drama of opera, beyond the bullfighting in “Carmen” or perhaps that odd singing competition in “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” But in telling Griffith’s story, Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer’s 2013 opera “Champion,” which opened earlier this month at the Metropolitan Opera and streams live in movie theaters on Saturday, brings together the brutality of boxing with the soaring passions of opera.It helps that “Champion” is not just a tale of boxing, but also of Griffith’s life as a closeted gay man, an immigrant with a tough childhood and complicated relationship with his mother, and later an old age troubled by dementia and regret.But boxing is the catalyst for the story. The 1962 bout was the third between Griffith and Paret, who had split their first two fights. (Those earlier contests are omitted from the opera, keeping the focus on the fateful third.)Ryan Speedo Green, center, as Griffith after winning the fight against Paret (Eric Greene) in “Champion.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIt was a time when big boxing matches were big news. Pre-fight hype was everywhere, with all aspects of the fighters’ preparations scrutinized. The Times marveled at Griffith’s “$130 a day suite with two television sets and a closet the size of a Y.M.C.A. room” in Monticello, N.Y., as well as the “turtleneck sweaters, seal coats and Ottoman club chairs” that surrounded the ring as he sparred.The terrible aftermath of the fight brought even more intense coverage. News of Paret’s serious condition made the front page of The Times, days after the fight, with the headline “Paret, Hurt in Ring, Given Little Chance.”At the time, the biggest controversy was the referee’s delay in stopping the contest. “Many in the crowd of 7,500 were begging” the referee to intervene, The Times reported. The referee, Ruby Goldstein, was later exonerated by the State Athletic Commission.But there was more to the story. Though Griffith said he was “sorry it happened,” he added, “You know, he called me bad names during the weigh-in” and during the fight, “He did it again, and I was burning mad.”“Bad names” was how Griffith, The Times and other newspapers described Paret’s taunts. The true nature of those words was not widely known at the time. But in the mid-2000s Griffith revealed the full story. Paret had called Griffith “maricón,” a Spanish slur for a gay man. Griffith was secretly bisexual.The opera’s second act deals with the fallout from the fatal punches, and Griffith’s later life, including a brutal beating he received outside a gay bar. Griffith died in 2013 at 75.The Met worked hard to get the details and the atmosphere of a prize fight right: the ring announcer (who acts here as a Greek chorus of sorts), the sound of the bell, the trophies and championship belts, a “ring girl” signaling the changing of the rounds and the macho posturing of the weigh-in. (The conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin emerges in the pit for the second act in a boxer’s hooded robe.)Helping to make it look accurate was Michael Bentt, a former professional world champion who served as the opera’s boxing consultant. “I’m not an expert on opera,” he said. “But I’m an expert on rhythm. And boxing is rhythm.”Bentt told the production team that there should be no stool in the ring before the first round, only between later rounds. And he thought that the boxing mitts, used by a trainer to block a fighter’s punches, looked too clean. “I said: ‘Make them look gritty. Rub them on the concrete to get them nasty looking.’ There’s nothing clean about the world of boxing.”The Met’s fight director, Chris Dumont, is used to working out sword fights. But for “Champion,” he had to choreograph fisticuffs and make them look convincing without anyone getting hurt.Champion. Griffith after winning the middleweight title in 1966.Larry Morris/The New York Times“For the body shots, they might make some contact with each other,” he said. “But you don’t want someone to get hit in the face. Even if it’s light, it won’t feel too good.”There are several ways to depict boxing: One is to simulate it as closely as possible, as some boxing movies do, by showing powerful punching and splattering blood. A more apt choice for the stage is stylization.“Since they have to sing, actually boxing through those scenes would wind them,” Dumont said of Ryan Speedo Green, who portrays the younger Griffith, and Eric Greene, who plays Paret. Most of the time, when a blow lands, the singers freeze, as if in a snapshot. Some parts are performed in slow motion.The show reaches its sporting peak with the re-creation of the 1962 fight, which ends the first act. The tension and anticipation operagoers may feel as the ring appears onstage is not all that different from the mood among fight fans or sportswriters in the moments before a big bout. All sports have some atmosphere of pregame expectation. But when the sport involves two combatants trying to hurt each other with repeated blows to the head, there is an added frisson of fear, or even dread.In “Champion,” Griffith goes down in the sixth round, and the shouts of a boisterous onstage crowd add to the tension. Then comes the fatal moment.Although the boxers’ blows onstage do not land, that does little to temper the grim moment when a flurry of unanswered shots floor Paret. “I watched the actual fight and tried to keep it as real as possible,” Dumont said. “The 17 blows are fairly close to what it was, in real time. We are not actually landing blows, but moving fast enough so the audience is tricked. It moves back to slow motion as he is falling to the mat.”And in the orchestra pit, the snare drummer looks up at the stage. Each time a blow falls, he raps a synced snare shot.A night at the opera can bring murder or war or bloodshed. But the historically and sportingly accurate depiction of a prize fight that ended with a man’s death has an unsettling quality all its own. As Goldstein, the referee, testified: “It’s the type of sport it is. Death is a tragedy that occasionally will happen.” Or, as Bentt said of “Champion,” “We can’t tiptoe around that it’s violence.” More

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      The Maestro Wore Blue: Bringing Pizazz to the Pit at the Met

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      Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Metropolitan Opera’s music director, dressed in a blazing sapphire jacket and trim black pants, stood before a mirror backstage on a recent afternoon and smiled.“Oh my God, it’s so good,” he said, waving his baton. “I love it so much.”There were three days until the opening of Puccini’s “La Bohème,” and Nézet-Séguin, surrounded by a small team of tailors, designers and assistants, was offering feedback on his attire, which had been designed by the Met’s costume shop.His outfit was modeled on one worn onstage by a band leader in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production. Could the golden braid that dangled from his right shoulder be fastened, so it did not create a distraction in the pit? Was the jacket comfortable enough to accommodate the sweeping gestures that the music demanded? And should there be more red, or maybe gold?The Met’s costume shop has designed outfits for Nézet-Séguin for eight productions, including this jacket for “Bohème.”“The more unusual elements,” he said, “the more fun for the audience.”Since the Met returned from the long pandemic shutdown, in the fall of 2021, Nézet-Séguin has been on a mission to challenge sartorial conventions, wearing eye-catching outfits designed by the Met’s costume shop in eight productions. There is limited space to make a statement; the designers focus on his back, since that is what most audience members will see.“We want to get some attention but not be too distracting,” said Robert Bulla, the Met’s assistant head costumer. “Nothing too obnoxious, but something that occasionally catches the light.”A conductor’s look book: clockwise from top left, “Champion,” “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” “The Hours” and “Lohengrin.”Nézet-Séguin sports a black-and-white hooded jacket modeled on a vintage Everlast boxing robe for Terence Blanchard’s “Champion,” an opera about the boxer Emile Griffith that had its Met premiere this month. (At the start of the second act, he enters the pit wearing the hood and boxing gloves, but removing both to conduct.)For “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which opened the season in 2021, Nézet-Séguin wanted to wear something special. The opera’s costume designer, Paul Tazewell, suggested this fireworks pattern.Rose Callahan/Metropolitan OperaHe wore a stained-glass pattern on his jacket for a 2021 revival of Puccini’s “Tosca,” which opens in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. And he switched from green to red to white shirts in Wagner’s “Lohengrin” this season, mimicking the look of the choristers, whose robes changed colors throughout the show.Nézet-Séguin said his outfits helped strengthen the bond between the pit and the stage.“You don’t want to ignore the orchestra,” he said. “If the conductor is there and seen, I think that helps the connection. It’s much more integrated.”At work in the costume shop. The jacket being constructed echoes one worn by a band leader onstage in the production.The costumes are also part of his efforts to make opera, which has long had a reputation for conservatism, more exciting and accessible.“We have to be more modern and approachable,” he said. “We want to welcome everybody.”While earlier music directors at the Met, all men, favored white tie and tails, Nézet-Séguin, who has held the post since 2018, has long had a more eclectic style, both in his clothes and appearance. He has bleached-blond hair and wears a diamond earring and several gold rings. He is fond of performing in clothes by designers like the Canadian Marie Saint Pierre and can be seen onstage in red-soled Christian Louboutin shoes.“The more unusual elements,” Nézet-Séguin said, “the more fun for the audience.”As the Met prepared to reopen its doors to the public after the pandemic shutdown in 2021, Nézet-Séguin felt it was time for a change.The Met was preparing to open the season with Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” the first work by a Black composer in the company’s history. Nézet-Séguin wanted to wear something to reflect the importance of the moment. The costume designer for “Fire,” Paul Tazewell, suggested a fireworks pattern, with flashes of red, indigo, teal and orange.“To be plain dressed — it just felt wrong to me,” Nézet-Séguin said.Beyond white tie and tails. “We want to get some attention but not be too distracting,” Robert Bulla, an assistant head costumer at the Met, said.Landon Nordeman for The New York TimesThe designs often riff on an opera’s central themes. For Kevin Puts’s “The Hours,” based on the 1998 novel and the 2002 film it inspired, he wore a floral pattern, a nod to the work’s many references to flowers.Comfort is a priority — the designers want to ensure that he feels unhindered, and they use lightweight and stretchable fabric for flexibility and to absorb sweat. The costume shop often produces several of each jacket so he can change into a fresh one between acts.Some operas are more challenging than others. The team struggled to come up with an idea for “Bohème” before recalling that the production includes a scene in which a band leader guides a procession of soldiers across the stage.Nézet-Séguin, who painted his nails fuchsia for “Champion,” sometimes adds his own touches.“It’s good to be breaking this mold of what everyone thinks classical music and opera is,” Bulla said. “Some people say it’s taken a long time to start this evolution process. But at least it’s evolving.”Nézet-Séguin sometimes adds his own touches. He painted his nails fuchsia for “Champion,” to match the purple robe worn onstage by Ryan Speedo Green, who plays Griffith. And he said he was eager for a day when the Met orchestra musicians would be allowed to dress with more variety. (The dress code demands tuxedos or long, flowing black clothes for evening performances.)“It’s baby steps,” he said. “When I make statements like this, mentalities can evolve. We have to think more creatively and ergonomically. This is only the beginning.” More