Puccini, Giacomo

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    Puccini’s ‘Butterfly’ and ‘Turandot’: More Than Appropriation

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    The history and curiosity behind these operas, both set in Asia, complicate often simplistic criticisms of borrowing and stereotyping.A key relic of the genesis of Giacomo Puccini’s two operas set in Asia can be found not in Italy, where both works premiered, nor in China or Japan, where they are set, but — of all places — in Morristown, N.J.There, in the Morris Museum’s collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata, is a music box from around 1877. During a visit to the museum in 2012, the musicologist W. Anthony Sheppard happened upon the box and, listening to it, was surprised to find that it contained melodies present in those Puccini operas, “Madama Butterfly” (1904) and “Turandot” (left unfinished at his death in 1924).Sheppard and other scholars came to believe that the box — made in Switzerland, exported to China, returned to Europe and owned in Italy before it was acquired by the brewing heir and prodigious collector Murtogh D. Guinness and donated to the Morris Museum — may have been the exact one that Puccini encountered at a friend’s home and quoted in his classic works.This plain brown music box is therefore central to the ambivalence that lately surrounds Puccini, “Madama Butterfly” and “Turandot,” and the amorphous label of appropriation that has been applied to both. It reminds us that Puccini, who was always searching to endow his scores with “local color,” didn’t just compose exotic-seeming, faux-Asian tunes for his operas, but also sought out actual Asian examples. These works are tributes to the curiosity about other cultures — the desire to blend your traditions with others’ and tell stories about more than just yourself — that has animated art for as long as humans have been making it.“When the heart speaks, whether in China or Holland,” Puccini wrote to one of his “Turandot” librettists, “it says only one thing, and the outcome is the same for everyone.”A music box, from around 1877, containing Chinese melodies that Puccini quoted.Morris MuseumWe 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

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      The American Tenor Jonathan Tetelman, a Puccini Specialist, Arrives at the Met

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      Jonathan Tetelman will sing in “La Rondine” and “Madama Butterfly” in New York. He trained as a baritone and worked as a D.J. before finding his “authentic voice” as a tenor.In the middle of last summer’s production of Verdi’s “Macbeth” at the Salzburg Festival, the American tenor Jonathan Tetelman brought down the house. As Macduff, Tetelman gave a searing rendition of “Ah, la paterna mano,” the heartbreaking aria after his character learns that the bloodthirsty monarch has slaughtered his wife and children.Tetelman’s performance in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s monumentally gloomy production was one of the festival’s highlights. Later this month, the 35-year-old tenor will make his Metropolitan Opera debut in Puccini’s “La Rondine.” He’ll also be heard at the Met as Pinkerton in a revival of the composer’s better-known “Madama Butterfly” that reunites him with his “Macbeth” co-star, the soprano Asmik Grigorian, in April and May. (There are planned Met Live in HD broadcasts of both productions.)In an email, the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, wrote that Tetelman had a “beautiful and big voice that is perfectly suited to the generous size of the Met’s auditorium, which is much larger than most European opera houses, and to these soaring Puccini roles.”Tetelman has swiftly risen to become one of his generation’s most in-demand lyric tenors and is particularly sought after for his Puccini. After singing Rodolfo in “La Bohème” for the first time in 2017 in Fujian, China, he reprised the role a year later at Tanglewood (replacing the Polish star tenor Piotr Beczala) and then on opening night of Barrie Kosky’s production at the Komische Oper Berlin in January 2019.Tetelman played Macduff in a performance of “Macbeth” at the 2023 Salzburg Festival.Bernd Uhlig/SFBut Tetelman’s path to the Met’s stage was anything but typical. Born in Chile, Tetelman was adopted by an American couple when he was 6 months old and grew up in Princeton, N.J. As an undergraduate at the Manhattan School of Music, he trained as a baritone but felt frustrated.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

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      At the Met, a Refurbished ‘Bohème’ and an Art Deco ‘Ballo’

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      A gift from a board member recently paid for the company to rebuild sets for Franco Zeffirelli’s deathless 1981 production of Puccini’s classic.If you go to “La Bohème” at the Metropolitan Opera this season and are convinced that the big snowdrift in Act III looks a little fresher than usual, you’re not hallucinating.A million-dollar gift from a board member recently paid for the company to rebuild some of the sets for Franco Zeffirelli’s deathless 1981 production of Puccini’s classic, and the snow that dominates a wintry scene on the outskirts of Paris was one of the targets. It now looks more newly fallen — though the seam between the set piece and the stage floor was gapingly obvious from the orchestra level on Saturday evening.Some whiter snow was the news of this “Bohème” — alongside an unusually assertive, stylish Schaunard from the young baritone Sean Michael Plumb, in a small part that often fades into Zeffirelli’s teeming backgrounds.Federica Lombardi’s focused soprano created a Mimì more forthright, even indignant, than the norm, making her fatal Act IV more tender by comparison. The bass-baritone Christian Van Horn sang a soberly resonant “Vecchia zimmara,” and the soprano Olga Kulchynska was a bright Musetta. As Rodolfo, the veteran tenor Matthew Polenzani pushed his voice out at climaxes but otherwise often sounded faded, and a few hairs flat.The sets for David Alden’s 2012 Met staging of Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera” have not been rebuilt — but, only 11 years old, they sometimes seemed shakily resistant to being moved when the opera was revived on Friday.Quinn Kelsey, front left, as Renato and Liv Redpath as Oscar in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera” at the Met.Ken Howard/Met OperaHere, the cast was the exciting part, at least by the end of the evening. The performance seemed to settle in as it went on, with the tenor Charles Castronovo’s tone as Gustavo — pale for much of the opera — finally taking on more color, fullness and freedom.And after an uncertain beginning, the soprano Angela Meade delivered a memorable Amelia. Her sound is essentially cool, but it got fuller and more inflamed as the weird, tragic plot developed, ending up lean yet glowing, like a red-hot poker.One singer required no warming up: the baritone Quinn Kelsey, who seems ever more a pillar of the Met, particularly in Verdi. “Ballo” is the story of a Swedish king, Gustavo, who is in love with Amelia, the wife of his closest friend — and Kelsey plays Renato, the agonized friend who goes from Gustavo’s confidant to his assassin.His presence hulking and brooding, Kelsey has that most special of operatic attributes: an instantly recognizable voice, capacious and moody, with a smoky, slightly nasal, sneering, sinister edge but also a fundamental seductive smoothness and nuanced eloquence.His and Meade’s back-to-back arias in the third act — her plea “Morrò, ma prima in grazia” into his wounded “Eri tu” — were together the musical highlight on Friday. The mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova sang Ulrica with steady power, and the soprano Liv Redpath sounded lucid and gentle as the sprightly page Oscar. Carlo Rizzi, one of the Met’s often underappreciated maestros in the Italian repertoire, conducted both “Ballo” (with steady drive) and “Bohème” (with sumptuous clarity).“Ballo,” which premiered in 1859, is from the period after Verdi’s canonical trio of “Rigoletto,” “Il Trovatore” and “La Traviata,” and before his late-stage epics “Don Carlos” and “Aida.” In this middle period — think also of “Les Vêpres Siciliennes” and “La Forza del Destino,” which the Met is presenting in a new production this winter — he experimented with shades of emotional ambiguity and sometimes jarring juxtapositions of tone.In “Ballo,” he combined elements of Italianate melodrama and champagne-bubbly French high spirits in a mixture that can be excitingly volatile. Alden’s staging is a kind of stylized, largely grayscale Art Deco explosion, with a degree of strange excess intended to echo the piece’s own — like a Busby Berkeley production number at the end of the first scene, complete with dancing waiters; and, in Act II, a conspirator frantically hurling himself against a wall.With severely raked sets, sickly floodlighting and surreal touches like skull masks and angel wings, Alden suggests that much of the opera is Gustavo’s fever dream, or fantasy. But the eerie elegance of some moments diffuses elsewhere into some awkwardness, with the chorus milling around. When it premiered, the production seemed like its many ideas hadn’t yet gelled. They still haven’t. More

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      A Lot of Opera Is Now Streaming. Here’s Where to Start.

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      Naxos, which collects videos of productions throughout Europe, has begun to make its catalog available on Amazon Prime Video.Opera isn’t so different from film and television in its glut of streaming platforms — which can be just as challenging, and expensive, to navigate.Established entities like Medici.tv and Met Opera’s On Demand run on subscription models. Deutsche Grammophon’s Stage+ works similarly, and is the only platform for streaming the most recent staging of Wagner’s “Ring” from his home court at the Bayreuth Festival. Building your own digital library of opera on video is more frustrating. The Met, for example, only allows nonsubscribers to rent, but not purchase, individual productions for $4.99.Enter the Naxos label, which has been smartly acquiring the rights to a wide variety of opera productions in recent years and releasing video recordings on DVD and Blu-ray. And now that catalog, which includes shows from Europe’s major houses, is beginning to emerge for digital purchase ($19.99) and rental ($5.99) on Amazon Prime Video. Here are five of Naxos’s best offerings.‘Tosca’ (Dutch National Opera, 2022)Barrie Kosky is one of the most sought-after directors on the international circuit. He’s made his name with comedic and serious rarities alike, but this recent take on Puccini’s bloody shocker shows that his punchy style can work well with the classics, too.There is a notable lack of scenic decoration during the first act’s machinations and romances; we don’t even see what the painter Cavaradossi is working on. But Kosky caps the act with an imagistic coup — and it’s as potent a portrait of Scarpia’s villainy as you’ll find anywhere. Urgently conducted by Lorenzo Viotti and well sung by a youthful cast, Puccini’s thriller here moves with a swiftness that anticipates the slasher flick. And it comes in under two hours.‘Atys’ (Opéra Comique, 2011)Now for something luxurious from the French Baroque. The mythological story told here, with a score by Jean-Baptiste Lully, so entranced Louis XIV that his affection became synonymous with the music. Then the work largely dropped into obscurity, until a 1980s production at the Comique put it back on the map. And in 2011, when a wealthy philanthropist paid for an international touring revival of this sturdy staging, high-definition cameras were ready.The conductor William Christie and his ensemble, Les Arts Florissants, perform the score with a courtly edge that enhances the power (and vengefulness) of Stéphanie d’Oustrac’s take on the goddess Cybèle. And Christie’s players likewise lend a glow to the lovestruck (or mad) exultations present in Bernard Richter’s portrayal of the title character.Sara Jakubiak and Josef Wagner in Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Das Wunder der Heliane.”Monika Rittershaus‘Das Wunder der Heliane’ (Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2018)Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s operas have generally struggled to catch on in the repertory, even after getting a quick start during the composer’s starry, youthful ascent in the 1920s. But in recent years, we’ve been gifted with sumptuous recordings of the composer’s lush music dramas — including Simon Stone’s production of “Die Tote Stadt” (documented on a Blu-ray from the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, but not yet streaming).“Das Wunder der Heliane” is even better than Korngold’s rightly famous film scores that followed his move the United States and went on to influence the likes of John Williams. This recording is nearly three hours of orchestral delirium, thanks to the work of the Deutche Oper’s orchestra, under Marc Albrecht. Also no slouch: the American soprano Sara Jakubiak, who proves blazing in the title role. The staging is spare, but the music and acting crackle.‘Mathis der Maler’ (Theater an der Wien, 2012)First came Paul Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler” Symphony — a nearly half-hour work that drew the ire of Third Reich, and the defense of Wilhelm Furtwängler. Then came the full opera, which premiered in Switzerland in 1938. The stage show winningly incorporates the music of the symphony throughout, but has never dislodged the concert piece in the repertoire, in part because of the prohibitive cost of staging a three-hour opera about the role of art in wartime.In Hindemith’s libretto, the title painter has to choose whether to engage in the 16th-century’s “Peasant’s War.” The seriousness of the subject matter may seem forbidding, but the imagination of Hindemith’s sonic language — dissonant at times, but always rapturous and conceived with care — is so riveting, it actually sells the philosophical material. A straightforward but memorable staging by Keith Warner is likely the only chance many will have to see this work, so its inclusion in Naxos’s catalog is a cause for celebration.Tansel Akzeybek and Vera-Lotte Boecker in Jaromir Weinberger’s “Frühlingsstürme.”Oliver Becker‘Frühlingsstürme’ (Komische Oper, 2020)Now how about an immersion in Weimar operetta? Here, you can take in the last operetta to open during the Weimar Republic, which premiered in January 1933, soon before Nazis did their best to erase a theatrical tradition that was Jewish, gender-fluid and influenced by Black American music of the period.Once again, Barrie Kosky is the director. This was hardly the best operetta production during his long and celebrated decade of leadership at the Komische Oper. It’s not even the best show by Jaromir Weinberger that the theater has put on. (That would be “Schwanda the Bagpiper,” as directed by Andreas Homoki in 2022.)But “Frühlingsstürme” remains a valuable document of Kosky’s efforts to revive Weimar-era works. His playful staging brings a snazzy panache to the comic reversals of fortune and mistaken-identity gambits. You can listen to excerpts that a star singer like Jonas Kaufmann is keen to include in a show-tunes sampler, but the entire show has a fizzy intoxication that excerpts can’t match. More

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      How Opera Houses Are Putting Puccini Into Contemporary Context

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      Opera houses in London and Boston have taken a critical look at “Madama Butterfly” to correct its clichés, caricatures and anachronisms.LONDON — Draped in a crisp white kimono and a translucent veil, Madama Butterfly kneels beside an American officer as they wed in a religious ceremony. The priest celebrates their nuptials while guests dressed in traditional Japanese robes look on.At first glance, there’s nothing conspicuously different about the Royal Opera House’s revival of its 2002 production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” Yet it’s the result of a year of consultations with academics, practitioners and professionals to strip away any hint of cliché or caricature.Concretely, this has meant removing “the extremely white makeup” that the performers previously wore. By the early 20th century, the period in which “Madama Butterfly” is set, “nobody was wearing white makeup on the street,” said Sonoko Kamimura, an expert in Japanese movement and design who was hired by the Royal Opera to update the production.Ms. Kamimura worked to get rid of other anachronistic elements, such as wigs, samurai-style coiffures and costumes.“I really like this opera, because the music is beautiful. But then I would also say it is stereotypical,” she said, adding that the Royal Opera House had found a way around the issue. “Rather than cancel the show,” she said, the house had organized “a dialogue” around it that she was “really glad to be a part of.”Some opera companies have opted to shelve or cancel “Madama Butterfly” because of its increasingly problematic portrayals, particularly to audiences of Asian heritage.Tristram Kenton / ROHSince its world premiere in 1904 at La Scala in Milan, “Madama Butterfly” has been a staple of theaters around the world. First performed at Covent Garden in 1905, it’s the ninth most programmed work at the Royal Opera House, having been performed more than 400 times.Its portrayal of a lovelorn 15-year-old geisha, who is impregnated and abandoned by an American lieutenant, has become increasingly problematic in the 21st century, particularly to audiences of Asian heritage. Institutions such as the Royal Opera House and Boston Lyric Opera are working hard to bring it up-to-date, in every sense of the word.“We’re all very conscious these days that opera and race have had a complicated relationship and history,” said Oliver Mears, the director of opera at the Royal Opera House. “There is always a risk, when a Western opera house is portraying a different culture, that it can make missteps, and that the level of authenticity is not quite as high as it could be.”Mr. Mears said that there was “certainly a huge amount of nervousness on the part of fellow opera companies in mounting this opera at all in the current moment,” and that many were canceling or shelving their “Madama Butterfly” productions “because it feels like it’s too dangerous to go there.”“We think that’s a huge shame, because ‘Madama Butterfly’ is a masterpiece,” he said. “We would much rather be in dialogue with these pieces rather than canceling them.”A similar revision has been taking place across the Atlantic at Boston Lyric Opera. The consultations there, known as the Butterfly Process, will lead to a production of the opera in the fall of 2023 on the Lyric stage.The Lyric was initially set to perform “Madama Butterfly” in the fall of 2020, but the pandemic delayed it for a year. In that time, “there were incidents of heightened racism and violence toward Asian communities across the country,” Bradley Vernatter, acting general and artistic director of the Lyric, said in an email. After conversations with artists and staff members, the production was postponed further, because it was “critical to re-examine the modern context before presenting the work,” Mr. Vernatter said.Licia Albanese made her Metropolitan Opera debut on February 1940 as Madama Butterfly. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, performances of that opera were banned in the U.S. until 1946, when World War II ended.AlamyHe noted that operas weren’t “static museum pieces,” and that shifts in society and politics affected audience reactions to operas. At the Metropolitan Opera in New York, for example, “Madama Butterfly” was performed almost every season between 1907 and 1941. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the work stayed off the Met stage until 1946.Mr. Vernatter explained that Puccini had never set foot in Japan when he saw David Belasco’s one-act play “Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan” and decided to write an operatic version. To research Japanese music, he attended a touring Kabuki show in Milan and asked the wife of the Japanese ambassador to Italy to sing him Japanese folk songs. Because of Puccini’s unfamiliarity with the culture, “the Japanese characters in his opera come off as caricatures,” Mr. Vernatter said.Revising operas to reflect contemporary times can have its own pitfalls. In the fall of 2019, the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto put on an updated performance of another Puccini opera, “Turandot,” about a Chinese princess who murders her suitors.One of the three main characters — whose names in the original libretto are Ping, Pang and Pong — was played by a Taiwanese American tenor whose daughter Katherine Hu later wrote an opinion article in The New York Times. To tone down the caricature, the director renamed the characters Jim, Bob and Bill.“But the characters continued to play into stereotypes of effeminate Asian men as they pranced around onstage, giggling at one another,” Ms. Hu wrote in the article. “Alterations like these have become part of a broader trend as opera clumsily reckons with its racist and sexist past.”“To survive, opera has to confront the depth of its racism and sexism point-blank, treating classic operas as historical artifacts instead of dynamic cultural productions,” she wrote. “Opera directors should approach the production of these classics as museum curators and professors — educating audiences about historical context and making stereotypes visible.”Both the Royal Opera House and Boston Lyric Opera chiefs said that was exactly what they wanted to do.“The goal here is for everyone to participate in an art form that hasn’t traditionally been inclusive, and to strengthen our communities and audiences through the music and stories we present,” Mr. Vernatter said. “I believe we can do it by engaging with and listening to people of many backgrounds and life experiences, and incorporating that into our work.” More

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      Review: ‘Tosca’ Catches Fire at the Met Opera

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      Sondra Radvanovsky and Brian Jagde sing thrillingly, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a superb performance of Puccini’s classic.Sometimes, for reasons no one can fully explain, an opera performance just catches fire. That’s what happened at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday, when Puccini’s “Tosca” returned.In a fall at the Met that’s been full of momentous new works, intriguing repertory firsts and six-hour epics, this seemed on paper just an ordinary revival of David McVicar’s production. The soprano Sondra Radvanovsky was returning in the title role; the tenor Brian Jagde was appearing at the Met for the second time, singing Cavaradossi; the veteran baritone George Gagnidze (a late replacement for Evgeny Nikitin) was Scarpia; and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, was in the pit.Yet starting with the opening measures, chilling orchestral chords that represent the villainous Scarpia, this performance abounded in crackling energy, sure-paced suspense, romantic reverie and thrilling singing from Radvanovsky and Jagde.It was Nézet-Séguin who seemed to be inspiring these formidable singers and the orchestra. On Monday, the Met announced that he was withdrawing from a January run of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” and taking a nearly four-week sabbatical from his conducting duties, including his directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra.Nézet-Séguin has been maintaining a busy schedule this fall, including Met runs of two demanding contemporary works, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and “Eurydice”; in the announcement he said he needed some time to “re-energize.” Though it was a concerning decision, and it’s disappointing to lose him for “Figaro,” if taking a short break will allow him to keep summoning the kind of energy he had for “Tosca,” then so be it.He didn’t bring an unusual interpretive approach to Puccini’s familiar score. He simply led a splendid performance: rhythmically crisp, transparent, textured and colorful. While giving singers expressive leeway, he maintained shape and direction and favored slightly brisker than usual pacing. When, in Act I, Cavaradossi, trying to calm his jealous lover’s suspicions, turns to Tosca with a lyrical outpouring that begins their duet, Jagde and Radvanovsky sang with plenty of melting lyricism. Still, what a pleasure it was to hear the music — thanks to Nézet-Séguin’s subtle control — performed with a clear pulse, in a tempo that did not allow for any indulgences.Radvanovsky’s account of the great aria “Vissi d’arte” was at once intensely anguished and surpassingly beautiful, our critic writes.Ken Howard/Metropolitan OperaRadvanovsky was extraordinary. Like Maria Callas, perhaps the 20th century’s defining Tosca, she uses the slightly grainy quality of her sound to exciting dramatic purpose. Her account of the great aria “Vissi d’arte” was at once intensely anguished and surpassingly beautiful. The ovation went on so long it seemed Radvanovsky might be forced to break character and acknowledge it. But not this Tosca. One of the best actresses in opera, she made the character her own with affecting touches — flirtatious and playful one moment, fearful and anguished the next.In Jagde she had a tenor who could match her soaring power. It’s hard to believe that he spent almost 10 years early in his career as a baritone. On Thursday his enormous, vibrant voice was capped by exciting top notes. Now and then I wanted a little more subtlety and elegance. But it’s hard to complain when you have a singer with such a big, beefy instrument.Gagnidze held his own as Scarpia, conveying the character’s malevolence but also his aristocratic disdain. Patrick Carfizzi as the Sacristan, Kevin Short as Angelotti and Tony Stevenson as Spoletta were all excellent.There are just four more performances this month with Radvanovsky, Jagde and Nézet-Séguin. When word gets out, tickets may be scarce.ToscaThrough Dec. 18 with this cast (and in January and March with different artists) at the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org. More

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      Retooling ‘La Bohème’ for Pandemic Performances

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      Opera has been forced to forgo its love of packed stages, large orchestras and sold-out crowds, for now.LONDON — It’s an evening of drinking and revelry at Café Momus. A group of young men chatter away as a femme fatale tries to get their attention, jumping on tables and tossing undergarments. But the night spot is not as crowded as usual. There are few waiters in attendance, and by the windows in the back three patrons dine alone.It is Act II of a pared-down production of Puccini’s “La Bohème” at the Royal Opera House. In light of pandemic restrictions, the orchestra has 47 players, down from the usual 74. The act opens with only 18 of 60 chorus members onstage, the rest singing from the wings, and 10 (not 20) children onstage. There are four, not 10, waiters in the cafe.“The cafe scene feels less ‘bustling belle epoque cafe’ and more ‘lonely-hearts establishment’ at the moment, simply because there’s a limited number of people that we can have in the Cafe Momus,” Oliver Mears, the house’s director of opera, said a few days before the June 19 premiere. “It’s just adapting to the circumstances that we were faced with.”Andrew Macnair as Parpignol, with members of the Royal Opera Chorus, in a scene from Act II. Tristram Kenton/Royal Opera HouseMr. Mears said opera is an art form that breaks every social-distancing rule, relying on “crammed pits,” large and dense onstage crowds, moments of intimacy between performers, singing (which can spread viral particles) and a sellout audience. “All of these things really work against us,” he said.“If you were someone who hated opera and you wanted to devise a disease that hit opera particularly hard, then you’d probably come up with something rather like Covid,” he added.The global coronavirus outbreak has had a drastic effect on the performing arts, and opera, which is expensive, has suffered hugely. Many of Europe’s major houses have received government help — in addition to annual taxpayer-funded grants — to avoid insolvency.The Royal Opera House, which was closed for 14 months, received a government loan of 21.7 million pounds (about $29 million) in December, part of a recovery package for arts organizations. The house attracts an average of 650,000 people a year and presents films and screenings in Britain and in 42 countries around the world.Last October, it sold a 1971 David Hockney portrait of its former general administrator, David Webster, for £12.8 million (about $18 million). But even that was not enough to avoid cuts, and 218 staff members were let go.The Royal Opera decided to sell a David Hockney portrait of its former general administrator, David Webster, for £12.8 million to help make up for losses. Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA, via ShutterstockSince the house reopened on May 17, it has been operating at roughly a third of capacity to ensure socially distanced seating — just over 800 spectators, down from 2,225, Mr. Mears said. He described the mood in-house as “enthusiasm tempered with caution.” (Pandemic restrictions are in place until at least July 19.)The Paris Opera, which also incorporates a world-renowned ballet company, has faced similar threats in the pandemic. In an interview, Alexander Neef, its director, said the opera house had received €41 million (about $47 million) in aid for 2020, leaving it with a €4 million deficit.This year, the Paris Opera is due to receive another €15 million in state aid, he said, to help offset a projected annual loss of €45 million.“Everybody’s exhausted from more than a year of crisis,” Mr. Neef said. The Paris Opera reopened May 19, and since early June has required all audience members to show a “pass sanitaire” (health pass) proving vaccination, a negative test or one proving post-Covid immunity.There was “great appetite when we reopened,” he said on June 22, but “it’s been a little bit flat now,” whether because of the health pass requirement or the good weather and the reopening of cafe terraces.“There’s still a lack of perspective as to how this can actually come to an end,” he said. The hope was that by the fall, “we will be back to whatever this new normal will be. But there’s no guarantee for that right now. We don’t have visibility.”Opera houses in the United States, which depend mainly on private philanthropy and ticket sales for survival, are suffering even more. The Metropolitan Opera in New York, which plans to reopen in September, announced on its website that it had lost $150 million in earned revenue because of the pandemic.Ms. de Niese said pandemic restrictions meant having “to do all of our rehearsals with a mask on, and that is a killer.”Tristram Kenton/Royal Opera HouseFor the cast members of “La Bohème,” which ends live performances on Tuesday but can be streamed online through July 25, the pandemic has only compounded the art form’s challenges.Danielle de Niese, who plays Musetta, the femme fatale, said in an interview during rehearsals that without a pandemic it was hard enough to do “the drunken tabletop thing” — having to hop from one tabletop to another in a long, heavy gown while singing at the top of her lungs. The coronavirus, she said, also meant having “to do all of our rehearsals with a mask on, and that is a killer.”“It is incredibly challenging to sing into a material mask,” she said. “It basically kills your sound, and it feels like you’re singing into a pillow.”Ms. de Niese, a soprano, pulled out her special opera-singer mask: a protruding face covering with an extra wire that ensured it wouldn’t “go up my nostrils” at each breath. Masks were worn throughout the rehearsal period, she said, and instead of the “natural camaraderie between colleagues” and between acts, performers had to sit on strictly distanced chairs.Ms. de Niese said she was concerned about “singers who are just starting to get into it, who aren’t yet making the big bucks,” and who, struggling financially during the pandemic, had to take “a job packing boxes at Amazon.”“We need to make sure that the next generation will still put their skin in the game,” she said.The Royal Opera’s next big show is directed by Mr. Mears himself: a new production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” opening in the fall. In its favor during a pandemic? It doesn’t have a chorus, he pointed out.Despite the prolonged shutdown and logistical and financial headaches, Mr. Mears said there was a silver lining to the difficulty: a regained appreciation for opera.“We always thought that this was something that would always exist, and now I think there’s a tremendous sense of gratitude for the work that we are able to make,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll ever take opera for granted again, and that can only be a good thing.” More