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La Sonnambula

La Sonnambula in HD 2025

October 18, 2025

Today’s telecast of Bellini’s soprano showcase revealed the numerous problems that have been afflicting the Met during the tenure of its general manager, Peter Gelb. Not that there was a problem with the show – which was fine, it’s issues surrounding the production that reflect the company’s difficulties. First is the need for a new […]

La Sonnambula at the Met – Very Brief Review

October 7, 2025

‘The Met’s new production of Bellini’s La Sonnambula was broadcast over the company’s Sirius channel last night. It featured Nadine Sierra in the title role. Spanish tenor Xabier Anduaga was Elvino. Sierra has all the vocal bells and whistles necessary to realize Belini’s sleepwalking canary. She is the reason for this production. Anduaga, on the […]

La Sonnambula at the Met – Very Brief Review

La Sonnambula Returns to the Met

March 19, 2014

When I was studying music at Williams College my professor Robert Barrow, the chairman of the department and a figure of magisterial austerity, said that whenever he went to the Met to hear Wagner he always demanded a seat behind a post. I can’t remember if the old Met really had a seat behind a […]

Ah Non Credea Mirarti – Bellini and Thalberg

October 30, 2013

Vincenzo Bellini (1801-35) was born in Catania,Sicily and died before his 34th birthday outside of Paris. He was beautiful, delicate (Heine described him as a sigh in pumps), and could write melodies of unsurpassed beauty. Everyone loved his melodies – Wagner, Verdi (he said the melodies are long, long, long), and Chopin who was influenced […]

Ah Non Credea Mirarti – Bellini and Thalberg

La Sonnambula in HD

March 21, 2009

Mary Zimmerman’s new production of Bellini’s gentle masterpiece which was booed after its first performance at the Met was sent all over the world today. And it wasn’t the worst thing since Jacopo Peri. It wasn’t even in the same league of awfulness as Calixto Bieito or Robert Wilson. It was just ordinary silliness. Part […]

Zimmerman Booed at the Met

March 2, 2009

Bellini’s La Sonnambula received its first performance tonight in Mary Zimmerman’s new staging. Much has been made of her decision to move the opera’s locale from a Swiss village to a New York rehearsal hall. Considering her assault on Donizetti’s Lucia Di Lammermoor it seemed foolish to bring her back for another shot at a […]