Tag Archives: Met HD
Falstaff in HD 2023
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 1st April 2023Robert Carsen’s production of Verdi’s valedictory masterpiece Falstaff was first telecast by the Met in December 2013. It returned today with a new cast. Verdi’s last work for the stage is an operatic sport. There is no work in the canon like it. Its melodic fecundity, mercury-like pace, vocal ingenuity, and its deep insight into…
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Lohengrin in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th March 2023Wagner’s most popular opera returned to the Met this season after an absence of almost 17 years. This new production was directed by François Girard with sets and costume by Tim Yip. The staging uses stark walls and a circular device through which moved a succession of moons. Stars dominated the third act. The choristers…
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Fedora in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 14th January 2023Umberto Giordano’s minor league opera Fedora was brought back to the Met after an absence of 25 years. The main reason for its reappearance, as far as I could, tell was to add novelty without the aural pain that the Met’s commitment to new operas has recently inflicted on its audience and box office. If…
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The Hours in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th December 2022The Metropolitan Opera telecast Kevin Puts new opera The Hours around the world this afternoon. The company gave the work its world premiere last month. The libretto by Greg Pierce is based on the novel by Michael Cunningham and the subsequent film. It depicts a day in the life of three desperately unhappy women -the…
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La Traviata in HD – 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th November 2022Verdi’s “poor sinner” was on the Met’s HD roster for an unprecedented fourth time today. Michael Mayer’s overstuffed production remains a motley melange of confused early to mid 19th century costumes speckled across a unitary set. But nobody goes to La Traviata because of the sets and costumes. It’s Verdi’s glorious and emotionally apposite music…
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Medea in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 22nd October 2022Cherubini’s semi extinct opera was televised across the globe for the first (and likely the last) time today. The opera owes its persistence to Maria Callas who performed the title role often during the 50s and early 60s. The part has a deserved reputation for difficulty, though there are many soprano roles just as demanding…
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Hamlet in HD 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th June 2022Hamlet returned to the Met after a 12 year absence. This time, however, it was not the 19th century French forgettable by Ambroise Thomas, but the 2017 opera by Brett Dean. The reason for the 2010 revival, which was the return of an opera not mounted by the company since 1895, was the the impersonation…
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Lucia Di Lammermoor in HD 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st May 2022This was Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece’s third HD telecast by the Met. The previous two were of Mary Zimmerman’s benighted production. Donizetti set the scene in the 17th century as did Walter Scott who wrote The Bride of Lammermoor on which the libretto is loosely based. Zimmerman moved the story to the 19th century. Australian…
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Turandot in HD 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th May 2022Puccini’s farewell to opera returned for the third time as part of the Met’s HD series. Franco Zeffirelli’s brick for brick reconstruction of Imperial Peking will likely survive the heat death of the universe. The assembly of the Act 2 set takes longer than many of the operas in the Mets repertory. This go around…
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Don Carlos in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th March 2022No Verdi opera has as many versions as Don Carlos. There are at least eight. Alas, the composer never designated any of them as definitive. The Met has done both four and five act Italian versions, but never until this season the five act French original. Well, not really the original. The Met’s current go…
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