Tag Archives: Met HD
Florencia en el Amazonas in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th December 2023Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s opera was the Metropolitan Opera’s third HD telecast of this season. The work was first performed by the Houston Grand Opera in 1996. This run is Florencia’s first appearance at the Met. Much has been made over two features of the opera neither of which has any bearing on its artistic…
› Read the full entry
Malcolm X in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th November 2023X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X was telecast today. As a piece of sophisticated parochialism it will grip the hearts of Upper West Side New Yorkers who regularly attend the Met. If you seek a work for the lyric theater that touches a spark common to all men you will not find it…
› Read the full entry
Dead Man Walking in HD – Another Technical Screwup
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 21st October 2023The Met’s first HD telecast of this season ended with a whimper – a dead screen and no sound. The transmission stopped when the murderer De Rocher was strapped to a gurney and was being executed. After that nothing. No reprise of the hymn-like song sung by Sister Helen, no applause, no curtain calls, no…
› Read the full entry
Don Giovanni in HD – 2023
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th May 2023Ivo van Hove’s Jack the Ripper with music by Mozart and sets by Jan Versweyveld masquerading as Le Corbusier was telecast this afternoon from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House. The screen and the program said the opera was Don Giovanni, but Mozart’s dramma giocoso had all the giocoso removed by director Hove. The…
› Read the full entry
Champion in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th April 2023Terence Blanchard’s second opera Fire Shut Up in My Bones which opened the Met’s previous season was such a hit (it will be back next season) that the company staged his first opera Champion this year. The opera tells the story of five time boxing champion Emile Griffith. Musically Blanchard’s first opera is not as…
› Read the full entry
Der Rosenkavalier Not in HD – 2023
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th April 2023When I arrived at the theater where I have been watching the Met’s HD telecasts since they started about 17 years ago I was informed that the theater’s sound system had failed and accordingly the show would not go on – at least not where I was. I returned home in time to catch the…
› Read the full entry
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…
› Read the full entry
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…
› Read the full entry
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…
› Read the full entry
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…
› Read the full entry
