Tag Archives: Met HD
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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Ariadne Auf Naxos in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th March 2022German opera after Mozart became increasingly self conscious. Strauss’s Ariadne Auf Naxos is an example of this solipsistic trait. It was originally intended to be a half hour divertissement to follow Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s adaption of Molière’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Strauss also wrote incidental music for the play. The 30 minute opera grew to 90…
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Rigoletto in HD – 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th January 2022The Met seems to have a problem finding the locale of Verdi’s dark masterpiece. They moved it from Mantua to Las Vegas in 2013. That production didn’t last long; it was replaced this year by one set in the capital city of the Weimar Republic. Why? Who knows? Which site is weirder? Hard to tell….
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La Fille du Régiment in HD 2019
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd March 2019Donizetti’s spaghetti stuffed eclair smeared with schmaltz reappeared on today’s Met in HD telecast. This production was previously telecast in 2008 with Natalie Dessay in the title role. I wrote this about her performance: Natalie Dessay was as bouncy as a spaldeen. She looked like a combination of Fanny Brice and Edith Piaf on steroids and happy…
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Carmen in HD 2019
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd February 2019The Met presented Carmen for the 3rd time in its HD series. Overall the company has performed Bizet’s opera about a gypsy who smokes 1,897,346,104 times since its first staging by the New York ensemble during its initial season. Actually, the Met first did Carmen in Boston where after a run of 2,000 shows it…
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