Tag Archives: Metropolitan Opera
Sing For Your Life – Book Review
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 10th April 2023This evening the Met will present its first performance of Terence Blanchard’s opera Champion about the life of boxer Emile Griffith. The leading role will be sung by Ryan Speedo Green whose life story is worthy of its own opera. It’s already been the subject of a book – Sing For Your Life: A Story…
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Met Opera Opens Season with Cherubini’s Medea
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th September 2022This evening the Met opened its 2022-23 season with its first ever presentation of Luigi Cherubini’s opera Medea. Well, it’s mostly by Cherubini. He wrote Médée an opéra comique for the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. After its premiere in 1797, it was largely neglected. It was subsequently translated into German and the dialogue replaced with…
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Lucia Di Lammermoor Met 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 27th April 2022The Met’s new production of Lucia Di Lammermoor staged by Simon Stone has been roughly handled by several critics. It received its second performance last night which was broadcast on the Met’s radio network. The show will be telecast on May 21. I decided to listen to it without the gouts of blood and high…
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Madama Butterfly – Met 2022
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd April 2022Last night the Met broadcast one of its current run of Puccini’s masterpiece – it was the 898th time the company has presented the opera. The current Butterfly is Italian soprano Eleonora Buratto. She was good in a part that demands great. Tepid applause after ‘Un bel di’ and none after Butterfly’s moment of triumph…
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Eugene Onegin at the Met – An Exercise in Cynicism
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th April 2022Last night the Met presented it’s last performance of the season of Tchaikovsky’s most popular opera Eugene Onegin. It was another well done show that save for one issue will fade into the institutional memory of the house without much to remember it. Igor Golovatenko sang the title role. What’s so special about that? He’s…
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Fire Shut Up In My Bones in HD
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd October 2021I’ll get the bad news out of the way first. In a repeat of the 2014 telecast of Werther featuring Jonas Kaufmann, the signal from the Met’s broadcast of Fire Shut Up In My Bones was lost at the opera’s climax and did not return until the middle of the curtain calls. I was told…
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Met Opera Cancels Next 100 Seasons
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th October 2021Metropolitan Opera general Manager Peter Gelb announced that following this season the venerable company will take a century long sabbatical. The not unexpected action followed Anthony Tommasini’s likening of the current run of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Puccini’s final opera Turandot to “anti-asian” hostility. Mr Tommasini, music critic for the New York Times, has pointed…
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Franco Corelli – 100 Years
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th April 2021Franco Corelli was born in April of 1921 in Ancona on the Adriatic coast. He decided to pursue an musical career later than most singers. After two unsuccessful encounters with voice teachers he resolved to train himself by intense study of the recordings of the great Italian tenors who had preceded him. After winning the…
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Met Opens Season with Porgy and Bess
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 24th September 2019The Met’s season opener Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess was broadcast over the Sirius network last night. Listeners who heard the broadcast and who can’t get to the Met will be able to view James Robinson’s new production on February 1 when it will be telecast as part of this season’s Met in HD series. A…
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The Met’s House Baritones
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 17th May 2019I’m using the same criterion to define a Met house baritone as I did for the company’s tenors; ie, more than 500 performances in leading roles. This rule yields 11 baritones over the life of the Met – almost twice as many as for the tenors. They’re presented below by the number of shows they…
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