The Met Opera's New Season: What We're Excited to See
The company will open the season in September with the New York City premiere of Mason Bates's 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,' an opera based on the 2000 novel of that name by Michael Chabon, which was first heard at Indiana University last fall. The lineup also includes local premieres of Kaija Saariaho's final opera, 'Innocence,' from 2021, and Gabriela Lena Frank's first opera, 'El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego,' from 2022.
There will be new stagings of Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde,' directed by Yuval Sharon, in his company debut; Bellini's 'I Puritani,' for the annual New Year's Eve gala; and Bellini's 'La Sonnambula,' directed by the star tenor Rolando Villazón and featuring the soprano Nadine Sierra. Among the dozen revivals planned for the season are Bizet's 'Carmen,' Strauss's 'Arabella' and Giordano's 'Andrea Chénier.'
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met's music director, will conduct the new productions of 'The Amazing Adventures,' 'El Último Sueño' and 'Tristan.'
The company's embrace of contemporary opera, which its leaders have said is necessary to overcome serious financial pressures, with the belief that newer works sell better than the classics, has had mixed results. Attendance has averaged about 70 percent of capacity so far this season, compared with 73 percent at the same point last season. (Still, the Met said that it expected to reach an average of 75 percent capacity by the end of the season.)
'It's impossible to predict hits,' said Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager. 'On the other hand, if we don't promote new works, then we're saying goodbye to the art form.'
Here are five highlights of the coming season, chosen by critics for The New York Times. JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
'Arabella'
Richard Strauss's final collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal as his librettist has some strange energies: Weimar-era angst about class and gender roles figures in the plot, with alternating farce and despair throughout. It needs a lead soprano who can energize Arabella, a character who can come across more as being acted upon than acting on her own. Enter Rachel Willis-Sorensen, whose creamy-toned Leonora enlivened 'Il Trovatore' earlier this season. She will star opposite the bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny in a revival of Otto Schenk's classic staging. Opens Nov. 10. SETH COLTER WALLS
'Tristan und Isolde'
The inventive director Yuval Sharon, the first American to stage an opera at Wagner's festival in Bayreuth, Germany, is creating a new production of Wagner's voluptuous romance 'Tristan und Isolde,' starring the tenor Michael Spyres and the majestic soprano Lise Davidsen. Under normal circumstances, it would be a massive undertaking in its own right, but in this case, it's also a prelude: Sharon and Davidsen will team up again for a new staging of Wagner's 'Ring' in a few seasons. Opens March 19. OUSSAMA ZAHR
'Innocence'
Kaija Saariaho's last, and perhaps greatest, opera is a slowly self-revealing thriller about the tendrils of pain and trauma that extend from a tragic event at an international school in Finland. 'Innocence' will come to the Met with much of what made its premiere, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2021, such a triumph: Susanna Mälkki, a friend of Saariaho's and one of her finest interpreters, at the podium; Lucy Shelton and Vilma Jää's haunting vocals; and Simon Stone's restless, chillingly realistic production. Opens April 6. JOSHUA BARONE
'Eugene Onegin'
The soprano Asmik Grigorian's voice is a focused conduit for flooding emotion, the kind that pours out of Tatiana, the yearning teenager at the heart of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece. Igor Golovatenko sings Onegin, who requites her love too late, alongside Stanislas de Barbeyrac as Lenski. The veteran mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe appears in the small but characterful role of the nanny Filippyevna, and the 31-year-old conductor Timur Zangiev makes his Met debut leading one of opera's most sumptuous, gripping scores. Opens April 20. ZACHARY WOOLFE
'El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego'
This opera, by Gabriela Lena Frank and the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, begins with death. In a reversal of the Orpheus tale, Frida Kahlo returns to earth once more to guide her husband, Diego Rivera, to the underworld on the Day of the Dead. The Met's production, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, features the mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in the title role. With direction and choreography by Deborah Kolker, who staged the fiery 'Ainadamar' last fall, this promises to be another visually sumptuous spectacle. Opens May 14. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM
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Associated Press
12 hours ago
- Associated Press
Bayreuth's 2025 production of Wagner's 'Meistersinger' features a Technicolor look — and a twist
BAYREUTH, Germany (AP) — In Wagner's home theater, a twist has been added to the classic opera 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.' Instead of Walther joining the guild of master singers and preparing to marry Eva after he wins the song contest, in Bayeuth's new version she grabs the medal out of the young knight's hands, returns it to her father, then leads her future husband offstage for a future forsaking the traditions of their family and city. 'No thank you. Let's go!' explained soprano Christian Nilsson, who is singing Eva in her role debut. 'She is a strong girl.' Matthias Davids' production runs through Aug. 22, emphasizing entertainment with a Hollywood Technicolor look highlighted by an upside-down inflatable cow and a tiny St. Catherine's Church atop 34 steep steps. Cow image dominates set Nilsson's Eva arrives for the Feast of St. John. encased in flowers with additional blossoms in her headdress, carried atop horizontal poles by four men. 'We were always referring to Eva as the prize cow. We said she is sold like a prize cow,' said Davids, a 63-year-old German director known for his work in theater musicals. That idea led to the huge heifer, manufactured by a company that makes inflatables and covered with flame retardant coating, according to set designer Andrew Edwards. Sixtus Beckmesser, the petulant town clerk who loses the song contest to Walther, pulls the plug on the cow, which darkens and sags, during the final oration defending the imperative of German art by the cobbler Hans Sachs. While Sachs runs to restore the connection — reinflating the bovine balloon and restoring light — the young lovers reject him and what he stands for. Townspeople, many wearing conical red caps that give them elf-like looks, shrug their shoulders at the final notes as Sachs and Beckmesser argue upstage. Wagner's happy ending not always kept When 'Meistersinger' premiered in 1868, Wagner presented a happy ending in which Walther and Eva joined together and he is admitted to guild. Davids' ending is less jarring than Kasper Holten's 2017 Covent Garden staging, set in a men's club where Eva is horrified Walther would want to join the misogynistic Meistersingers and runs away in tears. 'I saw some productions and I always found them kind of heavy and meaningful,' Davids said. He read Wagner's letters about his desire to produce a comedy to earn money and decided to search for lightness and humor while realizing comedy can't constantly sustain over four hours. Details were worked out during rehearsals, with Davids inspired by the chemistry of Nilsson and tenor Michael Spyres, who also was making his debut as Walther. Nilsson maintains a beatific beam during Walther's prize song. 'I really felt like in this production Eva and Walther truly had a fun connection — fun, young, loving connection — and I just leaned into that and listened to Spyres' beautiful tenor,' Nilsson said. Bringing levity, and an Angela Merkel look-alike, to the stage Davids' contrast was sharp from Barrie Kosky's 2017 production, set partly in Wagner's home of Wahnfried and the Nuremberg trials courtroom, with Walther and Sachs portrayed as Wagner of various ages. This time Georg Zeppenfeld was a grandfatherly Sachs in an argyle button through sweater vest. Beckmesser, played fussily but without histrionics by Michael Nagy, had a shimmering silver sweater below a cream Trachten jacket, mirror sunglasses and lute transformed to resemble a heart-shaped electric guitar outlined by pink light that gave him an Elvis Presley look. Jongmin Park, an imposing Pogner as Eva's father, was attired in a more flowing robe. Eva wore a traditional dirndl and Walther, an upstart, a punkish T-shirt. Susanne Hubrich costumed various townspeople to resemble German entertainer Thomas Gottschalk, comedian Loriot, fans of the soccer club Kickers Offenbach and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 'Ms. Merkel is a Wagner fan and attends the Bayreuth Festival almost every year,' Hubrich said. 'I spoke with her after opening night. She was amused.' Edwards, the set designer, had orange and yellow spears of light that resemble fairgrounds and included architectural details from the Bayreuth auditorium such as circular lamps in sets of three in the church and seats like the ones the audience was viewing from. Conductor Daniele Gatti, returning to Bayreuth for the first time since 2011, and the cast were rewarded with a positive reception from a spectators known to make displeasure known after more provocative performances. 'Just looking around the audience, there was a lot more smiles on people's faces at the end than normally you see at the end of Wagner productions,' Nilsson said.
Washington Post
12 hours ago
- Washington Post
Bayreuth's 2025 production of Wagner's 'Meistersinger' features a Technicolor look — and a twist
BAYREUTH, Germany — In Wagner's home theater, a twist has been added to the classic opera 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.' Instead of Walther joining the guild of master singers and preparing to marry Eva after he wins the song contest, in Bayeuth's new version she grabs the medal out of the young knight's hands, returns it to her father, then leads her future husband offstage for a future forsaking the traditions of their family and city. 'No thank you. Let's go!' explained soprano Christian Nilsson, who is singing Eva in her role debut. 'She is a strong girl.' Matthias Davids' production runs through Aug. 22, emphasizing entertainment with a Hollywood Technicolor look highlighted by an upside-down inflatable cow and a tiny St. Catherine's Church atop 34 steep steps. Nilsson's Eva arrives for the Feast of St. John. encased in flowers with additional blossoms in her headdress, carried atop horizontal poles by four men. 'We were always referring to Eva as the prize cow. We said she is sold like a prize cow,' said Davids, a 63-year-old German director known for his work in theater musicals. That idea led to the huge heifer, manufactured by a company that makes inflatables and covered with flame retardant coating, according to set designer Andrew Edwards. Sixtus Beckmesser, the petulant town clerk who loses the song contest to Walther, pulls the plug on the cow, which darkens and sags, during the final oration defending the imperative of German art by the cobbler Hans Sachs. While Sachs runs to restore the connection — reinflating the bovine balloon and restoring light — the young lovers reject him and what he stands for. Townspeople, many wearing conical red caps that give them elf-like looks, shrug their shoulders at the final notes as Sachs and Beckmesser argue upstage. When 'Meistersinger' premiered in 1868, Wagner presented a happy ending in which Walther and Eva joined together and he is admitted to guild. Davids' ending is less jarring than Kasper Holten's 2017 Covent Garden staging, set in a men's club where Eva is horrified Walther would want to join the misogynistic Meistersingers and runs away in tears. 'I saw some productions and I always found them kind of heavy and meaningful,' Davids said. He read Wagner's letters about his desire to produce a comedy to earn money and decided to search for lightness and humor while realizing comedy can't constantly sustain over four hours. Details were worked out during rehearsals, with Davids inspired by the chemistry of Nilsson and tenor Michael Spyres, who also was making his debut as Walther. Nilsson maintains a beatific beam during Walther's prize song. 'I really felt like in this production Eva and Walther truly had a fun connection — fun, young, loving connection — and I just leaned into that and listened to Spyres' beautiful tenor,' Nilsson said. Davids' contrast was sharp from Barrie Kosky's 2017 production, set partly in Wagner's home of Wahnfried and the Nuremberg trials courtroom, with Walther and Sachs portrayed as Wagner of various ages. This time Georg Zeppenfeld was a grandfatherly Sachs in an argyle button through sweater vest. Beckmesser, played fussily but without histrionics by Michael Nagy, had a shimmering silver sweater below a cream Trachten jacket, mirror sunglasses and lute transformed to resemble a heart-shaped electric guitar outlined by pink light that gave him an Elvis Presley look. Jongmin Park, an imposing Pogner as Eva's father, was attired in a more flowing robe. Eva wore a traditional dirndl and Walther, an upstart, a punkish T-shirt. Susanne Hubrich costumed various townspeople to resemble German entertainer Thomas Gottschalk, comedian Loriot, fans of the soccer club Kickers Offenbach and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. 'Ms. Merkel is a Wagner fan and attends the Bayreuth Festival almost every year,' Hubrich said. 'I spoke with her after opening night. She was amused.' Edwards, the set designer, had orange and yellow spears of light that resemble fairgrounds and included architectural details from the Bayreuth auditorium such as circular lamps in sets of three in the church and seats like the ones the audience was viewing from. Conductor Daniele Gatti, returning to Bayreuth for the first time since 2011, and the cast were rewarded with a positive reception from a spectators known to make displeasure known after more provocative performances. 'Just looking around the audience, there was a lot more smiles on people's faces at the end than normally you see at the end of Wagner productions,' Nilsson said.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Indonesian roof tilers flex muscles to keep local industry alive
A young Indonesian man turns his back to a crowd, flexing his oiled-up muscles before picking up a stack of roof tiles, holding as many as he can in a pose reminiscent of Mr. Olympia. This is a bodybuilding battle of a different kind -- one where competitors are roof tile factory workers who pump clay instead of iron to bring attention to their dwindling trade. In Java's Jatiwangi city, an Indonesian hub for clay roof tile production nearly 200 kilometres from the capital, Jakarta, dozens of men have been lathering on oil to pose for crowds since 2015 to show they are not going anywhere. The clay industry in Jatiwangi is more than a century old, when terracotta tiles drawing on local heritage were first made by hand to replace thatched house roofs. They are now mostly used for housing, and in the 1930s inspired Indonesia's former Dutch colonial rulers to tile their own government buildings and employee homes. "But over time, it started to fade away," said Illa Syukrillah Syarief, a 48-year-old worker at the Jatiwangi Art Factory who helps to organise the competition. "So we feel that we're not just here to tell stories about roof tiles, but also to be saviours, to preserve the culture of Jatiwangi roof tiles." The workers use clay or local soil to make their tiles, but the younger generation is taking on fewer manual labour jobs and big industry is hitting the revenues of local trade. It has caused fear that their industry could become a forgotten art in the future. "We're pushing through in a situation that's not going so well," said Illa. "We've lost workers, and the demand isn't what it used to be." - 'Distinctive style' - The shirtless men, young and old, posed for a crowd that included women clad in hijabs and judges who pick the winners of cash prizes up to 1.5 million rupiah ($92) for the number one spot. Attendee Ika, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, called the show "something unique" that displayed "bodybuilding with a distinctive style" rooted in Indonesian culture. The winnings are donated by rival factories whose workers battle it out against one another in the competition, with no sponsors yet stumping up cash for the event. "It was incredible to see the competitors and their style, and all the many things they can do using their hands, using their mouth even, carrying tiles," said foreign judge Alessa Cargnell. The red, earthy tiles have a curved shape that lock in together, making it easier to clasp a stack and pose from the front or the side. One man displayed incredible power to hold a tile between each finger and one from his mouth while standing on one leg, as remixed traditional music typically heard in Indonesian TikTok videos blared in the background. But the strength of the roof tile workforce is not only reserved for the weight room. "We're still determined. The hope is that roof tiles, or processing the soil in Jatiwangi, won't just be a commodity," said Illa. "But truly become an identity: as roof tile makers, as people who work with the earth." str-jfx/fox
