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The Independent
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Met Opera to double cast Verdi and Puccini, as well as shift contemporary works from Saturdays
The Metropolitan Opera will double cast a portion of Verdi and Puccini revivals and shift some contemporary compositions away from Saturdays at the recommendation of a consultant trying to boost the company's finances. The 2025-26 season announced Wednesday will be the third straight with 18 productions, down from 28 in 2007-08. There will be six new-to-the Met stagings for the third consecutive season, including three company premieres. Revivals comprise 79% of the 196 staged performances, up from 71% in the current season. Verdi's 'La Traviata' will appear 21 times and there will be 52 showings of Puccini staples: 20 of 'La Bohème,' 17 of 'Turandot' and 15 of 'Madama Butterfly.' 'Butterfly" will be presented starring Sonya Yoncheva on March 18 and with Elena Stikhina the following day, and 'Traviata' with Rosa Feola on May 8 and Ermonela Jaho the next day, 'Amongst the recommendations that we've had from Boston Consulting Group was for those operas that we play fairly regularly to play more of them and have runs that include more than one cast so that we don't have to constantly be moving scenery in and out the theater,' Met general manager Peter Gelb said. Gelb said the consultants also recommended fewer split runs, in which an opera appears in different parts of the season. The Met has instituted weekly cost-monitoring meetings among department heads but has not taken from its endowment this season after withdrawing $40 million in 2023-24. Met attendance was 70% of available tickets in the season's first half, down from 73% at the same point last year, but the company projects finishing the season at 75%, up from 72%. Jeanine Tesori's 'Grounded' opened the season and sold 50%, the lowest of 10 productions, and Osvaldo Golijov's 'Ainadamar' sold 61%. An English-language revival of Julie Taylor's staging of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' at holiday time led with 82%, followed by Michael Mayer's new production of Verdi's 'Aida' at 79%. Mason Bates' 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' opens next season on Sept. 21 and will get seven performances — the maximum for the new stagings. Gelb said there have been revisions to increase prominence of some characters since its world premiere with a student cast at Indiana University in November. "Kavalier' was not included among the Met's eight high definition video simulcasts to theaters around the world. Gelb said the Met's broadcast audience was 55% of its pre-pandemic level and newer works get publicity in the New York area but not in Europe, which draws half the HD viewers. 'By emphasizing more of the staple repertoire and fewer new works it gives us the opportunity for the live in HD to remain profitable,' he said. Other new-to-the-Met stagings are Rolando Villazón's production of Bellini's 'La Sonnambula' (opening Oct. 6), first seen at Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in June 2021 and postponed by the Met from 2023-24 because of budget cuts; Carlos Edwards production of Bellini's 'I Puritani' (New Year's Eve); Yuval Sharon's staging of Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' starring Lise Davidsen (March 9); Kaija Saariaho's last opera, 'Innocence' (April 6), in a Simon Stone production from its premiere at Aix-en-Provence, France, in July 2021; and 'El ultimó sueño de Frida y Diego' by Grammy Award winner Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz (May 14) in a Deborah Colker staging. Among Met commissions, Carlos Simon's opera for 2026-27 has been renamed 'In the Rush' from 'The Highlands' and Huang Ruo's The Wedding Banquet' will open the 2027-28 season. Ivo Van Hove's production of Weill's 'Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny' and Claus Guth's staging of Handel's 'Semele" have been scheduled for 2027-28. Handel stagings of 'Alcina' by Richard Jones and 'Ariodante' by Robert Carsen remain on track for future seasons along with Simon McBurney's production of Mussorgsky's 'Khovanshchina.' Plans were dropped for Kevin Newbury's staging of Donizetti's 'La Favorite.' Barrie Kosky's production of Prokofiev's 'The Fiery Angel' from the canceled 2020-21 season remains on hold.
Associated Press
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Met Opera to double cast Verdi and Puccini, as well as shift contemporary works from Saturdays
The Metropolitan Opera will double cast a portion of Verdi and Puccini revivals and shift some contemporary compositions away from Saturdays at the recommendation of a consultant trying to boost the company's finances. The 2025-26 season announced Wednesday will be the third straight with 18 productions, down from 28 in 2007-08. There will be six new-to-the Met stagings for the third consecutive season, including three company premieres. Revivals comprise 79% of the 196 staged performances, up from 71% in the current season. Verdi's 'La Traviata' will appear 21 times and there will be 52 showings of Puccini staples: 20 of 'La Bohème,' 17 of 'Turandot' and 15 of 'Madama Butterfly.' 'Butterfly' will be presented starring Sonya Yoncheva on March 18 and with Elena Stikhina the following day, and 'Traviata' with Rosa Feola on May 8 and Ermonela Jaho the next day, 'Amongst the recommendations that we've had from Boston Consulting Group was for those operas that we play fairly regularly to play more of them and have runs that include more than one cast so that we don't have to constantly be moving scenery in and out the theater,' Met general manager Peter Gelb said. Gelb said the consultants also recommended fewer split runs, in which an opera appears in different parts of the season. The Met has instituted weekly cost-monitoring meetings among department heads but has not taken from its endowment this season after withdrawing $40 million in 2023-24. Met attendance was 70% of available tickets in the season's first half, down from 73% at the same point last year, but the company projects finishing the season at 75%, up from 72%. Jeanine Tesori's 'Grounded' opened the season and sold 50%, the lowest of 10 productions, and Osvaldo Golijov's 'Ainadamar' sold 61%. An English-language revival of Julie Taylor's staging of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' at holiday time led with 82%, followed by Michael Mayer's new production of Verdi's 'Aida' at 79%. Mason Bates' 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' opens next season on Sept. 21 and will get seven performances — the maximum for the new stagings. Gelb said there have been revisions to increase prominence of some characters since its world premiere with a student cast at Indiana University in November. 'Kavalier' was not included among the Met's eight high definition video simulcasts to theaters around the world. Gelb said the Met's broadcast audience was 55% of its pre-pandemic level and newer works get publicity in the New York area but not in Europe, which draws half the HD viewers. 'By emphasizing more of the staple repertoire and fewer new works it gives us the opportunity for the live in HD to remain profitable,' he said. Other new-to-the-Met stagings are Rolando Villazón's production of Bellini's 'La Sonnambula' (opening Oct. 6), first seen at Paris' Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in June 2021 and postponed by the Met from 2023-24 because of budget cuts; Carlos Edwards production of Bellini's 'I Puritani' (New Year's Eve); Yuval Sharon's staging of Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' starring Lise Davidsen (March 9); Kaija Saariaho's last opera, 'Innocence' (April 6), in a Simon Stone production from its premiere at Aix-en-Provence, France, in July 2021; and 'El ultimó sueño de Frida y Diego' by Grammy Award winner Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz (May 14) in a Deborah Colker staging. Among Met commissions, Carlos Simon's opera for 2026-27 has been renamed 'In the Rush' from 'The Highlands' and Huang Ruo's The Wedding Banquet' will open the 2027-28 season. Ivo Van Hove's production of Weill's 'Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny' and Claus Guth's staging of Handel's 'Semele' have been scheduled for 2027-28. Handel stagings of 'Alcina' by Richard Jones and 'Ariodante' by Robert Carsen remain on track for future seasons along with Simon McBurney's production of Mussorgsky's 'Khovanshchina.' Plans were dropped for Kevin Newbury's staging of Donizetti's 'La Favorite.' Barrie Kosky's production of Prokofiev's 'The Fiery Angel' from the canceled 2020-21 season remains on hold.
New York Times
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Met Opera's New Season: What We're Excited to See
The Metropolitan Opera, which has championed contemporary opera in recent years as it works to attract new audiences, announced on Wednesday that it would bring three modern titles to its stage in the 2025-26 season. 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
