"The Enchanted Island" Met's Saturday Matinee Combines Shakespeare with Baroque Opera

St. Louis Public Radio will carry the Met Opera broadcast of The Enchanted Island on their HD channel, KWMU-3 beginning at 12 noon. Approximate running time 3 hours, 5 minutes. Intermission at approximately 1:30 p.m.

The Met's web site says:

In one extraordinary new work, lovers of Baroque opera have it all: the world’s best singers, glorious music of the Baroque masters, and a story drawn from Shakespeare. In The Enchanted Island, the lovers from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream are shipwrecked on his other-worldly island of The Tempest. Inspired by the musical pastiches and masques of the 18th century, the work showcases arias and ensembles by Handel, Vivaldi, Rameau, and others, and a new libretto by Jeremy Sams. Eminent conductor William Christie leads an all-star cast with David Daniels (Prospero) and Joyce DiDonato (Sycorax) as the formidable foes, Plácido Domingo as Neptune, Danielle de Niese as Ariel, and Luca Pisaroni as Caliban. Lisette Oropesa and Anthony Roth Costanzo play Miranda and Ferdinand.

The High Definition transmission of The Enchanted Island will be presented at AMC Esquire 7, 6706 Clayton Road; St. Louis Mills 18; 5555 Saint Louis Mills Boulevard; AMC Chesterfield 14, 3000 Chesterfield Mall; O'Fallon 14, 900 Caledonia Drive; and The Hett, McKendree College, 701 College Road, Lebanon, IL. Click here to buy tickets.

"Ariadne auf Naxos" at Winter Opera Saint Louis on Jan 27 & 29

Can grand opera and madcap slapstick coexist onstage?

The richest man in Vienna seems to think so, as long as the fireworks at his party can go off at nine o’clock sharp!

Winter Opera Saint Louis invites you to experience the intersection of high and low art in Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, which opens next weekend. Artistic Director Gina Galati and Music Director Steven Jarvi have assembled a cast and crew of artists from across the country to bring this beloved opera to St. Louis audiences. Performances take place on Friday, January 27th at 8pm and Sunday, January 29th at 3pm at the Saint Louis Woman’s Club (4600 Lindell Boulevard). Production sung in German with projected English supertitles.

TICKETS may be purchased by calling Winter Opera Saint Louis at 314-865-0038 or online at http://winteroperastl.tix.com/ Why not consider adding a sumptuous dinner to your opera jaunt? Tickets for dinner at the Woman’s Club before the Friday performance or after the Sunday performance are also on sale!

Be sure to check back here at Operatic Saint Louis, the Saint Louis Beacon as well as the A&E Section of this Sunday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch for more news. For further information, visit http://www.winteroperastl.org/

Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne Star in the Met's Archive Broadcast Saturday Afternoon

Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge from the New York Times, April 12, 1970

St. Louis Public Radio will carry the Met Opera's archival broadcast of Vincenzo Bellini's Norma starring Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne from April 4, 1970 on their HD channel, KWMU-3 beginning at 12 noon.

Harold C. Schonberg reviewed a performance of Norma in the March 5, 1970, edition of the New York Times saying

There was screaming Tuesday night at the Metropolitan Opera and for once it did not come from the stage. The eagerly awaited debut of Marilyn Horne in Bellini's Norma, singing opposite Joan Sutherland, in a new production, was the stimulus.

After each aria and ensemble of those two thoroughbreds, Sutherland and Horne, the house erupted. Miss Horne, at the end of the third act (the two acts of Norma have been divided into four), received standing ovation. People just stood, applauding and yelling. Miss Sutherland got the same treatment after the fourth act.

Norma was last done at the Metropolitan with Maria Callas, in the 1956-57 season. Whatever the virtues of La Callas and of course they were many, she did not begin to sing the role as well as Miss Sutherland did last night. And this is despite the well-known category of Sutherland liabilities -- her sloppy diction ("Costa diva" instead of "Casta," and so on), her occasional lapses from pitch, her habit of sliding into notess, her rather sluggish rhythm.

I know it all, and I couldn't care less. Miss Sutherland has the most glowing, the richest and most sensuous-sounding voice, of any soprano before the public, and she is one of the most exciting technicians.

Miss Horne has many of Miss Sutherland's attributes with several pluses and one minus. Her big, securely produced voice does not have the sensuous sheen of Sutherland's. But she is a better musician, has better diction, sings with better rhythm and clearer shape to the phrase, and has a wider compass. Miss Sutherland is not happy with low notes. Miss Horne, a mezzo-soprano, has the low notes together with the top of a dramatic soprano.

During the intermission, Marilyn Horne and conductor Richard Bonynge will
discuss Joan Sutherland and their performance of Norma.

In the April 12, 1970, edition of the New York Times, Judy Klemesrud called the Norma "the big hit of the season." Klemesrud also wrote:

The first question is obvious. How did the world's leading prima donna, whose rich and glowing voice shoots arrows of spun gold all the way to the top balcony, react to all the praise and attention heaped upon Horne?

Miss Sutherland chuckles, not nervously but good-naturedly. Before she answers, she glances across the living room at her husband, Richard ("Ricky") Bonynge, a dark-eyed man with salt-and-pepper hair who is four years her junior (she's 43), who conducts all her operas, and who looks like a French matinee idol. He smiles and gently prods her, "Tell her, dear."

"Well," the Australian soprano says, "it was, after all, her debut at the Met, and she is an American artist, and frankly deserves no end of praise. Jackie [Miss Horne's nickname -- her brother wanted a baby brother] is a very fine singer, especially in this type of role. And, dear, it's not like I've never shared the spotlight before."

Bonynge cuts into the conversation. "The idea is not to have one great singer surrounded by a bunch of nitwits," he says. "When the others are good, too, that's when you get something happening in opera."

Engelbert Humperdinck’s "Hansel and Gretel" Met's Saturday Matinee Broadcast on January 7

St. Louis Public Radio will carry the Met Opera broadcast of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel on their HD channel, KWMU-3 beginning at 12 noon. Approximate running time 2 hours, 10 minutes with an intermission at approximately 1:00 p.m.

The Met's web site says:

The Met’s wickedly funny production returns as this season’s English-language holiday presentation for families. Aleksandra Kurzak is Gretel, with Alice Coote alternating as Hansel. Robert Brubaker is the witch who plots to bake them into gingerbread.

In a December 18, 2011, review in the New York Times Steve Smith says:

Grimm’s fairy tales are hardly kids’ stuff: a point that Humperdinck’s buoyantly luscious music, Adelheid Wette’s slightly softened libretto and David Pountney’s quippy English translation don’t disguise. Richard Jones, the director, cleverly based his imaginative 2007 production around the relatable notion of gnawing hunger; two acts set in kitchens frame a central scene set in a haunted forest that magically transforms into a whimsical dining room.

That second act, with its animated trees, pudding-faced chefs and dignified fish waiter, probably held the most charm for the scores of children on hand. A cheer also went up when the Witch — played to the hilt by the tenor Robert Brubaker — was booted into her own oversize oven in the end.

You had the sense that the cast knew its audience well. The mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey (who alternates in the role with Alice Coote), as Hansel, and the soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, as Gretel, sang beautifully and well. The Polish-born Ms. Kurzak’s lightly accented English earned mostly top marks.

Get Ready for the New Year with the Met's Saturday Matinee Archival Broadcast of Strauss's "Die Fledermaus" from 1951

St. Louis Public Radio will carry the Met Opera's archival broadcast of Richard Strauss's Die Fledermaus from 1951 on their HD channel, KWMU-3 beginning at 12 noon.

WETA's web site says:

The light-hearted work, a traditional New Year’s favorite at opera companies, features an extraordinary cast led by longtime Philadelphia Orchestra music director Eugene Ormandy in his Met debut season: Patrice Munsel as Adele, Marguerite Piazza as Rosalinde, Risë Stevens as Prince Orlofsky, Richard Tucker as Alfred, John Brownlee as Dr. Falke, Charles Kullman as Eisenstein, and Oscar-nominated comic actor Jack Gilford in the speaking role of Frosch.

Munsel, just 25 years old at the time of this broadcast, had a major success in the role of the ambitious maid Adele. She was already an established Met star by 1951, having made her Met debut in Thomas’s Mignon eight years earlier at the age of 18. Piazza—well-known to television audiences for her regular role on Sid Caesar’s enormously popular “Your Show of Shows” —- made her Met debut in the role of Rosalinde and went on to a long career in cabaret, Broadway, and television. This season’s performances of Fledermaus were the only times Stevens and Tucker sang in the operetta in their long and acclaimed Met careers, each of which spanned four decades and included hundreds of performances.

The single intermission will include “In Memoriam,” a tribute to Met stars who have passed away during the previous year. Among the artists to be featured are Giorgio Tozzi, Cornell MacNeil, and Salvatore Licitra.

Donizetti's "La Fille du Régiment" Met Saturday Matinee Broadast

St. Louis Public Radio will carry the Met Opera broadcast of Gaetano Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment on their HD channel, KWMU-3 beginning at 12 noon. Approximate running time 2 hours, 50 minutes with intermission at approximately 1:20 p.m.

The Met's web site says:

Nino Machaidze is Donizetti’s spunky heroine in Laurent Pelly’s witty production. Her Tonio is Lawrence Brownlee, who delivers all nine high Cs of his famous aria with aplomb, and Kiri Te Kanawa is the Duchess of Krakenthorp

Caitlin McKechney, writing on The Classical Review web site says:

Donizetti’s comedies offer a mix of the bel canto fireworks of Rossini and an anticipation of Verdian majesty with a touch of Gilbert and Sullivan humor. La Fille may be one of Donizetti’s best-known operas, but it is largely famous for Ah mes amis, the “Mount Everest” of tenor arias with its nine high C’s.

Lawrence Brownlee delivered a magnificent rendition of the star-making aria, which famously catapulted a young Pavarotti to fame in the Met’s 1972 production. As the love-struck Tonio, Brownlee’s tone was full and even throughout, providing a bravura delivery of the Act 1 show-stopper. The tenor was also endearingly awkward in his lederhosen as he professes his love of Marie, the adopted daughter of the resident French soldiers, his vocal triumphs even more satisfying coming from this underdog character.

But, despite the renown of that famous aria, the show really belongs to Marie, who was enthusiastically portrayed and compellingly sung by Nino Machaidze. The Georgian soprano was spunky and appropriately tom-boyish, managing to bring dramatic interest to the regimental battle cry of the Act I Chacun le sait, turning the potentially sing-songy aria into an acrobatic display of comic gold.

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Liping Zhang Stars as Madama Butterfly on Met's Saturday Matinee Broadcast

St. Louis Public Radio will carry the Met Opera broadcast of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on their HD channel, KWMU-3 beginning at 12 noon. Approximate running time 3 hours, 10 minutes with intermissions at approximately 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.

The Met says:

Anthony Minghella’s breathtakingly beautiful staging returns with Liping Zhang as the tragic heroine. Robert Dean Smith and Marcello Giordani share the role of the faithless Pinkerton and Plácido Domingo conducts.

In the December 8, 2011, New York Times, Steve Smith writes:
Puccini’s sumptuous music, potently allusive and ideally flowing as if unspooled in an endless thread, is the most obvious and unshakable asset in any account of Butterfly. The story, however familiar, is reliably gripping; the characters are relatable, whether through pity or revulsion.

The current production — created by Anthony Minghella at the English National Opera, introduced at the Met in 2006 as the calling card of the Peter Gelb era and now keenly stewarded by Carolyn Choa, the director and choreographer — is among the most effective productions Mr. Gelb has brought into the house.

A compelling Cio-Cio-San, the geisha of the title, is crucial; Liping Zhang, a Chinese-Canadian soprano who has sung the part at the Met and elsewhere around the world, was an arresting presence. She sang vividly and affectingly, and acted with palpable commitment.