Just in: The Met has just 6 new shows, 4 of them recent
NewsThere will be a new Aida and a new Salome – both originally intended for the banned Anna Netrebko.
John Adams’ latest opera Antony and Cleopatra arrives from a 2022 San Francisco world premiere (pictured).
Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar was staged in Detroit last year.
Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick was first seen in Dallas in 2010.
The season will open with Grounded by Jeanine Tesori and George Brant, which opened in Washington last year.
The Met is starting to look like a second-run house.
There will also be twelve revivals.
Excited? We, too.
New composers no one wants to hear & no Rossini for the second year running!
Erm Il Barbiere di Siviglia?
It’s more important to cater to virtue…signals.
Since the Met has had, to be polite, “limited” success with its homegrown productions in recent years, better they produce retreads. Regardless, they will be touted as “premieres”…yes and no.
Please, no time for Schadenfreude. It’s bad, it’s horrible. What in the world happened to this beloved opera house?
In any case, Yellow Pete and his cadet need to go. Pronto.
That said, there are some rays of hope. Tales of Hoffmann with Bernheim and Margaine. Rene Pape is back, and the Fidelio cast has Davidsen in the title role. Frau Ohne Schatten. Grigorian is disappointingly missing from the new Salome, but van der Heever is a wonderful, albeit different type of singer as well.
If you wonder what happened to our beloved Metropolitan Opera company, search no further than this blog post, which showcases the political obscenity and humiliation with which Gelb et al. treat talent that has not already been ordained by “tastemakers” in Europe:
https://leahpartridge.substack.com/p/madness-at-the-met?r=43xrc&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post&fbclid=IwAR0fdMmzFqviEmE4MdNb6IFdhHL0EneH2CatkJeeYtVuNoZGim5bAZKX1qg&open=false
Apparently Gelb and his cronies have no confidence in his own taste and in the ongoing merit of promoting American talent.
Most American impresarios seem similarly clueless, resorting to gimmicks or popularity competitions rather than sussing out and producing top-notch programming.
Great example of the limited cultural excellence in the US: the ongoing quality of San Francisco Opera. It starts from the top down; Shilvock trusts his team and it shows.
Opposite example, just like the Met: LA Opera. A popularity contest and a power struggle, especially since they forced out Domingo. Garbage programming and casting, reflected by the current and past personnel.
Ever heard of out of town tryouts? Not a bad idea considering the cost of a production at the Met.
You can just imagine Covent Garden trying something out of town!! It would be laughable over here. The Met will never fill its barn unless they put on what that chiefly American conservative audience wants to see. Also their live relays into cinemas, certainly in the British Isles, and including London, have become very poorly attended for any opera that is vaguely remote. I was in two 300-seater cinemas before Christmas in York and London. 5 and 7 in the audience for the first two American operas in York, and 4 in a big London cinema in Wandsworth for Florencia. They were new operas to me as someone who likes to see new operas, but others obviously don’t feel the same. Must say the operas were great, but the experience in itself was so dispiriting with being in close to empty cinemas.
By historic standards at the Met, six new productions is a lot. There’s much to criticize in the new season, but this is not part of that. In this regard the Met has always operated somewhat differently than a European house.
Given what has gone down during the Gelb years, we are lucky there is any season at all, good, bad, or indifferent. I am just tired of leaving rather disheartened after the first intermission of many shows. Life is too short.
I am surprised that nobody has yet commented on the fact that Rene Pape has been invited back to the Met. I guess blatant homophobia has shorter half-life than a Russian Passport
I’ve gone from shunning the Met to shunning NYC in general. And I’m not the only one.
Many Russians sing at the MET, from the top of my head – Elena Stikhina, Olesya Petrova, Igor Golovatenko, Alexey Markov. this year Aigul Akhmetshina made her debut, next year Vasilisa Berzhanskaya will sing here for the first time. And true, Pape once made a homophobic post on social media, for which he apologized. Of course, apology doesn’t mean that he isn’t homophobic in the same way that the aforementioned Russian singers may support Putin. But it’s one thing to have private opinions, everybody has a right to have them whatever they may be and another to provide an official endorsement of them – and Netrebko and Abdrazakov voluntarily have come forward to represent Putin during the election campaign. So…
Please let me clarify that Anna Netrebko endorsed Putin for president of Russia only once, in 2012, because of his support of the arts. She condemned the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, was cancelled and called a traitor by officials in Russia, and hasn’t returned in two years.Putin doesn’t hesitate to murder wealthy oligarchs or brave dissidents like Alexei Navalny. Russia does not recognize dual citizenship and recently arrested a Russian-born American citizen/ballerina because she donated $50 to a Ukrainian charity.
So using your logic Oswald Kabasta praised Hitler for his well known support of arts and of Wagner in particular? But hey, he programmed “banned” composers such as Bartok, Dukas, and Stravinsky.
Not buying it.
Yes it’s a travesty that Netrebko is banned at the Met while they present an opera production which was conceived in Russia.She’s been dreadfully treated.
Can they find any singers who are PC enough to be on stage?
That’s the problem wth life in general. Everyone is judged by people who in themselves think they are perfect.
I’m still loling over their twitter feed.
NYU grad with a Latinx gender studies degree is my guess.
Or maybe Gelb themself?
Down the drain with Peter Gelb! He’s the Donald Trump of opera: zero quality, declining base of support, ignorant. What a boring season!
I’m glad they are doing MOBY DICK. it’s one of the better operas composed in the last 50 years. I understand they need Boheme, Carmen ,and Aida to pay the bills, but do we NEED new productions. They cost millions for a bare stage and bald wigs. Most who go to a Met Boheme or Aida expect a Zefirelli style show for their expensive tickets.
Whatever they do, please do not replace the Zefferelli Turandot, or I will refuse to donate $17 to the Met standing room.
Looking forward to hearing Lise Davidsen’s “Forza” next month.
Looks like an interesting season overall. But the Live in HD schedule is disappointing, skipping Adams, Golijov, and Heggie. The only ‘new work’ I have seen, ‘Grounded’, is entertaining but so dependent on electronic razzle-dazzle that it may not work well piped onto movie screens.
The Golijov is terrific. Saw it when it first came out 15 or so years ago in NYC. I’m curious about the Adams too. Loved “Nixon” and “Klinghoffer.”
Why so snotty? Looks like a nicely varied season. Who cares if some of the productions are imported? And any time The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville are both on the docket is a bonus.
Ecactly. Opera in general is on its knees.
The opera companies in New York, San Francisco and Washington are shrinking.
Someone, a journalist, should ask Plácido Domingo what he thinks is the reason, in a long, frank interview.
The premiere of “Salome” was in 2021 at the Bolshoi in Moscow
Hmmm. The Met can’t afford to do new productions of bel canto. So no Oropesa, Anduaga, Florez, Pratt, Blanch et al. Blatantly missing include Tezier, Spyres, Pirozzi, Hernandez etc. Guess the Met will get them when they are past by their prime …
They have to cut their coats according to their cloth, and find new auduences. The problem is all over the western world when it comes to Opera, and I fear the best days are over.
In the old days the Met didn’t do many belcantos because Jimmy Levine didn’t like those. Today what is their excuse?
Yannick doesn’t like them.
I think we’ve seen more than we need to of Yannick’s taste.
Could we please find out why the greatest living baritone, Ludovic Tézier, doesn’t sing at the Met? The dream Rigoletto pairing would be Sierra and Tézier. Quinn Kelsey is nowhere near the level of a Met Rigoletto. Trovatore also without Tézier. What’s going on?
Many A-list singers are simply not interested in singing at the MET. They have plenty of work at in Europe where they – and their families – live.
Used to be an honor to come sing at the Metropolitan Opera House. No longer. I have a friend who is an important singer in Europe, went to Juilliard and her entire ambition in life after graduation was to sing at the MET 20 years ago. Today, she makes a fine living singing major roles all over Europe and occasionally sings in the US if the project interests her. I asked her recently if she had any interest singing at the MET recently and she says no, no longer interested. She gets paid better with less aggrivation and appreciative audiences throughout Europe.
I don’t disagree but I would add that Luca Salsi should be the go-to Verdi baritone at the Met. He should be singing a lot more there.
Of course Gelbzabub’s bloated admin staff and DEI Director will still have their full time jobs, albeit techinically with less work to do. Is he staging Aida on the island of Barbados c. 1600 with the Caribs v. the Arawaks? Whatever he’s planning to do with Aida and Salome, they will be his next gimmick productions that will be loaded with projections rather than an awe inspiring set designs and tossed in a year or so. Each production with lower attendance than the previous productions had when they launched. Mr. Gelb has truly mastered the art or mediocrity. The board needs to find a real inspirational ringleader as GM who can think out of the box, figure out what the opera public that does buy tickets want and put that on the stage instead. Then they can look at what it takes to introduce new blood to the art form. Forcing DEI productions on opera lovers does not sell tickets, they have cd’s, dvd’s, apps and downloads for all that. Sell tickets and you don’t have to rob your endowment.
I agree that six new productions is actually quite respectable if you take the long view of Met history. Gelb has increased new offerings considerably, so it’s odd to complain about that. But I also think it’s the heavy emphasis on contemporary works that is a huge gamble. Unlike standard rep, these pieces can inevitably only be performed for one or at the most two seasons. There’s just no shelf life for most of them (a great production like Akhnaten is an exception.) So it’s a risky investment strategy.
As for comments about DEI and singers: I knew Pape rather well and never felt he was homophobic at all (I’m gay). I think the worst example of a DEI-inspired firing was Vittorio Grigolo who should be invited back.
Vittorio is the finest male singer of his generation. Slapping him on the wrist for something he did in Tokyo (and all in fun, as he is a big kid and doesn’t have a mean bone in his body) is the Met shooting themselves in the foot. No one is at his level.
I may just rather die than contribute to anything DIE.
And NYC is not a safe space to bring my family.
So I’ll pass.
Gelbster and Board can still sip buttery Chardonnays as they discuss their virtue signaling successes on Martha’s Vineyard.
But the way NYC and the Met are headed, I don’t expect either to be around much longer in their present incarnation; in one case Kurt Russell will hangglide in, in the other the Lincoln Center complex will be a migrant center for brunch.
Lotsa luck folxyz!
It’s a bit all the geniuses who can solve the world’s problems are out driving taxicabs.
If that what it takes to keep the Met in business for the long term, so be it! Frankly, I’d rather see more new productions of standard repertoire (Faust, Elisir, Ballo etc) than new operas. Not against new operas, but think the mix should be flipped….My kids get more excited about the Zeffirelli Boheme than The Hours….