Fall flurries

Ladies, I announce lots of juicy additions and changes to Brad's Met Futures page:

For the 2010-11 season: Orfeo ed Euridice has been added to the repertory, and will feature David Daniels and Lisette Oropesa (as Amor); the Danish contralto Susanne Resmark will make her Met debut as Ragonde in Le Comte Ory; Marina Poplavskaya takes over Violetta from Anna Netrebko; Kathleen Kim sings Madame Mao in Nixon in China; Anne Sofie von Otter will be Clairon in Capriccio (instead of Susan Graham); Susan Graham will sing Iphigenie; Canadian mezzo Julie Boulianne debuts as Stephano in Romeo et Juliette and then moves on to sing Diana in Iphigenie; Sondra Radvanovsky will sing Leonora in Trovatore instead of Tosca; and finally, Deborah Voigt is the Minnie in Fanciulla del West.

For the 2011-12 season: Gustavo Dudamel is no longer slated to conduct L'elisir d'amore; Maestro Michele Mariotti will debut in his place; Daedalus and Les Troyens have been dropped, while Fille du Regiment and Turandot have been added to the roster; Angela Meade will share the role of Anna Bolena with Anna Netrebko; German soprano Mojca Erdmann makes her Met debut as Zerlina, at the premiere of the new Grandage Don Giovanni; Mikhail Petrenko will be Basilio in Barbiere di Siviglia.

For the 2012-13 season: Die Frau Ohne Schatten has been dropped from the planned list, while Carmen and Falstaff have been added; the season will see the return of Les Troyens, with Susan Graham and Marcello Giordani; Rigoletto will be a new production, with Diana Damrau and Lisette Oropesa sharing the role of Gilda, Piotr Beczala as the Duke, and Zeljko Lucic and George Gagnidze sharing the title role.


For the 2013-14 season, Die Frau Ohne Schatten will return, with Maestro Vladimir Jurowski conducting.

She's back

STRAUSS Der Rosenkavalier, Met 13 October 2009; c. de Waart, Fleming, Graham, Persson, Sigmundsson, White, Ketelsen, Vargas.

Curtain up: things have settled enough for Sieglinde to reboot. I'm seeing an equilibrium based on (really) short posts, but it's still being calibrated, so patience please. Last night, the return of Renee Fleming's Feldmarschallin and Susan Graham's Octavian, and a debut of a promising soprano, Miah Persson as Sophie, ethereal in a Judith Blegen hue. I'm dreading the day when I can detect the inevitable pulling back in Renee's voice. My current (conservative) diagnosis: it'll be sometime after April of 2017. Plus, you know how whatever Renee is singing currently becomes just THAT role divinely written for her: I'd say it, but that would be boring. One minor quibble: she is taking more time to warm up. Susan Graham's voice has grown tremendously in size in recent years, and the colors are thrilling. The chemistry between these ladies' voices is akin to baseball's Rodriguez-Teixeira tandem (BTW, Go Yankees.). Kristinn Sigmundsson is one of the evening's weak links. I'm not particularly aroused by Ochs' frequent interruptions, so to have a bland bass for the evening is torture times two. Meanwhile, Ramon Vargas probably had his worst outing on the Met stage as the Italian Singer. The unadorned oasis that the aria was to be didn't be. Really, it was physically painful to hear. Finally, all together now: Jimmy get well soon. Maestro Edo de Waart was either conducting or mowing the lawn, I couldn't tell.