DIE ENTFÜHRUNG AUS DEM SERAIL:Mozart
Original Air Date: 02/01/2003
Levine; Deshorties, Groves, Moll, Welch-Babidge, Banks
SID.19290210
This is Moll’s antepenultimate Met broadcast (Landgrave in Tannhauser and Sarastro in Zauberflote were to follow). Osmin was long a signature role for him, but I think better experienced 13 years earlier and with a better supporting cast in a performance available in MOoD.
RUSALKA:Dvorak
Original Air Date: 02/08/2014
Nézet-Séguin; Fleming, Beczala, Magee, Zajick, Relyea
Live in HD SID.19290211
THE FIRST EMPEROR:Dun
Original Air Date: 01/13/2007
Dun; Domingo, Futral, Groves, Tian, DeYoung
Live in HDMOD Video SID.19290212
This is Domingo’s vehicle and the broadcast and HD performance from its premiere season. Sony issued a commercial DVD. Better to watch than listen to. I enjoyed seeing the production, and while it’s not on my weekly rotation, it held my interest more than Glass’ The Voyage. The simultaneous broadcast/HD moviecast is available on commercial DVD and MOoD (Metropolitan Opera on Demand).
COSÌ FAN TUTTE:Mozart
Original Air Date: 04/09/1988
Epstein; TeKanawa, Rendall, Montague, Hagegård, Hong, Cheek
MOD Audio SID.19290213
While the Met casting for Zauberflote may not always leave a memorable result, the broadcast annals have a number of fine Cosis, and this is one. Max Epstein, who was Levine’s chief assistant for several years before dying much too young (the Walkure studio recording is dedicated to him as he did the major musical preparation). Te Kanawa always found Fiordiligi one of her most congenial assignments (and other Met Fiordiligis include such fine exponents as Steber (only available in the Sony studio recording because all her broadcasts are in translation), Vaness, Fleming (not on the airwaves, but a great studio recording, and a fine run at the Met), Lorengar (who followed TeKanawa in the new production and did the broadcast).
LA GIOCONDA:Ponchielli
Original Air Date: 01/03/1953
Cleva; Milanov, Baum, Warren, Barbieri, Siepi
MOD Audio SID.19290214
This is a big voiced Gioconda cast– the work does not call for chamber voices and this is the third of Milanov’s 7 broadcasts of the street singer. Baum is on a lower plane than the other starry principals, but for Gioconda aficionados (I’m one), this is a performance to enjoy.
EUGENE ONEGIN:Tchaikovsky
Original Air Date: 04/19/1997
Pappano; Chernov, Gorchakova, Farina, Tarassova, Ognovenko
MOD Audio SID.19290315
We hear so much more of Onegin these days, and this run is Pappano’s (CGarden music director) only Met appearance. Good to hear Chernov again in retrospect. Turned out to not be the Russian Robert Merrill. Antonio Pappano, though an American resident for some years has ended up basing most of his operatic career as the music director at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The Met thought enough to give him this new production as his debut and only run of Met appearances Chernov was originally brought in as a Russian Robert Merrill. The voice is attractive and smoothly lyric, but not a patch on his countryman, Yuri Mazurok, and at least two sizes too small to even be compared to Merrill. Even in the Met’s own archives, the Peter G. Davis review of the opening night comes in for some very hard knocks musically for both the singers and the conductor. Why this was picked for MOoD when the two Mazurok broadcasts (regularly on Sirius) were not picked gives one pause about performance selection on MOoD.
CAPRICCIO:Strauss
Original Air Date: 01/31/1998
Davis; Te Kanawa, Rootering, Kuebler, Keenlyside, Brendel, Harries
MOD Audio SID.19290320
The Met has only had two matinee broadcasts for Strauss’ final work: this one with Te Kanawa and Fleming in 2012. Andrew Davis conducted both revivals. Clairon was a famous role for Troyanos and luckily it is captured on a San Francisco telecast with Te Kanawa, but she died in 1993, which I guess is one reason for the more lightweight casting. Te Kanawa is definitely worth hearing.
ROMÉO ET JULIETTE:Gounod
Original Air Date: 03/31/1973
Rich; Corelli, Boky, Macurdy, Forst, Cossa
SID.19290533
Corelli made quite a splash when he did it with Freni, but by 1973 he is near the end of his Met career. He actually has another Romeo broadcast a year later with Judith Blegen which is on Met Player. She is much better than Boky, but I’m afraid Corelli is past it on both. Listen to the Price Tosca this week and hear what glory he could offer. For Romeo, listen to Sayao and Bjorling. Also on Met Player and Sony CD. Corelli is not especially good on any of his broadcast Romeos the last two done close to the end of his Met career. The last one with Blegen is in MOoD, but nothing like the Bjorling Sayao from 1947 or Gedda Freni from 1968 and other fine ones from Gheorgiu Alagna and Netrebko Alagna.
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE:Debussy
Original Air Date: 01/19/2019
Nézet-Séguin; Leonard, Lemieux, Appleby, Ketelsen, Furlanetto
SID.19290535
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducts five performance of Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy’s mysterious meditation on love and betrayal, January 15–31, 2019. The classic production by Sir Jonathan Miller returns to the Met for the first time since the 2010–11 season, and the cast features three young Met stars at the heart of a passionate love triangle: Isabel Leonard as Mélisande, Paul Appleby as Pelléas, and Kyle Ketelsen as Golaud. Ferruccio Furlanetto sings the role of Arkel and Marie-Nicole Lemieux makes her Met debut as Geneviève. Derrick Inouye conducts the January 31 performance.
PARSIFAL:Wagner
Original Air Date: 04/09/1960
Leinsdorf; Liebl, Harshaw, Uhde, Hines, Pechner
SID.19290749
This broadcast was from a three performance run that mark Leinsdorf’s only postwar Parsifals at the Met. Modl made her farewell at the previous performance, and Liebl, a name not especially well known, has several fine Met performances to his credit. The performance is not uncut, per the review attached to the Database listing for the premiere.
CARMEN:Bizet
Original Air Date: 01/17/2019
Langrée; Phillips, Margaine, Alagna, Simpson
SID.19300535
Mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine reprises her remarkable portrayal of opera’s ultimate seductress, a triumph in her 2017 debut performances, with impassioned tenors Yonghoon Lee and Roberto Alagna as her lover, Don José. Omer Meir Wellber and Louis Langrée share conducting duties for Sir Richard Eyre’s powerful production, a Met favorite since its 2009 premiere.
TURANDOT:Puccini
Original Air Date: 12/03/1966
Mehta; Nilsson, Freni, Corelli, Giaiotti
MOD Audio SID.19310104
This performance is Included in the Met’s 50th Anniversary collection. Turandot: The Best To Date at New Met [Unsigned review in the Journal-American of opening night September 26, 1966] The celebrating the opening of the new opera house over, the Metropolitan Opera settled for repertory last night and put on its best show to date. Puccini’s Turandot began the regular subscription season as a five-year old production that readily adjusted itself to new surroundings. It looked handsome, and it moved handsomely. Sighs. Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli took the leading roles as usual, the singing was magnificent. What else is there to say! This was a beautifully knit performance. Cecil Beaton’s sets and costumes rate among the best creations. Nathaniel Merrill has achieved some of the most imaginative staging. The cast is excellent. A new element entered with Zubin Mehta taking the conductor’s assignment. He imparts vitality and usually comprehends everything he does. The live acoustics of the pit led to overloud playing, but most interestingly he restrained himself in giving full rein to Puccini’s romanticism.
Mozart
Original Air Date: 03/10/1984
Tate; Morris, Behrens, Plishka, Neblett, Winbergh, Ewing
SID.19310105
This is Neblett’s final Elvira, but she must have been in a bad patch because shortly before this Elivra, two of the Don Giovannis had featured Eleanor Bergquist, usually a Met chorister. And we think casting today is on the weak side. Behrens is a major singer, but her career is not memorable for either her Anna (for me that’s Steber or Sutherland) or her Idomeneo Elektra.
MOSES UND ARON:Schoenberg
Original Air Date: 12/20/2003
Levine; Tomlinson, Langridge
SID.19310106
This performance was issued in Levine’s 40th anniversary CD box, and is also available in MOoD. This performance is well regarded.Both the MOoD and the CD issued in the Levine 40th anniversary CD box are from the first Met season of MuA in 1999. Both performances have been on Sirius, and here is the 2003 again.
SAMSON ET DALILA:Saint-Saens
Original Air Date: 12/26/1964
Prêtre; Thomas, Dalis, Bacquier
SID.19310107
This is the broadcast from the first season of the new production; Gorr had premiered the production triumphantly (I was there), but the two debutants Bacquier and Pretre were also of high quality. Thomas despite cutting a nice stage figure really wasn’t up to such rarefied company. Dalis is in very good voice, and the high point is her duet with Bacquier. Even Bacquier has a start when she delivers her final lines in the duet. Pretre’s long career has ended up being mostly at La Scala, but when it came to the Saint-Saens score, he had no superiors. Dalis is the subject of a new biography by Linda Riebel which focuses on Dalis’ role in the founding of Opera San Jose. Her major Met career is not omitted.
LOHENGRIN:Wagner
Original Air Date: 01/02/1943
Leinsdorf; Melchior, Varnay, Thorborg, Sved, Cordon
SID.19310208
1940s broadcasts are uncommon. very solid casting. Practically the same cast does it twice again in 1945. Busch conducts the last one with Janssen replacing Sved. This is standard wartime Wagner with Melchior at the center and a solid ensemble. Cuts were common in these years, but it still is nice to have a 40s broadcast in the mix.
Verdi
Original Air Date: 04/08/1967
Gardelli; MacNeil, Gedda, Peters, Giaiotti, Amparan
MOD Audio SID.19310209
MacNeil made his Met debut as Rigoletto in 1959, his overwhelming performance an instant sensation. With a silvery, pinpoint voice, Peters had become virtually the Met’s resident lyric soprano and would go on to sing 88 performances of Gilda with the company, more than any other artist. This was one of only five performances Gedda gave as the Duke at the Met. Review of Fred Kirby in Billboard – MacNeil Is Outstanding In the Met’s Rigoletto Cornell MacNeil, cast in the title role of Rigoletto, definitely is the outstanding singer in this season’s performances of the Verdi warhorse at the Metropolitan Opera. MacNeil’s rich baritone made up for some spotty singing by other principals last Saturday (19). An exception was Bonaldi Giaiotti’s Sparafucile, which was a tower of strength. Giaiotti clearly is one of the company’s most dependable artists. Roberta Peters, as sweet a Gilda as ever, sang prettily, but sounded thin in spots, especially the Caro nome ending, while John Alexander, the possessor of a rich lyric tenor voice, seemed more interested in demonstrating it than in portraying the Duke. This was really evident at the ending of La donna e mobile, when he lost Lamberto Gardelli, an experienced operatic conductor leading the opera for the first time at the Met this season. The opera house’s wealth of basses again was apparent in the fine job by Raymond Michalski in the small, but important role of Monterone. Nedda Cassei again was a competent Maddalena. The serviceable production seemed at home in the new house, but, MacNeil, in his two arias and in duets, was the afternoon’s star. What a voice!The Metropolitan Opera recently lost one of its most cherished artists, soprano Roberta Peters, who passed away in January at the age of 86. Peters graced the Met stage for 515 performances over 35 years, specializing in lyric coloratura roles to which her silvery voice brought a special radiance. Met Opera Radio on SiriusXM celebrates her remarkable contribution to the company with a pair of special broadcasts that feature Peters in two of her signature roles. The first, a newly remastered 1967 performance of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte from the Met’s inaugural season at its new home in Lincoln Center, captures her dazzling interpretation of the Queen of the Night. The second, the Sirius premiere of a broadcast recorded just a month later, offers a glimpse of Peters as Gilda in Rigoletto, a role she sang more times at the Met than any other artist in the company’s history.
MANON LESCAUT:Puccini
Original Air Date: 03/02/1985
Santi; Maliponte, Moldoveanu, Carlson, Berberian
SID.19310210
This is Maliponte’s final Met broadcast, and only a fall group of Alice Fords remain in her Met career. Moldoveanu is getting some additional exposure with the release of the Levine DVDs of Tabarro and Don Carlo in his anniversary box. Moldoveanu won’t be mistaken for Bjorling, but he holds up his end, and Santi is well versed in the tradition. Maliponte is a favorite as she is one of the most distinctive lyric sopranos of the 1970s and 1980s. Moldoveanu is no Bjorling, he is a very solid Des Grieux. Caruso, creator of the role is the Met House champion and seond place is a tie between Richard Tucker and Ermanno Mauro. Corelli never sang the part (though he did do the duet) and Domingo has only the broadcast/telecast season of 1980. Bjorling only has eight at the Met, but two are legendary broadcasts, 1949 with Dorothy Kirsten and 1956 with Albanese which utterly eclipses their studio effort from the same period.
MACBETH:Verdi
Original Air Date: 04/04/1964
Santi; MacNeil, Dalis, Giaiotti, Morell
SID.19310211
Dalis is a replacement for Nilsson, and except for a wayward D flat in alt as conclusion to the Sleepwalking Scene, she delivers one of the most incisive Lady Macbeths to hit the Met airwaves. MacNeil and Giaiotti are both on excellent form, and Morell if not Bergonzi is quite solid. Santi is not always to my taste, but he has a good afternoon here. A worthy performance of an often jinxed opera.
ELEKTRA:Strauss
Original Air Date: 02/16/1980
Levine; Nilsson, Rysanek, Dunn, McIntyre, Nagy
SID.19310212
This run of Elektras marked Nilsson’s return to the house after an absence of four years. It is also Levine’s first go at Elektra at the Met (maybe his first staged ones). Nilsson, by her standards is somewhat diminished compared to the 1971 performance under Bohm which catches her in much fresher form and under arguably one of the great Strauss conductors in history and luckily is available in MOoD. This 1980 performance was filmed and is available on DVD on Deutsche Grammophon. Nilsson’s Elektra, this is not the way to remember her. The video of this performance at least gives you some visuals. The 1971 despite Madeira’s unfortunate Met farewell Klytemnestra (she died not long thereafter) is the Met broadcast to hear Nilsson’s Elektra.
THE MAKROPULOS CASE:Janácek
Original Air Date: 01/20/1996
Robertson; Norman, Clark, Hagegård, McIntyre
SID.19310213
This was the cursed production which premiered the opera at the Met a few weeks earlier, and was stopped in minutes due to the death of Richard Versalle. The English version is by Moshinsky (the director), Robertson When the opera is revived two years later, it is in Czech with Malfitano and Mackerras conducting. Norman is sui generis, and so is her performance of this part. This is the premiere season for Makropulos with Norman filling out the Janacek lines (in an English translation partially attributed to her). She sings gloriously, even if it misses some of the angularity inherent in the score. This is one broadcast in a translation that regularly makes it to the airwaves if not MOoD.
IDOMENEO:Mozart
Original Air Date: 02/25/1989
Stivender; Jerusalem, Martin, Griffel, Quittmeyer, Lewis
SID.19310214
This broadcast finds Siegfried Jerusalem in unfamiliar repertoire, and less stellar than usual casting surrounding him. Of greater interest in my view is the 1991 broadcast with Heppner partnered by Upshaw, Mentzer, and especially Vaness as Elettra in one of Levine’s signature operas. This 1991 performance is on MOoD. Not nearly as strong as the original production under Levine. Stivender is a lamented former chorus master. Marvis Martin now sings in the Met Chorus after spending a decade or more as a lyric soprano soloist at the Met. Stivender was a much beloved chorus master and sometime conductor., who died in 1990. Jerusalem, a marquee name in Wagner roles, is tested by the Idomeneo, and has hefty competition from Pavarotti, Domingo, and Heppner among others.
LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR:Donizetti
Original Air Date: 01/15/1977
Woitach; Sills, Gedda, Edwards, Flagello
SID.19310315
This broadcast captures Sills mid-way in her four year Met career. Would be nice to hear Gedda eight years earlier (2/1/1969) with Moffo and Bruson and Giaiotti which is one of the strongest male contingents for Lucia (Charles Anthony is the Arturo). but glad to be able to hear Sills for a change instead of the overplayed Sutherland/Tucker 1966 performance. still prefer to hear Gedda nine years earlier with Moffo from Feb. 1, 1969, which alas is also not on MOoD nor been rebroadcast by Sirius.
LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS / LE ROSSIGNOL / OEDIPUS REX:Stravinsky
Original Air Date: 02/21/2004
Gergiev; Trifonova, Banks, Zifchak / Forbis, Blythe, Nikitin
SID.19310316
The Stravinsky evening as originally done by Levine with Hockney designs and Dexter direction was not as big a hit as the French evening, Parade, from Dexter and Hockney, but I prefer this to Rake’s Progress. Gergiev has a distinctive take on Stravinsky and always worth a listen in the Russian repertoire.
IOLANTA / BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE:Tchaikovsky/Bartók
Original Air Date: 02/09/2019
Nanasi; Yoncheva, Polenzani, Markov, Azizov, Kowaljow, Denoke, Finley
SID.19310535
Mariusz Treliński’s haunting production of the pairing of Tchaikovsky’s and Bartók’s one-act operas makes its first return to the stage since its Met premiere in the 2014–15 season. Soprano Sonya Yoncheva—following her triumphant 2017–18 performances as Tosca—is the blind princess, Iolanta, who discovers love for the first time, opposite tenor Matthew Polenzani as the dashing knight Vaudémont. In Bartók’s chilling Bluebeard’s Castle, baritone Gerald Finley is the menacing Bluebeard, and soprano Angela Denoke is his initially unsuspecting new wife. Henrik Nánási conducts. Co-production of the Metropolitan Opera and Teatr Wielki-Polish National Opera Production a gift of Ambassador and Mrs. Nicholas F. Taubman; Additional funding from Mrs. Veronica Atkins; Dr. Magdalena Berenyi, in memory of Dr. Kalman Berenyi; and the National Endowment for the Arts
LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT:Donizetti
Original Air Date: 03/02/2019
Mazzola; Yende, Blythe, Camarena, Corbelli, Muraro
Live in HD SID.19359996
Tenor Javier Camarena and soprano Pretty Yende team up for a feast of bel canto vocal fireworks—including the show-stopping tenor aria “Ah! Mes amis … Pour mon âme,” with its nine high Cs. Alessandro Corbelli and Maurizio Muraro trade off as the comic Sergeant Sulpice, with mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe as the outlandish Marquise of Berkenfield. And in an exciting piece of casting, stage and screen icon Kathleen Turner makes her Met debut in the speaking role of the Duchess of Krakenthorp. Enrique Mazzola conducts. A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London; and the Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna
LES TROYENS:Berlioz
Original Air Date: 02/18/1984
Levine; Norman, Sooter, Monk, Taillon, Plishka, Ahlstedt
MOD Audio SID.19330102
Norman repeated Verrett’s double assumption on this broadcast (Verrett’s was for the opening of the production in 1973 when Ludwig was indisposed–I was there, quite an evening). I rather prefer Norman’s Didon to her Cassandre, but this broadcast now takes its place in MOoD. Enee is close to an impossible part, but Sooter is no worse than Ronald Dowd was in Boston for Caldwell.