# Met preview schedule through 2015



## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

http://bradwilber.com/metfuture/

Some interesting productions. Much as I love my Natalie, I don't know that I'd make a trip to see her in La Traviata ... seems a bit like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Diana Damrau as Violetta (her dream role, she's said many times, and I think it will be her world premiere in that role) in 2012/13 is more interesting. OTOH, Ms. Dessay in Guilio Cesare, especially if it's the Laurent Pelly production that was linked here the other day, will be a must see.

Alma will be happy to see that Ms. Netrebko will be busy as well, and the cast for L'elisir d'amore (with Anna, Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien) looks great.

Anything catch your eye?


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

rgz said:


> http://bradwilber.com/metfuture/
> 
> Some interesting productions. Much as I love my Natalie, I don't know that I'd make a trip to see her in La Traviata ... seems a bit like forcing a square peg into a round hole. Diana Damrau as Violetta (her dream role, she's said many times, and I think it will be her world premiere in that role) in 2012/13 is more interesting. OTOH, Ms. Dessay in Guilio Cesare, especially if it's the Laurent Pelly production that was linked here the other day, will be a must see.
> 
> ...


Anna and Elina in Anna Bolena, Anna in Eugene Onegin... nice.
I've seen this L'Elisir d'Amore already.

But these seasons are a little disappointing in terms of off-the-beaten-path productions. Not many of those, it seems like they are less and less frequent... I guess they want to fill those seats with popular works.


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

I think it's mostly a money thing, as you allude to. New productions scare off people who want to hear the tried and true. For myself, it's not a bad thing since I'm still new to opera and haven't heard half of those works, but I can see how others could be very frustrated at a mere handful of rarer and new operas performed each year.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I would just love to see almost any opera at the Met but I have an irrational fear of New York. It's not fear of crime or terrorist attack or anything like that, it's just the sheer scale of the place which intimidates me.

I can only say a few words in German, had never been to Munich but set off on my jaunt to see Joseph in L'elisir without a second thought. Munich and most of the other European cities I visit are much smaller in scale & just don't scare me.

Daft I know but I'll probably never get to the Met because of this silliness.


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## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

Some very interesting items there. Particularly relieved to see Richard Croft is still singing; his official web site hasn't been updated since 2005 and I wondered if he'd retired or moved on to another career.

And Giulio Cesare with Natalie Dessay and David Daniels sounds incredible, if David Daniels is cast as Giulio Cesare and not Tolomeo  (The Glyndebourne production is not bad in itself, my objection was a woman cast in the title role) L'elisir d'amore with Damrau/Florez would also be something I'd like to see.. Let's hope at least a couple of these productions are either recorded for DVD or televised and subsequently youtubed!


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

*yawn*

4 years of opera productions and only 2 contemporary operas. About 90% romantic or earlier - how boring can it get?


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

karenpat said:


> Some very interesting items there. Particularly relieved to see Richard Croft is still singing; his official web site hasn't been updated since 2005 and I wondered if he'd retired or moved on to another career.
> 
> And Giulio Cesare with Natalie Dessay and David Daniels sounds incredible, if David Daniels is cast as Giulio Cesare and not Tolomeo  (The Glyndebourne production is not bad in itself, my objection was a woman cast in the title role) L'elisir d'amore with Damrau/Florez would also be something I'd like to see.. Let's hope at least a couple of these productions are either recorded for DVD or televised and subsequently youtubed!


A couple of these? They've been doing a dozen of these and vouching to grow. Chances are that most of these will be in the cinemas worldwide.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> *yawn*
> 
> 4 years of opera productions and only 2 contemporary operas. About 90% romantic or earlier - how boring can it get?


That's what I mean. I'd like the Met to dare some more. I think that their past seasons have been more interesting than these upcoming seasons. Blame it on the economic crisis. One of my state's regional opera companies is resorting to Gilbert and Sullivan!


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

It's especially strange if considered from a slightly different viewpoint. Imagine paying a visit to the year 2300 and Hollywood is simply remaking the top 25 movies of all time over and over again, with maybe one or two new movies a year, and film afficionados spend time debating who played the best Don Corleone out of the several dozen to have portrayed him in their lifetimes. I'd certainly be depressed that film hadn't continued to thrive and evolve.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

rgz said:


> It's especially strange if considered from a slightly different viewpoint. Imagine paying a visit to the year 2300 and Hollywood is simply remaking the top 25 movies of all time over and over again, with maybe one or two new movies a year, and film afficionados spend time debating who played the best Don Corleone out of the several dozen to have portrayed him in their lifetimes. I'd certainly be depressed that film hadn't continued to thrive and evolve.


Yes and no. While we all crave novelty, this set-up is also one of the reasons why I'm more passionate about opera than about cinema. It *is* very interesting to see different performances of our most beloved operas and compare one to the other.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Top opera companies in America such as the Met are reluctant to do new operas for the reason that it is a financial crapshoot. The chances are that any new opera will be quickly forgotten,and many opera goers are very conservative in their tastes are reluctant to see a new one,even by a composer who writes in an accessible tonal style and is not wacky avant-garde.
It's all a question of box office. If the Met can't fill its seats, it's in financial trouble.
Opera companies in the USA are often in financial trouble anyway.
In European opera companies,such as in Germany,where they are generously subsidized by the government, it's no big deal if a new opera is a box office flop.
Nonethe less, a fair number of new operas have been performed by US opera companies,by composers such as Adams,Glass,Bolcom,Tobias Picker, John Harbison,
and other leading contemporary composers.
In recent years,the Met has done new operas by John Harbison,William Bolcom,Tan Dun, and Tobias Picker.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Yeah I guess were lucky to have our subsidies!


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## JoeGreen (Nov 17, 2008)

emiellucifuge said:


> *yawn*
> 
> 4 years of opera productions and only 2 contemporary operas. About 90% romantic or earlier - how boring can it get?


Yeah I was put off by the share....conservativeness of the upcoming repetoire...but eh last item caught my attention for sure...

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, composer Osvaldo Golijov

I've liked a lot of this composers work so I'm looking forward to what should be a most interesting work.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

The person who runs the Joseph Calleja Fan Club has just emailed our group offering to organise a trip to NY to see Joseph in Faust. Now that's what I call an office outing.

So I could fulfil my dream of seeing an opera at the Met after all.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

sospiro said:


> *The person who runs the Joseph Calleja Fan Club* has just emailed our group offering to organise a trip to NY to see Joseph in Faust. Now that's what I call an office outing.
> 
> So I could fulfil my dream of seeing an opera at the Met after all.


You mean you, right?
Yes, go for it, Annie, New York City is nice! Not scary at all. As a matter of fact, it's the safest large city in the United States. Manhattan is a sophisticated, very international, extremely interesting place.

P.S. - Got my PM? There was no reply.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Almaviva said:


> You mean you, right?


A lovely lady called Alice Poulsen runs Joseph's unofficial site & also his Yahoo Group & it's Alice who has offered to organise the trip.



Almaviva said:


> Yes, go for it, Annie, New York City is nice! Not scary at all. As a matter of fact, it's the safest large city in the United States. Manhattan is a sophisticated, very international, extremely interesting place.


I'm not at all concerned for my safety, it's the scale of New York which I found daunting - as a woman travelling alone. But if there are enough JC fans to make the trip viable then I won't be alone & I know I'll love it.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

In contrast, I just received the programming for next years season here in Amsterdam in the mail.

Gluck - Iphigenie en Aulide
Gluck - Iphigenie en Tauride
Strauss - Elektra
Mozart - Idomeneo 
Trojahn - Orest
Stravinsky - The Nightingale and other Fables
Rimsky-Korsakov - The legend of the invisible city of Kitesch and the girl Fevronja
Handel - Deidamia
Rossini - Il Turco in Italia
Verdi - Don Carlo
de Raaff - Waiting for Miss Monroe
Wagner - Parsifal


Beijing Opera school visiting with:
Shi Nai-an - At the waterside


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

sospiro said:


> A lovely lady called Alice Poulsen runs Joseph's unofficial site & also his Yahoo Group & it's Alice who has offered to organise the trip.
> 
> I'm not at all concerned for my safety, it's the scale of New York which I found daunting - as a woman travelling alone. But if there are enough JC fans to make the trip viable then I won't be alone & I know I'll love it.


It is indeed huge, massively and staggeringly huge ... and that's coming from someone who lived in Chicago for years and felt that it was just about the right size. And NY is also perhaps the dirtiest city I've ever been in, with Berlin being a fairly distant second. But, it's absolutely worth going to, if only for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, easily the best art museum in the US (unless you're more into modern and post modern art, in which case the Guggenheim would make a strong case for NYC as well).


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Ive lived in Chicago, London, Amsterdam.

For me Amsterdam is the right size. The others are too big.

Amsterdam 219 km2 (84.6 sq mi) = 1 Amsterdam
London 607 sq mi (1,572.1 km2) = 7 Amsterdams
Chicago 234.0 sq mi (606.1 km2) = 3 Amsterdams
New York 468.9 sq mi (1,214.4 km2) = 5.5 Amsterdams


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

rgz said:


> It is indeed huge, massively and staggeringly huge ... and that's coming from someone who lived in Chicago for years and felt that it was just about the right size. And NY is also perhaps the dirtiest city I've ever been in, with Berlin being a fairly distant second. But, it's absolutely worth going to, if only for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, easily the best art museum in the US (unless you're more into modern and post modern art, in which case the Guggenheim would make a strong case for NYC as well).


Thanks for the info Ian. If all goes well we'll be there for a week so I'm grateful for all tips on what to see in a limited time.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

sospiro said:


> Thanks for the info Ian. If all goes well we'll be there for a week so I'm grateful for all tips on what to see in a limited time.


So you're definitely going to do it Annie? How exciting.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

emiellucifuge said:


> In contrast, I just received the programming for next years season here in Amsterdam in the mail.
> 
> Gluck - Iphigenie en Aulide
> Gluck - Iphigenie en Tauride
> ...


That's an interesting line up.


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

sospiro said:


> Thanks for the info Ian. If all goes well we'll be there for a week so I'm grateful for all tips on what to see in a limited time.


That's great to hear! I'm not terribly well-informed on NYC having only been there once, and that as a brief sidetrip with my girlfriend at the time while visiting her at Sarah Lawrence college, so I can't act as much of a tour guide unfortunately. Now, if you were ever make it to Chicago I'd have a whole list of things to do


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

rgz said:


> It is indeed huge, massively and staggeringly huge ... and that's coming from someone who lived in Chicago for years and felt that it was just about the right size. And NY is also perhaps the dirtiest city I've ever been in, with Berlin being a fairly distant second. But, it's absolutely worth going to, if only for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, easily the best art museum in the US (unless you're more into modern and post modern art, in which case the Guggenheim would make a strong case for NYC as well).


Don't forget the MoMA, it is wonderful too, and has the advantage of a very, very good restaurant.

Oh well, Paris is very dirty too. There is dog poop everywhere in Paris.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> Yeah I guess were lucky to have our subsidies!


Yay for subsidies!


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

Almaviva said:


> Don't forget the MoMA, it is wonderful too, and has the advantage of a very, very good restaurant.
> 
> Oh well, Paris is very dirty too. There is dog poop everywhere in Paris.


I'd heard that from several sources before visiting, and the dog poop in particular is mentioned over and over in the book "A Year in the Merde", but I was surprised at how clean Paris was. Moderate amounts of graffiti, but not garbage everywhere ala Bucharest, Berlin, or NYC.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

rgz said:


> I'd heard that from several sources before visiting, and the dog poop in particular is mentioned over and over in the book "A Year in the Merde", *but I was surprised at how clean Paris was*. Moderate amounts of graffiti, but not garbage everywhere ala Bucharest, Berlin, or NYC.


Maybe they cleaned up right before you visited. I used to live there, for five years. Trust me, it is dirty.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Or maybe the Motocrottes were still in operation.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

mamascarlatti said:


> Or maybe the Motocrottes were still in operation.


:lol:

But they weren't that effective. And then, it wasn't just the dog poop. Maybe our friend has only visited the nicest parts of town. There was plenty of garbage and grafitti in Paris, in places like the 19th and 20th arrondissements.


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

To be fair, my wife and I were there for only a week. But apart from our mandatory things (Musee d'Orsay, Champs Elysees) we tried to visit as non-touristy areas as possible. Didn't even go near la Tour Eiffel or take a boat on the Seine. Maybe the pooper scoopers were just extra efficient that week.

Not sure which arrondissement were were in, but we were a couple blocks away from the Republique station if that helps.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

rgz said:


> To be fair, my wife and I were there for only a week. But apart from our mandatory things (Musee d'Orsay, Champs Elysees) we tried to visit as non-touristy areas as possible. Didn't even go near la Tour Eiffel or take a boat on the Seine. Maybe the pooper scoopers were just extra efficient that week.
> 
> Not sure which arrondissement were were in, but we were a couple blocks away from the Republique station if that helps.


The Republique pretty much sits on the border between the fancier parts and the parts that are more derelict. It all depends on the following: two blocks in what direction? If it is towards the Place des Vosges, than it's fancy and proper. If it is to the north, then it starts to decline a lot.


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

We were two blocks to the SE, staying at a hostel the name of which slips my mind.

e: looking through pics, looks like it was called Hotel de Nevers


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

rgz said:


> We were two blocks to the SE, staying at a hostel the name of which slips my mind.
> 
> e: looking through pics, looks like it was called Hotel de Nevers


The SE is to the direction of the Place des Vosges and the Bastille. Not bad. You didn't really see the bad parts, then.

Anyway, don't read me wrong, I love Paris. It's just that when people say that NYC (a city I profoundly love) is dirty, I remind them that Paris is dirty too. This doesn't prevent these two cities from being spectacular places.


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