The week in NY opera (November 12-18)

Lots of things on this week as the concert schedule returns to normal.

Metropolitan Opera
Ballo (M/Th), Figaro (T/SE), Tempest (W/SM), Clemenza (F)
It's the final week for The Tempest and Figaro -- don't miss the former, if you haven't yet seen it. Hearing Radvanovsky and Hvorostovsky in Ballo is probably worth the non-production... probably. Meanwhile the Ponnelle production of Clemenza -- last seen with an amazing Susan Graham star performance four years ago -- returns with Elina Garanca as Sesto. Harry Bicket's conducting was the least impressive part of that run, but perhaps his sense of the piece has deepened since.

Carnegie Hall
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique Missa Solemnis (S)
Joyce DiDonato Drama Queens (Sunday 2pm)
The glibness of John Eliot Gardiner's overpraised recording decades back has me doubtful, but performances of this Beethoven landmark aren't common enough. The event of the week is probably Joyce DiDonato's Carnegie program the following afternoon. Her last NY baroque concert was in the smaller Zankel space, and a mesmerizing display of art at which her (excellent) studio album only hints. This time she's got a new album and the bigger Stern Auditorium in which to work her magic. There are, amazingly, still lots of tickets to be had.

Alice Tully Hall
Bernarda Fink recital (W)
The mezzo sings Schumann, Mahler, and Dvorak.

OT: Avery Fisher Hall
Philharmonia Orchestra Mahler 9 (Sunday 5pm)
If you have the endurance, you can probably walk from Carnegie to Lincoln Center in time to see both DiDonato's concert and Salonen conducting Mahler 9. I'm not sure how many concertgoers are excited by both prospects, though...

UPDATE --
Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Cosi fan tutte (W/SM)
Just on cue, as I put up this post I got an email reminder of this Juilliard/Lindemann co-production's opening. Like the 2011 Bartered Bride, this show features direction by Stephen Wadsworth and a star conductor. Back then it was Levine; this week it's NY Phil chief Alan Gilbert. He and the young cast are certainly promising, but Wadsworth has to date consistently failed to engage with the feminine and heterosexual-romance aspects of operas he's directed... and Cosi, though cynical and partly parodistic, mines almost no other ground.