The final week of the NY opera season (May 9-15)

City Opera's season ended a week ago, and this week's close of the Met Opera season means it's time for summer activities -- which, apart from ballet, are mostly outside of New York City proper. A preview post or two on that will follow.

Metropolitan Opera:
Walküre (M/SM), Ariadne (T/F), Orfeo (W/SE), Rigoletto (Th)
The 2010-2011 season closes with the Valkyrie moviecast Saturday at noon, followed by the annual evening anticlimax end -- this time a 9pm (!) Orfeo. (There is one more show at Carnegie the next day, however.) Incidentally, Lucic and Luisi are very good in Rigoletto, but the other two leads don't quite add up.

Carnegie Hall:
Dallas Symphony concert (W)
Met Orchestra concert (Sunday 3pm)
The Dallas Symphony performance is the New York premiere of Steven Stucky's oratorio rather oddly about LBJ ("August 4, 1964"). The Met-season-closing Orchestra concert features Natalie Dessay in a wide range of material -- including the taste of a great "might have been" (if her voice hadn't had issues), Berg's Lulu Suite. Luisi conducts for the still-not-quite-hale Levine.

NYU Skirball Center (566 LaGuardia Place) and Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street):
VOX 2011 (S/Su)
City Opera's annual new opera workshop/showcase has two sessions this year, one Saturday afternoon at NYU and one Sunday evening at LPR.

OT:
Piano fans can hear Marc-Andre Hamelin at Carnegie (Zankel) on Wednesday or Simone Dinnerstein at the Met Museum on Friday. Both are playing some Schumann, but that may be about the only similarity...