The week in NY opera (Nov. 7-Nov. 13)

UPDATE (11/12): Not sure how I missed tonight's Angelika Kirchschlager recital with Thibaudet at Carnegie. Nor had I seen that I'm quoted in the recital series brochure...


A number of new opera offerings this week, as well as the usual Met stuff and a big OONY event.

Metropolitan Opera:
Don Giovanni (M/F), Satyagraha (T/SE), Nabucco (W/SM)
Siegfried has come and gone (post later today), as have Maria Guleghina and Yonghoon Lee in Nabucco. With Kwiecien's Giovanni disappointing (again, more later) and Gerald Finley's last version -- admittedly in a long-ago production -- almost unwatchable, that opera is less promising for the rest of its run as well.

Carnegie Hall:
Opera Orchestra of New York Adriana Lecouvreur (T)
NY Lyric Opera Theatre Mozart selections (SE)
Amigos De La Zarzuela Zarzuela concert (Sunday 2pm)
If you're (understandably) finding the Met week a bit short on star power, Tuesday night's OONY performance with Gheorghiu and Kaufmann may be the thing. The other events are considerably more modest, both in the small Weill space.

Cary Hall, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music (450 West 37th St.):
American Lyric Theater The Poe Project (Th)
I reviewed, several years ago, an early public event in ALT's "Composer/Librettist Development Program". This seems to be one of that program's subsequent fruits: a concert presentation (with full orchestra) of three short operas on a Poe theme, set to texts by three of the librettists from that initial debut -- Quincy Long, Royce Vavrek, and Deborah Brevoort.

Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College (899 10th Ave.):
Dark Sisters (F/SE)
Premiere of Nico Muhly and librettist Stephen Karam's new opera. According to the press blurb:

In a world where personal identity is forbidden, Dark Sisters follows one woman's dangerous attempt to escape her life as a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous sect based in the Southwestern United States.

This material doesn't seem the most promising basis for an opera, but who can really know in advance? Very good young cast.

Bruno Walter Auditorium (Amsterdam Ave. entrance of Lincoln Center's library):
New York Opera Forum Il Trovatore (Sunday 1:30pm)
Young singers, concert version.