The week in NY opera (April 29-May 5)

This week brings, among other things, the most interesting Fleming program I can remember.

Metropolitan Opera
Giulio Cesare (T/F), Rigoletto (W), Twilight (Th), Dialogues (SM), Rheingold (SE)
The second-to-last week of the season brings the final Rigoletto and the first Dialogues of the Carmelites -- which always revives well, but has sold much better this season than I recall from the past. Ring Cycle 3 starts Saturday night with Greer Grimsley as Wotan; Deborah Voigt and debuting tenor Lars Cleveman will join him in later installments next week.

Carnegie Hall
Collegiate Chorale Song of Norway (T)
Renee Fleming et al. "Vienna: Window to Modernity" (SE)
The WWII-era Grieg mashup by Hollywood/Broadway operettists Robert Wright and George Forrest plays -- in concert, but with dancing -- tonight. Saturday, Fleming is joined by Jeremy Denk, the Emerson String Quartet, and other string players as they evoke Vienna from the time of late Brahms and Wagner to early Schoenberg to unknowns from the '30s. This rich song repertoire has always suited her well -- better, to my ear, than the cooler Strauss parts that has been much of her operatic diet.

Peter Jay Sharp Theater
Juilliard Opera The Cunning Little Vixen (T/Th)
This actually opened with a sold-out premiere on Sunday, but the new Emma Griffin production of the Janacek opera (in English translation) plays twice more this week.

OT: Carnegie Hall
Richard Goode recital (W)
Beethoven's last three piano sonatas and some of his op. 119 bagatelles.