Met season preview, part 1: getting in

The 2012-2013 season finds significant changes in the process of actually getting Metropolitan Opera tickets.

This post at "Superconductor" previewed the changes in detail when the Met first announced them months ago. In brief, there are three main alterations:

First, every level of the house has been carved up into "Premium", "Prime", and "Balance" designations, with the nicer boxes divided into "Front" and "Rear". This may sound like a mild continuation of the simple "Premium" carve-out that began five years ago, but a glance at the seat picker tells quite another story. The sections are now split approximately into thirds by distance from the stage. (In Dress Circle, though, the wheelchair seats have almost entirely swallowed Balance.)

This is, of course, a price increase -- the official claim is 7.6% average for single tickets -- but it's at least as importantly an attempt to eliminate the bargains in the house. (There's now, I think, only one area left that's worth much more than it costs -- and it's not very available anyway.) This has obvious short-term gain, but at an equally obvious cost to subscribers, subscription incentives, and general long-term goodwill of patrons. (The comments to the WSJ piece are telling.)

The second change is perhaps supposed to offset this a bit. Under the "dynamic pricing" model, ticket prices will actually increase as demand goes up. So prices may well rise if you don't lock in early.

The third change is probably more significant than the second, but appears to be hiding under talk thereof: the Met has actually already set varying initial prices for every show this season. (Information on this is in the subscription book, but doesn't appear in any easy to find place online, presumably because the house doesn't want you to know how much a show/seat initially cost.) Performances are categorized from A (cheap) to E (expensive), with special F (family -- kids' versions) and gala categories as well. This is both an outgrowth of the old "more expensive matinees/weekends" policy and an unprecedented price variation by cast and production.

Instead of going night by night, let's cross-reference the prices by run to the expectations set out last month:

Yes!... if the production doesn't bomb
Parsifal (E)
Ballo (C-E)
Maria Stuarda (C-E)

Sure to please
Otello (fall) (D-E)
Figaro / Don Giovanni (it's the season of Abdrazakov) (both A)
Carmen (don't miss Lee) (C-E)

Could really be something
Don Carlo (C)
Clemenza (A/D)
Aida (C/E)
Trovatore (C-E)
The Tempest (C-E)
Troyens (Graham for sure; who knows about Voigt and Giordani?) (C-E)
Otello (spring) (A-B)
Dialogues (A/B/E)
Rigoletto (spring) (D)

Only if you like that sort of thing
Elisir (Netrebko) (E)
Francesca da Rimini (Italian late-Romantic melodrama) (A/D)
Rigoletto (winter) (excellent singing + off-target acting) (C-D)
Giulio Cesare (David Daniels, or you really like Dessay) (C/E)
Rondine (rolling the dice on the lead soprano) (A/C)
Turandot (rolling the dice on lead tenors) (C-E)
Barber (kids' version) (special)

No, just no
Faust (A-B)
Comte Ory (A/B/E)
Traviata (C-E)

What do we see? Well, Mozart is a bargain, matinees are still expensive (the A/D, A/B/E, and C/E shows are matinee-dependent), and that wretched Decker Traviata is an even worse idea than you might have thought.

Just another beautiful late-summer day

The polite fictions that order our lives seem strong and even true, because we imagine that the social equilibrium they protect and embody is permanent and universal and self-sustaining.

It is not. They are not. The world shifts under us even if we forget. This happened, even if there was (and remains) no polite space for it even to be contemplated.

Ring week

Monday evening begins a four-day run of Met moviecasts on TV (PBS): specifically, the four parts of Wagner's Ring cycle in Robert Lepage's flashily literal production. Friday's digestif is Susan Froemke's documentary on the development and implementation of this staging. Review posts from the operas' initial runs:

Das Rheingold
Die Walküre
Siegfried

The final segment, Götterdämmerung, was caught in my lost half-season of posts from 2011-2012 (which may yet be resurrected from notes). It was, production-wise, the most comically literal installment of all, and I wonder if the intimate HD treatment won't make this seem more silly rather than less.

Elsewhere

Though the "season" is still a ways off, this week brings a fully staged show to the city: Janacek's great Jenufa, last seen here five years ago. That was a starry Met cast featuring the greatest operatic performer, Karita Mattila; this is a more modest offering by William Hobbs' Opera Slavica. Two separate casts will perform this Thursday and Friday night at Czech Center New York's Bohemian National Hall.

Real opera before Labor Day at a conveniently located UES venue? Seems like a good deal for $20 (advance) / $25 (door).

*     *     *
Meanwhile, Carnegie Hall has opened its box office to non-subscribers as of Monday. Your choices may vary -- there are plenty of non-vocal offerings of interest -- but highlights are likely to include Joyce DiDonato's Handel concert (November 18 in the big hall), Dorothea Röschmann's lieder recital (January 23 at Zankel), and -- if Rolando Villazon (or somebody...) can actually sing the tenor part -- Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra performing Verdi's Requiem (October 23).

Met 2012-13 quick buyer's guide

Before tomorrow's opening of the Met box office to public single ticket sales (noon ET on the internet), a look at what's changed since the initial season announcement.

Elisir: TBA (as Dulcamara) is now Erwin Schrott for the January/February run. Interesting, though I suspect Maestri will be the more humane option.

Trovatore: TBA (as Manrico) is now Welsh tenor Gwyn Hughes Jones for the fall run. More significantly, Sondra Radvanovsky is now too busy with Ballo (see below) to sing Leonora mid-October, and we will instead see the debut of Chinese soprano Guanqun Yu, a second-prize winner in this summer's Operalia competition.

Otello: In perhaps the biggest announced improvement, Placido Domingo's semi-pro conducting will no longer mar the March run, with Alain Altinoglu instead on the podium. The March cast (Cura, Stoyanova, and Hampson) is still rather curious -- and a less sure bet than the fall lineup (Botha, Fleming, and Struckmann -- the former two fantastic together in 2008) -- but it will now at least be worth sampling.

Ballo: Karita Mattila is out as Amelia and Sondra Radvanovsky in. Doesn't take much luster off this particular show, but now the Met will have an entire season without Mattila. Radvanovsky and Hvorostovsky have made magic before in this music, though I expect their tenor co-star Alvarez to be more professional and admirable than electrifying.

Don Carlo: Not quite sure why (it's two months after the final Ballo), but Radvanovsky is also out as Elisabetta here, with Barbara Frittoli as the replacement. I'm not sure why she's still considered a star, but Frittoli is usually quite committed despite up-and-down vocalism. In any case, the male lineup here (Vargas, Hvorostovsky, Furlanetto, and Halfvarson) are still remarkable, though the production is not.

*     *     *
Quick classifications, in basic priority order both overall and within each category...

Yes!... if the production doesn't bomb
Parsifal
Ballo
Maria Stuarda

Sure to please
Otello (fall)
Figaro / Don Giovanni (it's the season of Abdrazakov)
Carmen (don't miss Lee)

Could really be something
Don Carlo
Clemenza
Aida
Trovatore
The Tempest
Troyens (Graham for sure; who knows about Voigt and Giordani?)
Otello (spring)
Dialogues
Rigoletto (spring)

Only if you like that sort of thing
Elisir (Netrebko)
Francesca da Rimini (Italian late-Romantic melodrama)
Rigoletto (winter) (excellent singing + off-target acting)
Giulio Cesare (David Daniels, or you really like Dessay)
Rondine (rolling the dice on the lead soprano)
Turandot (rolling the dice on lead tenors)
Barber (kids' version)

No, just no
Faust
Comte Ory
Traviata

337 is the loneliest number

The Makropulos Case - Metropolitan Opera, 4/27/2012 & 5/1/2012 & 5/5/2012 & 5/8/2012 & 5/11/2012
Mattila, Leech, Reuter/Feigum, Fox, Oke, Savoy, Plenk / Belohlávek

Janacek's last complete opera builds to an astounding moment of revelation: not that the eponymous (anti-)heroine is who she is -- for the show makes little sense unless the audience, at least, has known it from the start -- but that she was once young and powerless and not over-full of the world's knowledge. She tells, at last, the story of her involuntary election at sixteen, transformed by an Emperor's fateful choice from a courtier's daughter into one both unattached and uniquely free from all ordinary necessity. Life, youth, money, prominence -- all are hers, without limit or effort for many ordinary lifetimes.

This much is entirely consistent with Karel Capek's original stage play, though absent Capek's over-elaborately arranged pseudo-courtroom setting. What comes next, however, quite diverges. Where Capek gives a clever but prolix account of E.M.'s disillusionment/boredom via long life -- inspiring an even more prolix (and rather duller) philosophical essay on the matter by Bernard Williams -- Janacek offers a tragedian's finale. This, this, and this happened, the heroine explains, and how empty and small all your aims have revealed themselves to be! (power [Prus], wealth/rich living [Gregor], order [Kolenaty], love [Kristina], lust [Hauk] and humanism [Vitek] per Capek's schematic per-character rendering) -- and yet... Death, a mere stage-clearer in the play (as it returns, with E.M. and the formula's destruction, to maintaining our illusions of value by shortening our perspectives), has the opera's real say: as the heroine awakes from short stupor to Orthodox liturgical (and, in Elijah Moshinsky's excellent staging touch, a curtain of stars that effaces the city interiors of all previous action) for her last and greatest outburst, she recognizes the grandeur of God's universe again in the undimmed and unsullied greatness of death.

This is catharsis not only for her but the opera audience, who leave with a sense of the world opposite the play's audience. Instead of a dry, black-comedic "be small and don't look too deeply, lest all your values evaporate", we are reminded that as low or ultimately futile the human values we're so torturously engaged in chasing may turn out to be, we were not born into a world so uninterestingly debaseable. For the secret of this show's appeal is that we know -- or suspect -- or fear -- that its nihilistic side is, if not entirely true, true at least in and about some very significant particulars. (Did Janacek feel this way about his futile but creatively productive love for Kamila Stosslova?) To probe this lurking but generally unspeakable thought in full-on tragic style is, among other things, intensely liberating.

*     *     *
In presenting this tragic Makropulos, Karita Mattila was -- as ever -- an unreservedly massive presence. She is, as in the last (movie) Salome but not in the 2004 original, showing bodily signs of age, but the spirit and voice are still as overpowering and clear as one expects. Her title character was not one to shrink from life by nature, and the most striking thing about the initial acts is the depth of sound and engagement one hears when she touches on something important. Just the fire and wistfulness in her voice as she talks about her dear Pepi Prus tells us from the first that it was not lack of personal inclination or sensibility that put her off sentimental attachment, and not mere necessity or compulsive habit that makes her such an effective meddler and seducer afterwards. As the grand old lady who doesn't give a crap (quasi-youthful edition), she is a worthy exponent of the god's-eye view (or devil's, if you like) on human aspiration, and a worthy apologist for death at the finish -- a tragic heroine for an ultimately tragic piece.

Her colleagues in the opera all remain the black-comic figures of Capek, though not lacking in sympathetic feeling for that. The Met, as it often does, cast these small parts superbly, not least young Lindemann soprano Emalie Savoy, whose arrestingly textured sound and presence made the naive and somewhat hapless Kristina nevertheless embryonically interesting. And if critics and the administration tired of the sometimes-bludgeoning forcefulness of the originally rather lyric tenor Richard Leech by the late 90s, that same quality was quite effective in this Janacek return as the earnestly impassioned Gregor.

*     *     *
The opera ends in a tragic one-woman show, but the contrasting mode before that point is comedy, and it was the comic timing and spirit of the ensemble that made May 8th's penultimate performance the greatest of the run, devastatingly precise in its skewering of human folly before the not-quite-"O Freunde, nicht diese Töne" of the conclusion. Meanwhile, as in previous appearances, Jiri Belohlávek's way with the orchestra became ever more rhapsodically free with repetition, making the flow of Janacek's music -- even here, in the urban setting, incorporating the surges one hears elsewhere as nature (e.g. the river in Jenufa) -- ever more irresistible and urgent over the course of the run.

With neither Mattila nor Belohlávek now scheduled at the Met next season, I hope all local readers got to see this show at least once.

Summer season 2012

June is here, Memorial Day has passed, and social summer begins. As before, I've limited coverage to the span of a semi-reasonable drive from NYC.

Pocket Opera of New York's La voix humaine (June 1-2 at the midtown Dimenna Center)
The recently-born local company has done well with odd French material before.

Opera Company of Philadelphia's Dark Sisters (June 8-17 in Philadelphia)
If you missed its New York run by Gotham Chamber Opera in November, the Nico Muhly/Stephen Karam piece has its second run ever this month.

The Princeton Festival's Gianni Schicchi/Francesca da Rimini double bill (June 23 and 30 in Princeton, NJ)
That's the Rachmaninoff one-act Francesca, not the more elaborate version the Met is reviving next season. Cute Dante theme here.

The Castleton Festival's Barber of Seville (June 23-July 3) and Carmen (June 30-July 8) (both in Castleton, VA) and concert Boheme (in Manassas, VA)
A second Britten-free year for Lorin Maazel's formerly all-Britten summer festival. Pity.

Wolf Trap's Don Giovanni (June 29-July 7) and Rake's Progress (August 3-11) (both in Vienna, VA)
New productions for both Mozart and Stravinsky.

Opera Saratoga's Rigoletto (July 6-15), The Mighty Casey (July 7-14), and Trial by Jury/Le 66 double bill (July 8-14) (all in Saratoga Springs, NY)
Rigoletto is of course familiar, but William Schuman's opera based on "Casey at the Bat"? Whoa. The seemingly obligatory G&S is paired with some less-known Offenbach.

Glimmerglass' Aida (July 7-August 25), Armide (July 14-August 23), and Lost in the Stars (July 22-August 25) (all in Cooperstown, NY)
No, not Gluck's Armide or even Rossini's, but the French baroque version by Lully. Not listed because it's not opera: a Music Man revival starring Dwayne Croft. Not listed because it would take too much space: recitals by Eric Owens, Deborah Voigt, and Dolora Zajick.

Caramoor's Ciro in Babilonia (July 7) and I Capuleti e i Montecchi (July 21) (both in Katonah, NY
Ewa Podleś stars in the really obscure Rossini piece, Eglise Gutiérrez and Kate Aldrich in the Bellini. Not entirely staged.

Opera New Jersey's Il trovatore (July 8-22 in Princeton, NJ and July 29 in Asbury Park, NJ)
I wasn't hugely impressed by mezzo Margaret Mezzacappa at the most recent Met Council Finals, but those who were may be interested to hear her Azucena here.

Lincoln Center Festival's Emilie (July 19-22)
Multimedia stuff + soprano Elizabeth Futral + Kaija Saariaho score = ?

The Metropolitan Opera's summer recital series (July 25-August 9)
Two groups of recitalists in six parks around the city.

Bard Summerscape's Le roi malgré lui (July 27-August 5 in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)
I've wanted to see Chabrier's rarity ("The King in Spite of Himself") for years now, and may do so despite having to sit through more silliness from director Thaddeus Strassberger.

Tanglewood's concert Damnation of Faust (July 28 in Lenox, MA)
Susan Graham, Paul Groves, Willard White, Christopher Feigum, and conductor Charles Dutoit.

Weekend agenda

Metropolitan Opera:
Makropulos Case (F), Valkyie (SM), Traviata (SE)
Finally, a revival to be excited about: Mattila's spring run of Janacek's classic begins tonight.

Juilliard Opera:
Don Giovanni (F/SuM)
Sold out, but promising if you have tickets.

Manhattan School of Music:
Ghosts of Versailles (F/SuM)
A smaller-than-Met-sized version of Corigliano's opera.

Men in Black

Manon - Metropolitan Opera, 4/3/2012
Netrebko, Beczala, Szot, Pittsinger / Luisi

Laurent Pelly hit upon a kernel of truth in his production of Manon, new to the Met last month via London: her story is, in fact, one of attention and desire -- which in Prevost's original novel she cannot escape even in the distant New World. So this production highlights (as the early-season Don Giovanni did for that legend) the sea of Parisian men in which its heroine swims, and it's not quite wrong to do so. But this stark choice, like the update from Prevost's time to Massenet's, quite squashes the appeal of the actual opera -- that is, its charm.

It's not just the men themselves -- clad, as they might have been in Massenet's late 19th century, uniformly in black and white, drifting in civilizedly threatening bands across and around the lovers' stage in the initial acts -- but the similarly stripped-down decor around them. Colors and frills are largely absent, the settings rendered in shades of white and not-quite-offensively geometrical shapes that suggest modern materials and construction... The road to Le Havre might well be a concrete boardwalk.

Pelly wishes, according to last month's program interview, to make some point about the harsh and inflexible sexual mores and perspectives of Massenet's late 19th century, but this physical expression reminds us of that era's full spectrum of proto-modern features. While the full degree of starkness represented by the production is more than a bit stylized, it reminds us that the engineered world we associate with 20th century "modernity" had its roots in the previous era -- industrialization, urbanization, quick technological advance and the attendant transformation of everything from war to social mores and organization and characteristic conflicts. Nor is this incompatible with Manon's story, which turns on desire as compulsion, a familiar modern/modernist trope -- also the core of the opera's more recognizably proto-modern contemporary Carmen.

But it's not Massenet's opera that looks forward -- it's Puccini's Manon Lescaut, perhaps that composer's most profound piece of dramaturgy. This slightly later Italian take is hyper-focused on the dynamics of jealousy, desire, and compulsion -- even disposing of the civilizational context altogether for a much starker ending than its predecessor's. Massenet went the other way.

For the characteristic European 19th century reaction to the proto-modern life that was growing explosively within it was not celebration but denial, opposition, flight -- first within, with the early Romantic discovery of subjectivity, and then to more and more elaborately civilized worlds, real and imagined. And so Manon Lescaut, a creature of the early 18th century (written long before the Revolution was even a rumor), is resurrected by Massenet in the 19th to give him access to her era. Her Paris is not Haussmann's rationalization but the previous medieval-derived scramble; her social milieu is not the monochrome by which, in Massenet's day, besieged conventionality clothed itself in the style of its new and apparently implacable rival, but the riotous color of its own past glory and full decadent confidence -- as cruel as any age, but more arbitrarily than organizedly so.

This context reveals Manon's character as clearly as any of her actions. She does not particularly insist, nor follow any straight compulsive line, but meanders between private love and the well-elaborated worldly pleasures of her day. Manon thus remains amorally charming, the reminder of and best face on the desirability of those past times' convoluted luxuries. Transplant her to modernity and she becomes, well, Lulu: with pleasures no longer for straightforward enjoyment but compulsory, Berg's (anti)heroine meanders a similar route between street, luxury, gambling den, imprisonment, and ruin no longer able to express or perhaps even remember in her straighter, more sinister world's terms exactly what it is she gets from it all.


*     *     *
Pelly and his designers erase the curlicues and diversions from Manon's onstage existence and unfortunately much of her story's flavor thereby, but perhaps they were simply building the proper frame for their star. Anna Netrebko starts off well -- giving obvious care to play innocent in the show's first act -- but she is subsequently more gross than delicate, choosing (as has been her norm for at least a decade) force over charm at every turn. It would be more tolerable, I think, if this imbalance were not characteristic of the Gelb era and the leading ladies he has chosen to promote: with Netrebko, Damrau, (formerly) Gheorghiu, and Poplavskaya, bludgeoning seriousness has been up and smiling charm way down, a feature most previously noticeable this season in Faust.

The excellent characterizations of David Pittsinger, Paulo Szot, the bit players, conductor Fabio Luisi, and the orchestra did fill in much that the show otherwise omitted. Tenor Piotr Beczala sang well enough, though without the abandon and fire heard in the last great Met Manon -- 2005, with Fleming and Marcelo Alvarez.

The week in NY opera (April 9-15)

The blog's feed has not, as one correspondent inquired, been acting up -- only a continued and unfortunate irregularity in my ability to post. I'm writing up Manon now.

Metropolitan Opera
Macbeth (M), Traviata (T/SM), Manon (W/SE), Valkyrie (F)
Macbeth I found only middling, and I'm not sure there's enough to fill a review. The appallingly stupid Willy Decker Traviata production should be avoided no matter the cast. Meanwhile Pelly's new-ish Manon production, somewhat interestingly, repackages some of Decker's tropes in a less offensive though still not entirely appropriate way. (More on this later.) Reports that some of the staging has been tightened up for Rheingold suggest similar nips and tucks for this Valkyrie, though as a production it's unlikely to much top last season's serviceable incarnation.

Gerald W. Lynch Theater (59th St. between 10th&11th Aves.)
Gotham Chamber Opera Il Sogno di Scipione (W/F/SuM)
A tenth-anniversary revival of the company's very first production: Christopher Alden's staging of this one-act Mozart rarity.

Weekend note

A correspondent sent me this review of Saturday's matinee Macbeth:

I won Met lotto for the matinee performance this afternoon and it's pretty good. Maybe the best cast ever for this particular opera production. Hampson is better in this part than Alvarez and Lucic. Has more lyrical and musical delivery than his predecessors and he played Macbeth as a politician that's out of his depth, which I think is right, (as opposed to the way most actors like to do that part which is as "Dr. Evil".)

Nadja Michael is an ideal Lady Macbeth -- loud, high, not afraid to do those ugly chest notes. She's a natural Ice Queen and loves it.

Groissbeck was a very good and sensitive Banquo. Pittas made the most of his part. Also, clarinet sounded good, will check out who it is when I go to the Traviata dress in a couple of weeks.

This afternoon was Hampson's 25th anniversary singing at the Met and Gelb gave him the original portrait of T.H. as Count that hung in the Ponelle production of Figaro.

The week in NY opera (March 26-April 1)

Metropolitan Opera:
Manon (M/SE), Elisir (T/SM), Macbeth (Th)
Another slow week after tonight's Manon premiere.

Morgan Library:
Oropesa and Mulligan duo recital (Sunday 5pm)
Young soprano Lisette Oropesa and young baritone Brian Mulligan perform in this last event in the venue's George London Foundation recital series. Two rather different voices I like for rather different characteristics.

Met Council Finals 2012

After a year of leaving the pleasure to correspondents, I attended Sunday's edition of the Met's annual 30-and-below singers' competition myself. The program is above, comments follow below.

Anthony Clark Evans (27, baritone, Kentucky) has a coherent and ingratiating baritone voice that could be used to good effect. I found his actual use thereof, however, less than engaging all around. A project.

Lauren Snouffer (23, soprano, Texas) was a terrific contrast to Evans, making much more lively work of her selections -- even the introductory recit of the Mozart. Unfortunately it occurred to me rather early on that hers is the exact sort of voice that doesn't win Met Finals. Everything works, is pleasant to hear, and includes even a real trill... it's just not a big/juicy tone, but a more idiosyncratic instrument of the type that Gelb seems to hire from Eastern Europe and not America.

Did Matthew Grills (25, tenor, Connecticut) win because he nailed "Ah! mes amis"? Oh, probably. But it was the best version I've heard at one of these audition events. Besides the Cs he has a nice sense of phrase, a pleasant lyric tenor sound (though grainier than, say, Polenzani, that's not really a fair comparison for most), and good comfort on stage. Good prospect.

Margaret Mezzacappa (24, mezzo, Ohio) has a spaciously-scaled instrument, the blessing of AVA, and well-schooled ideas on phrasing and the like. Unfortunately at this point she also has a broader and more pronounced vibrato than many will be comfortable hearing -- including me. Her slow Gounod selection really brought this issue to the fore, and though the Handel made a better impression, her current sound is her current sound.

Michael Sumuel (26, bass-baritone, Texas) had not only a more bassy but a more defined and impressively outlined sound than the other men... and yet it somehow didn't make the impact one felt it should have. If it fills out, watch out.

Heldentenor Kevin Ray (26, New York) -- wait, a heldentenor!? Yes, he really sang Siegmund's sword bit and Max's aria -- and not badly, either. Putting him after Sumuel did him no favors, for though Ray has an unsurprisingly growly heldentenor timbre, he doesn't have the full chest underpinnings one might expect as accompaniment. That said, given that next season's Siegmunds are being sung by a guy (Simon O'Neill) who actually sounded pretty bad at his Met Finals appearance (yes, I understand he's improved since), Ray is in a pretty good place at 26.

Janai Brugger (29, soprano, Illinois), to put it simply, has exactly the sort of voice that does win Met Council Finals. School of Fleming (in the best way) lyric soprano instrument with star written all over it. Most promising (perhaps only to my idiosyncratic ear, though) for her big-house future were the hints of underlying muscle in her (nevertheless) lovely high note production.

Will Liverman (23, baritone, Virginia) used his lyric baritone well, though it did seem pushed to its limits at the climaxes of the Adams. In fact, much of the time he had it seeming more impressive than Evans' and Sumuel's instruments... which I'm pretty sure is not actually the case.

Andrey Nemzer (29, countertenor, Russia) was quite impressive... for a countertenor. Most interesting to me was his not-infrequent interjection of "chest tones" (that is, I believe, non-falsetto sounds) to liven up the inherently limited color palette of the countertenor voice. I do think that the two-aria format is rather biased in favor of countertenors, though, as that's about the point where the fatigue of the aforementioned limited sound-color sets in.


*     *     *
I thought Brugger the obvious standout, and I wouldn't have minded picking any of the others as well besides Evans and Mezzacappa. The judges, of course, picked Brugger, Nemzer, Grills... and Evans and Mezzacappa. The Met does love its projects. I myself would much rather hear Snouffer again than either of these.

The question, I suppose, is about the future, and I doubt any of the participants -- official "winners" or no -- will lack for opportunities. How big will Brugger get? Well, the recent past had two similarly spectacular lyric-soprano sonic successes: Latonia Moore (2000) and Susanna Phillips (2005). Moore has had a nice career since that win, but real stardom has not -- for whatever reason (perhaps a move into heavier roles?) -- yet been her lot. Had I known about her surprise Met debut as Aida, I'd certainly have seen it myself, but Maury does offer a thorough report... perhaps the broadcast is to be a launching pad. Phillips, meanwhile, has stuck to the lyric repertoire, won the 2010 Beverly Sills award (the Met stamp of approval) and is the Met's only Donna Anna next season. (She's also still only about a year older than Brugger, so my sense that the Met took a while to hire her -- she debuted three-and-a-half years ago -- is probably off.) It's a much more crowded field than the dramatic coloratura specialty in which Angela Meade could go from Finals to cover debut to lead in nearly-successive seasons, though, so those wanting to hear more Brugger may have to be patient.

The week in NY opera (March 19-25)

Metropolitan Opera
Macbeth (T/SM), Elisir (W/SE)
Slow week at the Met as the house readies its new Manon and next month's full Ring(s).

New York City Opera
Cosi (T/Th/SE)
Christopher Alden's production continues its one-week run at the Gerald Lynch Theater (59th between 10th and 11th).

Alice Tully Hall
Schade/Pisaroni duo recital (Sunday 5pm)
Mozart and Romantic lieder and duets, accompanied by Justus Zeyen.

OT
Murray Perahia recital (Sunday 3pm)
From Bach to Chopin at Avery Fisher.

The week in NY opera (March 12-18)

A less drab week than has been recently on offer.

Metropolitan Opera:
Elisir (M/F), Khovanshchina (T/SM), Don Giovanni (W/SE), Macbeth (Th)
National Council Finals (Sunday 3pm)
Damrau, Florez, Kwiecien, and Corbelli continue their month of Elisir, while Finley and Terfel's Don Giovanni and Mussorgsky's apology for old Russian death-cult fundamentalism both wrap up this week. The nominal novelty is German soprano Nadja Michael's debut in Macbeth (with Thomas Hampson), but most longtime Met-watchers will perhaps more savor Sunday's Council Finals and its chance to see future stars (or lesser lights) in a rather earlier stage of development.

New York City Opera:
Cosi Fan Tutte (Sunday 1:30pm)
No longer at Lincoln Center, NYCO appears somewhat nearby at the Gerald Lynch Theater (59th between 10th and 11th). This Cosi runs for a week in a Christopher Alden production.

Carnegie Hall:
American Symphony Orchestra Notre Dame (Sunday 2pm)
Perhaps having run out of rarities people have actually heard of, Botstein presents a concert version here of Franz Schmidt's late-late-late-Romantic opera on Victor Hugo's novel.