Following up on last year’s announcement:
“James Levine is making a comeback.”
“Defying opera world doubters who thought he was too ill, weak or disengaged, the longtime and much loved music director of the Metropolitan Opera plans to return to the podium for the first time in two years, for a May 19 performance by the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and for three productions at the opera house next season.”
Read more about this at Arts Beat, The New York Times Arts section.
Local filmmaker Nat Bouman was the lensman for a new indie film that received a great review in today’s (Jan. 6, 2012) New York Times. Nat is mentioned in this Times article about the film “Co-dependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same”. Nat is a member of the ART Mission & Theater and was born and raised in nearby Brackney, Pa., where he lives with his wife, Katherine Bouman, and their daughter, Harper. Nat entered the film and television industry as a lowly production assistant after college. Since then, he has earned his M.F.A. in Film from Columbia University and worked on a wide variety of projects as both a director and cinematographer. Nat is currently an assistant professor at SUNY College at Oneonta, where he teaches courses in film studies and film production. Katherine Bouman, Nat’s wife, is on the board of directors for the ART Mission & Theater and formerly served as director of education at Roberson Museum & Science Center.
Check out these two good news/bad news reports from the world of opera. First, an article from The Dedham Transcript (Needham, Mass.) on the demise of Opera Boston. Then, a New York Times look at how small opera companies are trying to fill the void left by the drastic reduction and displacement of New York City Opera.
“James Levine, the Metropolitan Opera’s ailing music director, has withdrawn from conducting at the house this season and the next, the Met and Mr. Levine said on Friday (Dec. 9). Levine cancelled the last remaining dates on his schedule — two cycles of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in April and May — and withdrew from all productions he had planned to lead next season.”
Read more about this at Arts Beat, The New York Times Arts section.
Here’s a link to The New York Times’ article about Metropolitan Opera finances and fund-raising: http://tinyurl.com/3tdj55d.
Believe it or not, the Metropolitan Opera had never mounted a production of Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena” before this season. The opera — and the Met’s 2011-12 season — debuted Monday (Sept. 26); here’s a link to The New York Times review: http://tinyurl.com/4xcevxa.
Proposed changes to “Porgy and Bess” before its Broadway revival range from replacing recitative with dialogue to brightening up the ambiguous ending. Supporters say this new, “Bess-centric” version fixes the original opera’s thematic problems. Detractors, including Stephen Sondheim, complain of disloyalty to Gershwin’s classic. (Check out this link to The New York Times: http://tinyurl.com/3ula3jn). What do you think?
As BAMirror mentioned earlier, acclaimed Wagnerian soprano Deborah Voigt is returning to her first love — Broadway — this summer with performances as Annie Oakley in the Glimmerglass Festival production of “Annie Get Your Gun.” Here are links to an “Annie” review in The New York Times and the whole Cooperstown season at the Web site theperacritic.com. If you’ve seen “Annie” or any other Glimmerglass show this season, please join in the conversation.
Check out Daniel Wakin’s July 15 New York Times article about Wagnerian soprano Deborah Voigt’s Broadwayesque turn in Glimmerglass Festival’s production of “Annie Get Your Gun”: http://tinyurl.com/6jogaff. Also in the Cooperstown production: TCO favorite Jake Gardner as Buffalo Bill. And here’s a link to the Times’ review of the show: http://tinyurl.com/3fp4uj9.
Performances continue July 22, 24 and 30 and Aug. 2, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20 and 21, in repertory with three other productions. Details: www.glimmerglass.org.
The following are links to Jane Dieckmann’s July 13 Ithaca Times reviews of “Medea” (http://tinyurl.com/3rlr7xk) and “Carmen” (http://tinyurl.com/6zr8ame) at the festival formerly known as Glimmerglass Opera. David Abrams of MusicalCriticism.com also reviewed “Carmen”: here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/435pfcp. Remember: BAMirror would love to hear about your visit(s) to Glimmerglass this summer.
For those of you following the travails of New York City Opera, here’s the latest, as reported by The New York Times’ Daniel Wakin, who attended a press conference by George Steel, the company’s general manager and artistic director: http://tinyurl.com/5w7rq8x.
“More than ever,” Anthony Tommasini wrote in the July 7 New York Times, “composers are busily breaking down walls between stylistic categories. Opera in particular has been a poacher’s paradise. We have had folk opera, jazz opera and rock opera. Bono, who collaborated with the Edge on the music and lyrics of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” called the show “Pop-Art opera.” Whatever that means. But of all such efforts, mixing opera with the Broadway musical might seem by far the most natural combination. Then why are so many efforts to crisscross that divide so bad?”
Read the complete article at http://tinyurl.com/6fqdn8m.
Here’s an item of note for regional opera fans, posted Monday (June 14) on The New York Times‘ arts blog:
“Francesca Zambello, the new general and artistic director of the Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y., has put an immediate stamp on it, changing its name to the Glimmerglass Festival and adding musical theater as a regular feature. Starting next summer the festival will also include lectures, symposiums, cabarets and concerts for the public. Such activities have already been offered on a limited scale to donors, a spokeswoman said.
“Ms. Zambello takes over on Sept. 1. Her first season, the summer of 2011, will include new productions of Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ and Cherubini’s ‘Medea.’ The festival will also present a double bill of new works: ‘A Blizzard in Marblehead Neck’ by the composer Jeanine Tesori and the playwright Tony Kushner and commissioned by Glimmerglass, and ‘Later the Same Evening’ by John Musto and Mark Campbell, based on five Edward Hopper paintings. The musical will be Irving Berlin’s ‘Annie Get Your Gun.’ While Glimmerglass put on ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ in 2008, musicals will now become a regular feature, to be performed with a full orchestra and without amplification.
broomecountyarts
Barb Van Atta
Sharon Ball
Broome Arts Mirror 