The recently announced Metropolitan Opera 2010-2011 season is mightily impressive. For one thing there are no less than 29 different operas on offer. Secondly the range of the repertoire and the truly exciting titles must make any opera lover pretty happy. The highlights for me, if I were living in New York, in alphabetical order would be: Armida (Rossini) Boris Godunov, Capriccio (R Strauss) Le Comte Ory (Rossini) Don Carlo, Fanciulla del West, Iphigenie en Tauride, Nixon in China, Pelleas et Melisande, Rheingold, Simon Boccanegra, Die Walkure and Wozzeck. For me these dozen would be unmissable.
Go to the Met link and think about your top dozen.
Now the Met needs a theater suitable for the performance of Monteverdi, Cavalli, Handel and Mozart. 1,300 seats would be just right.........is that Peter Gelb's next big thing? It would be wonderful if it were.
Thank you for saying that Mozart should be treated in a similar way to Händel and the early Italian masters. And perhaps even a bit later than Mozart, too--I saw Fidelio at the Met in 2006, and it was truly fantastic, but I did get the sense that a smaller venue would do the work even more justice. When someone finally gets around to doing Fidelio with period instruments here in the States, I'll find a way to be there, no matter when or where it is.
Posted by: Jordan Friedman | February 26, 2010 at 03:08 PM