The Met Opera, Just Down the Road

When Peter Gelb joined the Metropolitan Opera in August 2005, he brought with him unmatched music marketing skills. But who guessed that within five years his novel HD transmissions of Saturday afternoon matinees to movie theaters around the world would reach nearly 200 million viewers each season?

   And Gelb doesn’t broadcast only “belovedâ€� works. The 2010-11 season just announced is a brave mix of  11 masterworks, some seldom heard and little known to the viewing public. They are directed by famous theater figures and sung by many of the greatest artists in the world.

   The season starts and finishes with Wagner, from Robert Lepage’s new production of the Ring cycle. First will come “Das Rheingoldâ€� (Oct. 9),  the shortest and most accessible of the four operas; then “Die Walkureâ€� (May 14), with its fatal incest between Siegmund and Sieglinde, Wotan’s wrath and Brunnhilde’s downfall.  Bryn Terfel, the incomparable Welsh bass-baritone, will sing his first Wotan in the United States, and Deborah Voigt will debut her Brunnhilde in this country as well.  Expect boos if the new production fails to match the beauty of Otto Schenk’s, now retired.

   “Boris Godunovâ€� (Oct. 23), Modest Mussorgsky’s hymn to the spirit of Russia and its history and people, is spare, gritty, exclusively male (with one exception), gorgeous and deeply moving.  Rene Pape, surely the finest younger bass in the world, will sing the role of the tragic tsar — the most famous bass role in opera — for the first time in America; and Peter Stein, a living legend in German theater, will direct.

   Other new productions will include “Don Carloâ€� (Dec. 11) Verdi’s monumental cry for Italian freedom set against the seething drama of the Spanish court of Phillip II and the Inquisition.  Nicholas Hytner from the National Theater in London will direct, and Roberto Alagna — this season’s Don Jose in “Carmenâ€� — will sing the title role.  And Rossini’s almost never heard comic “Le Comte Oryâ€� (April 9) will be staged for Juan Diego Florez, the world’s reigning coloratura tenor.  Bartlett Sher, responsible for the Met’s fine “Barber of Sevilleâ€� and “Tales of Hoffman,â€� will direct. (Florez gets to wear two disguises — one as a nun — in this romp.)

   Puccini’s rarely heard “La Fanciulla del Westâ€� (Jan. 8) will be revived with Voigt as Minnie and Marcello Giordano as Dick Johnson. (This is Puccini without melting arias, so be warned.) Donizetti’s comic “Don Pasqualeâ€� (Nov. 13) will return, as will “Lucia di Lammermoorâ€� (March 19) in Mary Zimmerman’s strange production.

   Renee Fleming will sing “Capriccioâ€� (April 23) Richard Strauss’s final opera, a meditation on drama versus music. Gluck’s “Iphigenie en Taurideâ€� (Feb. 26) will be revived for Susan Graham and Placido Domingo; and Verdi’s “Il Trovatoreâ€� (April 30) for Marcelo Alvarez.

     All 11 operas can be seen at the Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington.  But subscriptions and tickets are offered in August on a priority basis.

   They are first available to members of the Metropolitan Opera Guild ($125 is the cheapest membership level), followed by the two levels of membership in Friends of the Mahaiwe ($100 and $65) and then the general public.  Nearly all performances sell out in advance.

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