James Levine to Undergo Surgery for Herniated Spinal Disc
Mr. Ronald Wilford, Chairman of Columbia Artists and James Levine’s manager has announced that Mr. Levine will undergo immediate surgery for a herniated spinal disc. The procedure necessitates withdrawing from his scheduled performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera.
Mr. Levine has withdrawn from performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Boston on Tuesday, September 29 and Saturday, October 3 and from Carnegie Hall’s opening night performance on Thursday, October 1. Mr. Levine has also withdrawn from performances of Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera on October 6 and 10.
I'm used to making decisions at the last moment and and purchasing tickets at the door. I guess I'm not in Arizona anymore.
Minor miscalculation. My immediate thought upon leaving the opera house last Tuesday after seeing The Nose was "I simply must see it at the Met next year. After all, how many opportunities come along to see The Nose?" Especially in two different productions within a year's time.
It was an absolutely delightful evening at the opera. The slight criticism of Opera Boston that I had the first time I attended one of their productions (Der Freischütz earlier this season)--the cheapness of the sets and the slightly campy/vulgar acting--absolutely works for The Nose. The music was interesting. Let me just say right off the bat that I am not a fan of new music: by new music I don't mean modern music, but music I haven't heard before. I generally enjoy an opera after I get to know the music first. Even such gorgeously lyrical operas like Madama Butterfly and Le nozze di Figaro sounded ugly to me the first time I heard them. The first time I ever attended a Lucia, I generally had a miserable experience (I also wasn't feeling good that day), but now I will go to every Lucia I have the opportunity to go to because I love it so much now. The same goes for nearly every favorite of mine: Eugene Onegin, Salome, the list goes on.
I did not have this problem with The Nose. The music just worked for me from the beginning. I don't think that I will be jamming down the freeway with this music blaring through my car stereo any time soon or even ever. It's just too non-tonal and non-lyrical I think to be enjoyed in that way, but as a part of the complete theatrical experience, it is brilliant and witty (I'm pretty sure I heard fart noises coming from the orchestra pit!).
One snag: no more than ten minutes into the opera, the music suddenly stopped and a voice came from the orchestra pit (it took me half a second to realise this was not part of the opera, it was in English). "We apologize for stopping the opera, folks, but all the lights just went out in the orchestra pit!" The only character on-stage at this time was the Barber (Vladimir Matorin) who kind of hammed it up a bit to the delight of the audience, and no more than two minutes later, the opera resumed.
A note on the players: Stephen Salters starred as Kovalyov and was quite effective. But I think that the audience favorites, in addition to Matorin, were Frank Kelley who played the Police Inspector brilliantly and with great humor, and Yeghishe Manucharyan as Ivan the Lackey, also very funny. Some of the loudest applause (and the only one to also get some loud whoops from a certain section of the Mezzanine) was Sol Kim Bentley who played the pretzel seller with enough sexiness to win over some lusty fans (especially from a certain section of the Mezzanine). A nice touch near the end of ACT III in which a "prominant citizen" or "celebrity" (that seems to be how they translated it) appears on stage and turns out to be none other than the young Shostakovich himself.
All in all, a successful evening. I very much now want to know how the Met will approach this work. I doubt if they will be this campy, but it would be interesting to see how another production team interprets it.
The seasons begins flatly with a new production of Carmen in November 2009. This does not actually excite me, but the rest of the season does. March 2010 will see the "North American premiere of [a] Welsh National Opera production" of Ariadne auf Naxos. This opera is a particular favorite of mine, and I am happy to see it in Boston. The Met will do an Ariadne as well next season. In April-May 2010, BLO will be staging a new production of Idomeneo. These three operas comprise the BLO's standard run at the Schubert Theatre. But wait, there's more...
In what they are calling their Opera Annex, the BLO will be presenting an additional opera at an as-yet undisclosed location, but not the Schubert. And the great pleasure is that the opera in question is Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, which I certainly would not mind seeing. This is scheduled to occur in February 2010.
And, as an extra bonus, they are throwing in a one-hour, English language version of Barber of Seville aimed at the young folks. And that is that.
As mentioned a few posts ago, New England Chamber Opera has Ralph Vaughan Williams' Riders to the Sea in Cambridge. Admission is free.
Coming up on Wednesday, March 11, Opera Boston Underground will be at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge with Kurt Weill's Seven Deadly Sins. No advance ticket sales, just a $10 cover at the door.
