Yesterday, Executive Director Peter Gelb led a press conference at The Metropolitan Opera, announcing the company’s 2008-2009 season which also marks its 125th year anniversary. Six large images from the season’s new productions loomed above a little table; large, glossy, sexy. If Peter Gelb hasn’t been clear enough about his goals to update the institution of opera–which, he has–these images clarify at least one position: the desire to make the opera as physically attractive as it is culturally (The above is Renee Flemming, looking all crimped and Studio 54-ed out. Get ready, you’re about to see these pictures EVERYWHERE).

Gelb’s personality is down-to-earth and unassumingly direct. He wasn’t shy about laying criticism on the program choices made by his predecessor, Joseph Volpe, telling the press “You can’t blame me” for potentially bad productions that he had no say in. But Gelb is having a say in three of six new productions in the coming season, as well as further expansion of The Met’s electronic dissemination of its productions through HD cinema simulcasts and live broadcasting into New York city classrooms.

What you need to know:

• John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic” will be the first new production of the season. It will be the debut of an Adams opera by The Met, and will arrive as a different production than what premiered in San Francisco, with Penny Woolcock presiding over the retrofit. Adams’ “Nixon In China” will follow up in the 2010-11 season. Woolcock pitched a few ideas for the press corps. The only one I would caution her against was the cubicle wall she planned on designing for the chorus. Not only did we just get a big dose of compartmentalizing the chorus in “Peter Grimes,” but the philosophical implications of treating the chorus like a mass of something that needs to be dealt with somehow so we’ll just treat em like numbers, gives me the heebee geebees.
• French director, Robert Lapage, will design Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust” using digital imagery that interacts with movement and the voice. The opera will star Marcello Giordani.
• After the success of the current season’s production of Lucia di Lamermoor, Mary Zimmerman is being given another chance to direct bel canto, again partnering with over-actress Natalie Dessay, this time on Bellini’s “La Sonnambula,” an opera Gelb called incoherent, but Zimmerman defended as a perfect depiction of the state of the mind in rehearsal, thus announcing that the concept for the production will be that of a staged rehearsal of the opera that then pushes further and further into being realized. Her assurance that “imagination wins out in the end” isn’t so assuring. Obviously the more daring thing to do would be to let reality triumph, because it does, and giving into fantasy is a pleasure of art that should end once the art has ended. (Just sayin’.)
• Diva-in-residence, and seems like the hardest working girl in the opera biz (between singing and hosting simulcasts and the Channel 13 greatest moments in opera tele-drive, next thing you know they’ll have her tearing tickets at the door), Renee Flemming will star in a glamorous production of Massenet’s “Thais,” as well as performing in the season opening gala.
• Gelb brought in Angela Gheorghiu for a new production of “La Rondine,” where she will be paired with rising starlet, Lisette Orsopesa.
• Salvator Licitra will star as Manrico in Verdi’s “flame ending” opera, Il Trovatore.
• In some of the biggest news, The Met will finally retire Otto Schenk’s production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle (hooraa!!!). This one’s really a victory for those who want more updated productions. Gelb will bring Schenk back to oversee the revival, a step that Gelb hopes to make a regular occurrence for all revivals.
• The Met will present a concert free to the public (or 3000 free tickets) of Verdi’s “Requiem” in honor of the anniversary of the death of Luciano Pavarotti.
• Valery Gergiev will not be renewed as “Principal Guest Conductor,” although Gelb assures that there will be many future opportunities for Gergiev and The Met to work together. They are not looking for anyone to fill the position. (Sorry Maazel. Although, Gelb did say that he and Maazel are talking about the possibility of another pinch hit.)
• Looking into the future of new opera at The Met, John Corigliano’s “TheGhosts of Versailles” is coming in 09-10, ” a new Golijov/Manzella opera tentatively titled (what sounded like) “Deadless” (but might be Daedalus) in 11-12, and Thomas Adès’s “The Tempest” in 12-13, along with “Nixon In China” in the 10-11 season. No word on the Rufus Wainwright opera. And, observing Nico Muhly’s “personal essay” in praise of “Peter Grimes” that’s posted on The Met’s website, one could guess that they might be grooming him for a first opera, which could be interesting given Muhly’s background in choral music, but then again, if he judges all new operas against “Grimes,” who knows.
• The Met will be expanding its relationships with visual artists, commissioning new work from Francesco Clemente, George Condo, and Jeff Koonz. Gelb says The Met is looking to engage artists to design productions as well, in an effort to rekindle the tradition set by Marc Chagal and David Hockney.
• Musical Director, James Levine, speaking “briefly,” praised Gelb’s aggressive administrative work for allowing him to focus mainly on musical matters. “It’s a dream for me to be in this period,” he said, also letting on that the orchestra is responding positively to all the new challenges its facing with higher demand for new productions.
• Ticket sales are up again, now at 88%.
• And HD simulcasts in movie theaters will increase from eight to ten, and will mirror, in range of date, the regular season. So far, 600,ooo tickets have been sold for the simulcasts, which have expanded to include 14 countries.

So, looking forward, Gelb seems to be doing a lot right. It will be interesting to see a first full season of his design in 2009-10. But already things are looking good, even if new operas are still just a blip on the screen, at least there’s a blip.

March 5, 2008
Categories: Lincoln Center, Opera . . Author: countercritic

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