Metropolitan Opera

Giuseppe Verdi's Stiffelio was a problem to the composer. It was lacerated by censors, and Verdi ultimately broke up the piece like firewood, with parts being used by the composer in an ill-fated opera, Aroldo. But, fortunately, Verdi did not destroy his Stiffelio manuscript. That was found in the 1980s among his papers in his home at Sant'Agata, Italy. Scholars developed a performing edition, and this 1850 opera has begun to make the rounds of European opera houses. The Metropolitan Opera's first production Thursday confirmed the beauty of the music but also the creakiness of Francesco Maria Piave's libretto.

So the Metropolitan Opera didn't produce the universally acclaimed Ring cycle that the Wagner community was hoping for. But a great behind-the-scenes documentary film about its creation, titled Wagner's Dream, is being simulcast at 6:30 p.m. Monday in six Philadelphia-area movie theaters. And whatever one thinks of the $19 million production itself, the film is destined to be one of the classic documentaries about opera. The Met gave filmmaker Susan Froemke extensive access to workshops, rehearsals and the cast's superstars — without apparent whitewashing.

NEW YORK - As a global brand, the Metropolitan Opera is hitting an all-time peak. Besides expanding to China, Israel, and Russia, the Met movie-theater simulcasts are flooding the home-video market - along with past treasures released from the Met archive on CD and DVD. Awareness is such that Monday's opening of Anna Bolena was so thick with mainstream celebrities that the audience had crazier costumes and possibly bigger egos than anybody onstage....

Imagine if Felix Unger and Oscar Madison went to the opera together. Now imagine actor Tony Randall and New Jersey Gov. Florio. The odd couple, if ever there was one, have tickets to tonight's performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Florio, a former boxer whose musical tastes run to doo-wop and show tunes, has never been to the opera. Randall figured he would have better luck persuading the governor to restore state funding to a Newark opera school if Florio experienced the genre for himself.

John Gallo, 80, who went from produce huckster in the streets of South Philadelphia to performer on the opera stage, died from a heart attack Friday at Kennedy Memorial Hospital-Stratford. A Blackwood resident the last seven years, he lived 10 years in Cherry Hill and five in Mount Laurel. Born and raised in South Philadelphia, Mr. Gallo was in his first musical venture before World War II, as a singer in the Jan Savitt's Orchestra in Philadelphia under the stage name Reds Dolan.

Camilla Williams, 92, believed to be the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company, died Sunday at her home in Bloomington, Ind.,of complications from cancer. Ms. Williams' debut with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company, and came nearly nine years before Marian Anderson became the first African American singer to appear at New York's more prestigious Metropolitan Opera.

Cornell MacNeil, 88, a great postwar American baritone best known for his roles in Verdi operas, died Friday in Charlottesville, Va. His death was announced by his wife, Tania. A pure baritone with power from low to high notes, he was considered the equal of Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill, the other stellar American Verdi baritones during the second half of the 20th century. From 1959 to 1987, he sang 26 roles in more than 600 appearances at the Metropolitan Opera. But he reached his peak in his Verdi performances.

Calling all music lovers - there's bad news in Operaville. There will be no opera in Cooper River Park in Pennsauken this year. For the thousands of opera fans who gather off North Park Drive every summer to see and listen to the stars of the Metropolitan Opera, this is tough news to take. When the Park Commission gave me the word, I couldn't believe it. This is a cultural reversal of the first kind. I was told rather coolly, as if this sort of thing happened all the time, that "because of budgetary cuts" the Met would be unable to afford its annual excursion into South Jersey.

Nothing in the performing arts sinks on a scale as grand as opera. And even by those standards, the Metropolitan Opera's breathtakingly vulgar, amazingly wrongheaded new production of Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa, which opened Monday at Lincoln Center, is in the Exxon Valdez zone. You could tell by the number of mink-clad refugees headed toward the door at intermission. Or, among those who stayed, by a certain distracted quality in their applause, as if they were wondering why nobody stopped this production before it got this far. This doesn't mean one should cancel plans or turn in previously purchased Mazeppa tickets.

A svelte 27-year-old, opera singer Kiera Duffy is a far cry from the buxom prima donnas in horned Viking helmets often satirized in cartoons. Indeed, she is at the other end of the operatic spectrum, cast mainly in light lyric roles as the saucy soubrette. Yes, the East Brandywine native concedes in an interview, she does feel a bit typecast as the sometimes ditzy, usually likable "girl next door. " But this soprano's vocal range and consistency of tone have already brought some extraordinary opportunities.

So the Metropolitan Opera didn't produce the universally acclaimed Ring cycle that the Wagner community was hoping for. But a great behind-the-scenes documentary film about its creation, titled Wagner's Dream, is being simulcast at 6:30 p.m. Monday in six Philadelphia-area movie theaters. And whatever one thinks of the $19 million production itself, the film is destined to be one of the classic documentaries about opera. The Met gave filmmaker Susan Froemke extensive access to workshops, rehearsals and the cast's superstars — without apparent whitewashing.

At last, we learn the source and significance of Anna Netrebko's hot-pink evening gown. Anyone who follows opera no doubt has seen the Metropolitan Opera ads, posters, brochures of the famous Russian soprano being hauled away by police with sex and style, her figure enhanced by her arms being held behind her back. It's this season's logo, and it initially seemed like false advertising - the photo isn't from her early-season star vehicle, Anna Bolena . Instead, it's from Massenet's Manon , which recently opened in a new production by the master of French repertoire, Laurent Pelly.

Camilla Williams, 92, believed to be the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company, died Sunday at her home in Bloomington, Ind.,of complications from cancer. Ms. Williams' debut with the New York City Opera on May 15, 1946, was thought to make her the first African American woman to appear with a major U.S. opera company, and came nearly nine years before Marian Anderson became the first African American singer to appear at New York's more prestigious Metropolitan Opera.

NEW YORK - This is how the Metropolitan Opera's new Ring cycle production ended - not with a scenic blowout characterizing the end of the world, but with some red lights and white statues of the god-like characters, their heads exploding with a wan pop. The singing at the Friday opening of Götterdämmerung (scheduled to be simulcast in local movie theaters Feb. 11) was not always great but more than did the job, which is saying a lot for an opera that unfolds over six hours.

NEW YORK - However homespun the outward appearance of the rural, rustic community portrayed in Dark Sisters , the new Nico Muhly opera that premiered here Wednesday and comes to Philadelphia next year, it's an outpost of polygamy and religious fanaticism and is utterly ruthless. This splinter group in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a dictatorship that Stalin could only dream about, a place where women practice perfect obedience and compete for sexual attention.

By some estimates, the Opera Company of Philadelphia's outdoor simulcast of Carmen at Independence Mall on Friday was a washout, literally, due to a steady, sometimes heavy, always chilly rain that began at the end of Act 1 and continued through the evening. An estimated crowd of 3,000 during the overture dwindled, by the end, to 200 - the relative few who arrived with full rain gear and umbrellas. Some stood under nearby awnings. Can anybody have an operatic experience under such circumstances?

NEW YORK - As a global brand, the Metropolitan Opera is hitting an all-time peak. Besides expanding to China, Israel, and Russia, the Met movie-theater simulcasts are flooding the home-video market - along with past treasures released from the Met archive on CD and DVD. Awareness is such that Monday's opening of Anna Bolena was so thick with mainstream celebrities that the audience had crazier costumes and possibly bigger egos than anybody onstage....

Cornell MacNeil, 88, a great postwar American baritone best known for his roles in Verdi operas, died Friday in Charlottesville, Va. His death was announced by his wife, Tania. A pure baritone with power from low to high notes, he was considered the equal of Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill, the other stellar American Verdi baritones during the second half of the 20th century. From 1959 to 1987, he sang 26 roles in more than 600 appearances at the Metropolitan Opera. But he reached his peak in his Verdi performances.

For much of the current season, anybody remotely interested in opera has encountered startling photos of star tenor Juan Diego Florez in nun drag - not the pared-down current look, but more like something from the Flying Nun's closet. OK, it has our attention. But to what purpose? Not a lot, since it's the ad campaign for Rossini's featherweight comedy Le Comte Ory , to be simulcast in seven area theaters Saturday by the Metropolitan Opera. Aiming low never stopped anybody from winning big in the theater.

The minute he starts discussing his success on the world's stages, Eric Owens can barely contain his laughter - the laughter of disbelief. One day last week, he talked about arriving at the hallowed Berlin Philharmonie to sing the John Adams opera A Flowering Tree, conducted by Simon Rattle, who invariably gives him the confidence he needs to be wonderful. Then he mentally stood back - and laughed. "How responsive the Berlin Philharmonic was! Oh! My! Goodness! "There are a few moments I had to slap myself and stop basking in the fact that I was standing up here with the Berlin Philharmonic.