Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, is not a man given to self-revealing gestures. In interviews he comes across as studiously bland—undramatic and unconfessional. He is soft-spoken, and while he is by all accounts an exacting, detail-oriented boss, he’s not a performer, nor does he wear his heart on his sleeve.
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Under Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera has been focused on the fresh and the new, streaming out spiffy high-def broadcasts of its elegantly marketed new productions. But this week brings to the company a blast from the past with the return of a familiar face. Joseph Volpe, who served as the Met’s general manager from Read More
San Franciscans are pleased with their bold taste in opera, suggests a piece in today’s San Francisco Chronicle.
Reviewing a telecast of the Met’s controversial restaging of Tosca—the one greeted with loud booing in September—Joshua Kosman deems New Yorkers “a big bunch of weenies”:
Seriously, this is what passes Read More
Confirming that Beth Ditto is the only fat singer (fat person?) whom the fashion world can abide, costume designer Miuccia Prada has declined to dress “curvy” extras in the Metropolitan Opera’s Attila.
“I cannot clothe them! I need models!” she reportedly groaned. Paper claims the Met is now on the Read More
Anna Netrebko is a very good, very famous singer. It feels almost heretical to ask her about the way in which her dazzling career might, at some point, wind down. But at the pinnacle of success, still young at 38, she has already given the matter some thought.
“What would I like to do Read More
There was queasy anticipation leading up to last night’s season premiere of Puccini’s “Turandot” at the Metropolitan Opera. Maria Guleghina, who was to sing the title role, walked through the dress rehearsal without a full sing, apparently suffering from the same fluish symptoms as the rest of New York.
Ms. Guleghina has lately attacked her Read More
“Questo giorno di tormenti!” the characters exclaim at the end of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro: “What a day of troubles!”
At this point, Peter Gelb would probably gladly settle for just one day. Instead, his problems, which began opening night, are stretching into the third week of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2009-10 season, the first Read More
On a September evening of the late aughts, Karita Mattila was singing in Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
Fifty years from now, the next Edith Wharton, if she could have seen the crowd that gathered to see Ms. Mattila on the evening of Sept. 21, 2009, could easily begin her great Read More
“We lost Meryl Streep,” a PR girl told The Observer when we arrived to the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera on Monday, Sept. 21, for a staging of Tosca, which Ms. Streep was expected to attend, but, alas, did not.
Perhaps it had something to do with how the opera has evolved Read More
