Fleming, Mattila, and Damrau Ignite the Opera Season

The “first semester” of the 2008-09 classical-music season is loaded with opera. I will give my sense of the highlights. They will not include anything from City Opera, as that company is somewhat sidelined this year. They are transitioning. What they’re transitioning to, we can’t be quite sure. But we can hope for the best.At the Metropolitan Opera, Renée Fleming will star in a gala (September 22). It is devoted to her. Ms. Fleming is a great singer and a great opera performer, as will be universally acknowledged when she is safely retired or gone. She is not infallible, of course. But she will prove a vocal immortal.Starting the next night, September 23, Karita Mattila will do her Salome. You can expect the full monty at the end of the “Dance of the Seven Veils.” But you can also expect superb singing and acting. The next night, we will have “La Gioconda,” which requires six good singers: three women and three men. The Met has arranged some worthy ones, including Olga Borodina, Ewa Podles, and James Morris. Not to be missed.Starting September 27, “Don Giovanni” will appear, and the cast features that fabulous lyric tenor Matthew Polenzani. We will also get “Lucia di Lammermoor” (October 3), whose title role will be filled by the delicious Diana Damrau. Her tenor will be Piotr Beczala, the excellent young Pole. “Doctor Atomic,” the opera by John Adams, will start on October 13. It tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer from the point of view of Oppenheimer partisans (natch). Is the opera any good? See and hear for yourself.“Madama Butterfly” will take the stage (starting October 24), and in the spotlight will be one of the best Butterflys of our time: Patricia Racette. Starting on November 7, James Levine will conduct Berlioz’s “Damnation of Faust.” And he will have in his cast the wonderful Berliozian Susan Graham.“The Queen of Spades” returns, conducted by the famed — and occasionally great — Seiji Ozawa. Among the singers is the formidable British mezzo Felicity Palmer (starts November 21). Daniel Barenboim — who is also famed and occasionally great — will conduct “Tristan und Isolde,” starting November 28. It will be odd not to have Mr. Levine in the pit for this opera. But Mr. Barenboim can deliver.Starting on December 8, we will have a Massenet opera we don’t see often, “Thaïs.” It is made for Renée Fleming — who, fortunately, will sing the title role. And she will be flanked by two first-class male singers: Michael Schade and Thomas Hampson.Finally, on New Year’s Eve, we will have Puccini’s “operetta,” “La Rondine.” The soprano and the tenor will be the two very best in that opera: Angela Gheorghiu and her husband, Roberto Alagna.Switch, now, to a much humbler company: Dicapo Opera Theatre. They will stage an opera by Tobias Picker called “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (starting December 13). The opera is based on a children’s book by Roald Dahl. Mr. Picker will conduct.And OONY, or the Opera Orchestra of New York? They do opera in concert, and this year, on October 15, they will do Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Tsar’s Bride.” It’s worth hearing that seldom-heard opera. But what will make it really worth it? The presence of Olga Borodina.At some point in your life, you may have been told that Puccini is no good — but your ears tell you differently, don’t they? Your ears are exactly right. On December 22, OONY will do a Puccini 150th-anniversary gala, hosted by Renata Scotto, the retired soprano (and a legendary Butterfly). An evening of Puccini might be thought of as a guilty pleasure — but there’s no need for guilt at all.

Fleming, Mattila, and Damrau Ignite the Opera Season

Fleming, Mattila, and Damrau Ignite the Opera Season

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