41 times over a 97-year span? Hm. I wonder how many times
Faust was performed during that same period. The old Met was once nicknamed the
Faustspielhaus because they did it so often.
During one of the intermissions Saturday we were given a glimpse of next season's simulcasts:
Oct. 5 -- Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
Oct. 26 -- Shostakovich's The Nose
Nov. 9 -- Puccini's Tosca
Dec. 14 -- Verdi's Falstaff
Feb. 8 -- Dvořák's Rusalka
Mar. 1 -- Borodin's Prince Igor
Mar. 15 -- Massenet's Werther
Apr. 5 -- Puccini's La Bohème
Apr. 25 -- Mozart's Così fan tutte
May 10 -- Rossini's La Cenerentola
The Met's web site doesn't have all the details listed yet, and the glimpses we got of the upcoming season were very brief, but I'm fairly sure the four repeat operas are using the same productions that were used the first time we saw them.
Eugene Onegin has that weird outdoor bedroom. The still from
Tosca showed the second-act set, which is supposed to be Scarpia's luxurious offices but instead looks like a 1930s bus station. Only a tiny glimpse of the
Bohème set, but it looked like the Zefferelli production. And the
Cenerentola still showed that same horrid blue and white striped wallpaper that made me cringe the first time I saw it. Joyce Di Donato gets to be Cinderella this time.
Is it possible that the Met dug out parts of the old sets just to get some early publicity pictures? And new productions are in the works? Or is that wishful thinking on my part?
As I have so tiresomely mentioned before, I'm no fan of Massenet; so when I saw
Werther on the schedule, I thought "There's one I'll skip." The last
Werther I saw had Franco Corelli singing the title role -- it's been that long. But then I saw the name "Elena Garanca" on the screen, so now I'm going to have to sit through an opera I don't like just to hear her sing. But two "new" operas for me,
Rusalka and
Prince Igor. Yippee!
Andrew, have you seen
The Nose? Is it
all atonal? Is it funny, really?