SebaSM Comics Digest, Weeks of Mar. 10th and 17th

I missed my weekly update last week because I was out of the country, but I did have two normally scheduled SebaSM Comics during my trip, and two more new comics this week too!

Today’s update is Bizarro Twins appropriate, since it’s vaguely inspired by Donizetti‘s Lucia di Lammermoor, which I saw this week at the Metropolitan Opera.  Not based on any of the big iconic moments really, just some old school relationship stuff as seen through a 21st century lens, of course… Here’s a clip from the Met’s production in a previous season with Natalie Dessay:

Pearl Fishing

Well, I’m back from Vancouver, but on one of my last days there I saw a work-in-progress dance performance by local company 605 Collective at the Vancouver International Dance Festival. which I enjoyed, but after a mostly electronic soundtrack, I was surprised that the piece ended to the tune of Enrico Caruso singing this aria from Bizet‘s 1863 Pearl Fishers opera:

Probably the best known piece from this opera, but if you want to see the full picture, it’ll be receiving its first Met Opera production in 100 years in the forthcoming 2015-2016 season:

Putting the Canadian in Canadian Opera Company

So I’m in Vancouver, Canada for a week, and considering the last opera I saw was the Canadian Opera Company‘s performance of Semele at BAM last week it seems fitting to discuss their forthcoming season, which, fittingly, features the world premiere of a Canadian Opera!

In October, COC will give the world premiere of Barbara Monk Feldman‘s short 2010 opera, Pyramus and Thisbe.  It’s based on a tale from antiquity so the COC is presenting it alongside two short, similarly classically themed, pieces by the grandfather of opera, Claudio Monteverdi: a scena for three voices and an aria, which is the only fragment to survive from his second opera, L’Arianna, performed below by Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci:

Here’s hoping I can make a return trip to Canada for this interesting early opera/premiere opera combo!

What a Selfish Turk

In honor of Juilliard‘s performances of Rossini‘s 1814 comic opera Il Turco in Italia this week (glowingly reviewed at Parterre), here are some famous depictions of Turkey in opera.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of them wound up revolving around harems, ha ha…

Maybe the most famous opera set in Turkey, Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail follows the European hero as he tries to rescue his girlfriend from the Turkish Pasha’s harem.  I don’t know how she wound up there either…

Yet another opera partly set in a Turkish Pasha’s harem is Verdi’s 1848 Il Corsaro, depicting a war between the Pasha and some Pirates, with the Pasha’s favorite Gulnara, below, stuck in the middle…

And in a variation of the first story, here’s another opera about a Turk holding a Western woman captive (Oh, those dastardly Turks!), the first act of Rameau’s globe-trotting anthology opera Les Indes Galantes, aka Le Turc Généreux!  You can see the whole opera below, or click on the upper left hand corner to get to the fourth video, where the Turkish segment begins.

Ah, good old fashioned Orientalism!

Hamlet Madness!

Just a friendly reminder about WQXR’s March Madness celebration of famous operatic mad scenes with daily full opera streams at 2pm each weekday!

Today’s selection is Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas, featuring a mad scene by Hamlet’s paramour, Ophelia.  Joan Sutherland sings it in the video above, and in today’s stream!  Enjoy!

Tucker Up

In the centennial year of its namesake’s birth, the Richard Tucker Music Foundation‘s annual concert will be aired on PBS  tomorrow, Friday, at 9pm (check local listings).

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-e7D2goVyE&w=350&h=300]

Named for the famous American tenor, the Foundation awards a rising American opera singer each year, and the accompanying concert features them and a host of famous singers too, guaranteed to be an especially luminous bunch for Tucker’s 100th birthyear…  This year’s awardee is the mezzo soprano Isabel Leonard.

Richard Tucker in La Gioconda at the Met, 1945

Tucker made his Met debut in La Gioconda in 1945, where this excerpt was apparently recorded:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K1tnuxxvTo&w=350&h=300]

The initial impression, based on this New York Times review, was apparently somewhat mixed:

Special interest naturally centered in the company’s new tenor, Mr. Tucker, who had the misfortune to make his initial appearance in a formidable role too heavy for his essentially lyric type of voice. Nevertheless, he made a definitely favorable impression and was enthusiastically received by the large audience.

Vestal Virgin Live Stream

(Not the porny kind!)

The seldom performed 1807 opera La Vestale by the seldom performed Gaspare Spontini will be put on, live streamed, and available online for 6 months afterwards, on Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées website, this Wednesday at 12:30pm, New York time.

La Vestale at La Scala, 1954, with Maria Callas

Some refer to Spontini as the missing link to French Grand Opera, but some say he’s just really boring…  But still, an interesting novelty…  Here’s a famous aria, “Toi que j’implore” performed by Barbara Dobrzanska:

Juilliard Baroque

Original Libretto for Handel’s Radamisto at the V&A

Tickets for Juilliard‘s first operatic production of the academic year went on sale this week, and it’s for Handel‘s 1720 Radamisto, his first opera for the Royal Academy of Music in London.  Here’s a famous aria performed by Joyce DiDonato.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmzZLolnUVw&w=350&h=300]

The libretto at top is from the collection of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, and it was used at the opera’s premiere performance, making it one of the earliest preserved prompt scripts.  They have a nice page on 18th century opera with more primary sources from their collections.

The other operas to be performed at Juilliard are Tchaikhovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Massenet’s Cendrillon (ie, Cinderella).  Here’s their full listing of operatic and vocal offerings this year, and as long as we’re talking about New York schools, here’s the opera schedule for the Manhattan School of Music too, an intriguing combination of Haydn, Cavalli, and Virgil Thomson…

Oh star of my desire…

This lovely aria from one of my favorite operas has been in my head lately, so figured it was time to share it.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WRJA-vui94&w=350&h=300]

That’s one of Cleopatra’s act one arias in Händel‘s most enduring opera, Giulio Cesare in Egitto.  While I’m not usually a fan of opera in translation, I liked the vintage of this clip, and thought English soprano Valerie Masterson‘s performance (and diction!) was worth sharing.  Enjoy!

Rat Pack Rigoletto on PBS Tomorrow

Enrico Caruso in The Met’s Rigoletto, 1903, photo by Aimé Dupont

This new, Las Vegas-set Met Opera production of Verdi‘s 1851 opera Rigoletto is a far cry from earlier Met productions, including the 1903 season-opener where celebrated Italian tenor Enrico Caruso made his house debut as the Duke of Mantua.  It was an important debut, so the Met archives have a whole article devoted to it, with lots of fun anecdotes and primary documents.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzk5YLH4oxo&w=350&h=300]

Did you know there have been 9 different productions of Rigoletto at the Met?  Just one of the fun (if you’re me, at least) things you can learn on The Met’s online archives, which I am learning to love.  New productions are very well-documented, with plenty of production and rehearsal photos.

Met Rigoletto 2012, photo by Ken Howard, copyright Metropolitan Opera

PBS will show the Met Opera‘s new production of Rigoletto tomorrow at 9 pm, with a repeat airing on Sunday at 12:30 in New York.  Check your local listings.