In his first Live in HD transmission as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin led a new production of La Traviata on December 15, 2018, and it’s this performance which the Met Opera is streaming online as part of its week-long celebration of the works of Giuseppe Verdi.

Verdi’s three-act opera, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, is based on the 1852 play La Dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, which in turn was based on Dumas’ 1848 novel of the same name. Inspiration for the novel came from an actual ‘lady of pleasure’ whom Dumas had known and adored. The opera, which premiered at La Fenice in Venice on March 6th, 1853, became one of Verdi’s most frequently performed during his lifetime – and continues to be so today.

The role of the tragic heroine Violetta Valéry – the ‘fallen woman’ of the title – is taken by soprano Diana Damrau, whom the New York Times described as “an extraordinary Violetta, singing with big, plush yet focused sound …”.

Her lover Alfredo is sung by tenor Juan Diego Flórez in his first Verdi role for the Company, and whose “exquisite legato and mezza voce have held up gorgeously in the four seasons since he last sang at the Met”, according to the Observer.

Quinn Kelsey – described by Seen and Heard International as “a Verdi baritone of the first rank” – is Alfredo’s father, Count Germont, who cannot stand the shame of his son’s relationship with a courtesan and sets about destroying their relationship. It’s only as he watches the suffering of his son as Violetta is dying that he accepts the consequences of his actions.

This production, with its “Striking visual elements” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), is by Tony Award-winning theatre, film and television director Michael Mayer .

With Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Verdi’s La Traviata is available to view on the Met Opera website from 7.30 pm EDT on Friday, August 28, until 6.30 pm EDT the following day.

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Verdi Week continues at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday, August 27, with Giuseppe Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) – recorded for the Company’s Live in HD series, and broadcast on December 8, 2012.

Although the plot revolves around the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden in 1792, this production by David Alden moves the action to a timeless, film noir-inspired setting, starring Sondra Radvanovsky as Amelia, Marcelo Álvarez as King Gustavo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Count Anckarström, Kathleen Kim as the page Oscar, and Stephanie Blythe as the fortuneteller Madame Ulrica Arvidsson.

The libretto of Verdi’s opera is by Antonio Somma, whose text was apparently based on the libretto which French dramatist Eugène Scribe had written for Daniel Auber’s 1833 opera, Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué. In this work, Scribe wrote of the king’s assassination – he died of gunshot wounds received during a masked ball as the result of a political conspiracy against him.

Verdi’s version, which premiered at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on February 17, 1859, is a dramatic tale of love, betrayal and revenge, telling of the Swedish king’s love for Amelia, wife of his best friend and counsellor Count Anckarström. Although King Gustavo is warned of a plot against his life by both Anckarström and a fortuneteller, the king doesn’t take either warning seriously, but when Anckarström discovers that the monarch is having an affair with his wife, things take a more serious turn.

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus are conducted by Fabio Luisi, and Un Ballo in Maschero is available to view from 7.30 pm EDT on Thursday, August 27, until 6.30 pm EDT on Friday, August 27.

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The current pandemic has without doubt stirred the creativity of many arts organisations and artists, and Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra has provided yet another example of what can be achieved, seemingly against all odds.

So touched was she by the plight of the women and children of her homeland who are particularly vulnerable to the social, health and economic consequences of the coronavirus, that she has gathered – remotely – 28 illustrious stars of classical music, from 14 different countries, to create an ensemble which takes the name of The Impossible Orchestra.

The line-up of artists is breathtaking, and includes names such as Albrecht Mayer, Emmanuel Pahud, Maxim Vengerov, Rolando Villazón and Alisa Weilerstein, with Elisa Carrillo Cabrera – Mexican principle dancer of the Staatsballet Berlin – and Christopher Wheeldon – one the finest choreographers of today. Each has willingly given of their time and considerable talent to record a video performance of de la Parra’s arrangement of Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No 2, to raise funds for the benefit of these women and children, via the charities Fondo Semillas and Save the Children Mexico.

An official Cultural Ambassador of Mexico, Alondra de la Parra is a former Music Director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and frequently works with some of the most prestigious orchestras in the world, including the Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. She has also led some of the major orchestras in Latin America – such as the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic and the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra – and in 2004 founded the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas to showcase young performers and composers from the Americas.

The music of Mexican composer Arturo Márquez was largely unknown outside his homeland until the early 1990s, when he was introduced to the world of Latin ballroom dancing. Captured by the movement and rhythms, he composed a series of Danzónes – a fusion of dance music from Cuba and the Veracruz region of Mexico. The most popular of these, his Danzón No 2, was commissioned by the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and its popularity has often led it to be referred to as the second national anthem of Mexico.

This video performance of the Danzón No 2 is an absolute joy to watch. Not only is the Márquez work a justifiably popular choice, with its infectious, jazzy rhythms, but the performance has been stylishly filmed and edited, and the artists featured are obviously enjoying themselves hugely – some playing instruments with which they’re not usually associated. Ms de la Parra herself is at the piano and not on the podium. It’s fun, too, to see how many stars you can recognize during the performance, before looking at the list of those appearing on the website.

A gala fundraising event for The Impossible Orchestra will shortly be announced, and the soundtrack to the video will soon be available from Alpha Records.

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In the third presentation of its Verdi Week, the Metropolitan Opera streams a performance of Luisa Miller, first broadcast on April 14, 2018, as part of the company’s Live in HD series of cinema transmissions.

This online performance stars Bulgarian soprano Sonya Yoncheva in the title role, with Polish tenor Piotr Beczala as Luisa’s beloved Rodolfo, in what Operawire describes as “An Unquestioned Triumph for Yoncheva and Beczala”. Plácido Domingo is Luisa’s father, Alexander Vinogradov is the duplicitous Count Walter and Dmitry Belosselskiy is Wurm, his steward.

Luisa Miller was really something of an afterthought for Verdi. In 1848, he was under contract to Teatro San Carlo in Naples to produce an opera, but his initial proposal was rejected, and having failed to negotiate his way out of the contract, Verdi persuaded his librettist, Salvadore Cammarano, to produce “a brief drama with plenty of interest, action and above all feeling – which would make it easier to set to music”. This Cammarano did, basing his libretto on Friederich Schiller’s tragic play Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love), and the opera premiered in Naples on December 8, 1849.

Set in 19th century England, this story of love, deception, drama and tragedy tells of Luisa, a young village girl, who is in love with a man she knows as Carlo, but who is in fact the debonair nobleman Rodolfo, son of Count Walter. Her father has another prospective husband in mind for her, just as Walter has a different potential bride lined up for Rodolfo, and the Count, together with his scheming steward, Wurm, is determined to prevent the two young lovers from marrying. Treachery and intrigue abound, and Luisa ultimately has to make the agonizing choice between her father and the man with whom she is in love.

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus are led by Bertrand de Billy, celebrated French conductor of opera and concerts worldwide.

This presentation is available to view on the Metropolitan Opera website from 7.30 pm EDT on Wednesday, August 26, until 6.30 pm EDT on Thursday, August 27.

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Verdi Week at the Metropolitan Opera continues on Tuesday, August 25, with the online transmission of Il Trovatore (The Troubador). This production, recorded on October 3, 2015 as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, stars soprano Anna Netrebko as Leonora, tenor Yonghoon Lee is the troubadour Manrico, Count di Luna is sung by the late Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Dolora Zajick is the mysterious gypsy woman Azucena, and Štefan Kocań is Ferrando, captain of the troops.

Il Trovatore was composed in 1853, with a libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano. Based on the 1836 play El toreador by Antonio García Gutiérrez, the opera premiered in the same year, at the Teatro Apollo in Rome.

Leonora, a young noblewoman in the queen’s service, is in love with Manrico, a troubadour who serenades her every evening, but Count di Luna is obsessed by her. He has also sworn to avenge what he believes to be the death of his infant brother at the hands of a gypsy woman. Manrico has been brought up to believe that the gypsy Azucena is his mother, but isn’t aware that he is actually the brother of the Count, and that Azucena accidentally killed her own child. The actions of Azucena all those years ago affect each of the main characters in the story, and lead to a train of events which end in tragedy.

British director David McVicar made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera when he first staged this production in 2009. Moving the action from 1409, he set it against the backdrop of the Spanish War of Independence against Napoleon, taking inspiration for his designs from Francisco Goya’s 82 prints, Desastres de la Guerra.

Marco Armiliato leads the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Choir in this performance of Il Trovatore, which is available to view from 7.30 pm EDT on Tuesday, August 25, until 6.30 pm EDT on August 26. For further details, visit the Metropolitan Opera website.

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This is Verdi week in the Metropolitan Opera’s series of free online transmissions. Devoted to some of the greatest operatic works written by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi, the program features complete performances of Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Luisa Miller, Un Ballo in Maschera, La Traviata, Don Carlo and Falstaff – each recorded as part of the company’s Live in HD series.

Performances are available for a period of 23 hours, from 7:30 pm EDT until 6:30 pm the following day. 

Rigoletto is the first of Verdi’s operas to feature this week, a work which he wrote in 1851, to a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. Based on Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse, Rigoletto tells of the hunch-backed jester at the court of the Duke of Mantua, and his desperate attempts to protect his daughter from a disastrous relationship with the lecherous Duke. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851, and originally entitled La maledizione (The Curse), referring to a curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a nobleman, Monterone whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke, with the encouragement of the jester.

This production by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer, brings the action of Rigoletto to the bright lights of 1960s Las Vegas, where money and ruthless men hold the balance of power. Željko Lučić sings the title role, Piotr Beczała is the Duke – a popular entertainer and casino owner who is out to get everything he wants. Diana Damrau is Rigoletto’s innocent daughter, Gilda, whose seduction by the Duke leads to a tragic end, and Štefan Kocán takes the role of the assassin Sparafucile.

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus are led by Italian conductor Michele Mariotti, Musical Director of Teatro Comunale di Bologna since 2014. The performance, recorded on February 16, 2013, can be viewed online on Monday, August 24. For further information, visit the Metropolitan Opera website.

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This week SFJAZZ, together with the National Endowment for the Arts, hosts a very special event – a tribute to the 2020 NEA Jazz Masters – Dorthaan Kirk, Bobby McFerrin, Roscoe Mitchell, and Reggie Workman – in a free broadcast.

The National Endowment for the Arts has, since 1982, awarded 157 fellowships to great figures in jazz, artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, Dianne Reeves, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, and George Wein – and SFJAZZ was selected to host the 2020 NEA ceremony in a live concert on April 2nd this year – the first time that this auspicious event was to be held outside New York City or Washington, DC. Due to the worldwide closure of theatres, this honor was denied the San Francisco organisation which is regarded as one of the world’s leading presenters of jazz.

Undeterred, and because of the success of its weekly online Fridays at Five sessions, SFJAZZ and Musical Director, drummer, and composer Terri Lyne Carrington, have succeeded in putting together a remarkable online celebration in tribute to the honorees. With 2017 NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater as emcee, this performance features appearances by honorees McFerrin, Mitchell and Workman, by Bridgewater and Carrington, as well as other acclaimed jazz musicians such as Ambrose Akinmusire, James Carter, Vincent Davis, Gerald Clayton, Morgan Guerin, Oliver Lake, Jevon McFerrin, Madison McFerrin, Taylor McFerrin, Kanoa Mendenhall, Junius Paul, and Steve Turre, as well as the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars. All performances have been recorded from locations across the country.

Bobby McFerrin – master vocal improviser, vocalist, composer and ten-time GRAMMY winner – has performed and conducted in both jazz and in classical settings. He’s well known for his 1988 worldwide hit Don’t Worry, Be Happy which showcased his virtuoso musicality and four-octave range.

Saxonophist and composer Roscoe Mitchell is known as a pioneering figure in avant garde jazz. Currently Darius Milhaud Chair of Composition at Mills College in Oakland, he has also worked with Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since its inception, and is co-founder of the legendary Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Reggie Workman, bassist and composer, is regarded as one of the great instrumentalists in jazz history, and well known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. A professor at The New School in New York, Workman has appeared on numerous albums with an impressive line-up of artists.

Dorthaan Kirk, jazz advocate and widow of jazz legend Rahsaan Roland Kirk, is a founding staffer at WBGO in Newark, NJ, and a regular curator of jazz events around New Jersey. Dedicated to maintaining the legacy of her late husband, and promoting jazz education, she has been a major figure in jazz radio for over 40 years.

“This virtual concert will be an opportunity to bring together jazz fans around the world in celebration of the 2020 NEA Jazz Masters,” says Mary Anne Carter, Chairman of the NEA who – along with Randall Kline, Founder and Executive Artistic Director of SFJAZZ – will be commenting on the concert.

From 6.10 pm to 7.00 pm PT (after the concert), there’ll be a Virtual Reception and Q&A Session with Randall Kline and the 2020 NEA Jazz Masters, during which the online audience, through the broadcast’s YouTube stream, will be able to ask questions of the Jazz Masters.  Viewers can also join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #NEAJazz2020.

Watch this free broadcast online on Thursday, August 20, 2020 on arts.gov or sfjazz.org at 5.00 pm PT (8.00 pm ET, and 1.00 am London, 2.00 am Paris on Friday morning).

For those unable to watch the live stream, an archive of the concert will be available following the event at arts.gov.

Information sourced from SFJAZZ program notes

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Giacomo Puccini’s final opera Turandot is this evening’s online transmission from the Metropolitan Opera. A sumptuous production by Franco Zeffirelli, the performance stars Swedish soprano Nina Stemme as the icy Princess Turandot, and Italian tenor Marco Berti as Calaf, the prince who would win her heart, with Romanian soprano Anita Hartig as the slave girl Liù, This production was originally broadcast as part of the Met Opera’s Live in HD cinema series, on January 30, 2016.

Renato Simoni – librettist, director and theatre critic – suggested to Puccini that he write a lyric opera based on Friedrich Schiller’s version of the fairytale Turandotte, by the Venetian author Carlo Gozzi in 1762. In 1919, Simoni and librettist Guiseppe Adami – who had already written libretti for Puccini’s La rondine and Il tabarro – started work on the text. Five years later, the score was still not finished, and Puccini died in 1924, before the opera had been completed, and he was therefore unable to enjoy the success of one of his most popular works. The last duet and finale were written by Italian composer and pianist, Franco Alfano in 1926, but were not included in the premiere, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, at Teatro alla Scala in Milan on April 25 of that year.

Set in Peking, this somewhat dark opera tells of the beautiful, but icy, Princess Turandot who is determined never to be possessed by a man. She sets her suitors the task of answering three riddles – which, until the arrival of Prince Calaf – none of them had successfully done, resulting in their execution. Distraught at the thought of having to marry Calaf, she willingly accepts his challenge of guessing his name before dawn, instructing her subjects not to sleep until his name has been discovered – hence the introduction of the most popular aria in the opera, Nessun dorma (None Shall Sleep). Thanks to the sacrifice of the slave girl, Liù – in love with Calaf, but who suffers torture, and ultimately death, rather than reveal his name – Turandot weakens, and Calaf ultimately wins her hand.

Paolo Carignani leads the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus in Zeffirelli’s production of Puccini’s Turandot, which will be available to watch on the Metropolitan Opera website from 7.30 pm EDT on Thursday, August 13, until 6:30 pm EDT the following day. 

Benjamin Millepied has directed a new work for the dancers of San Francisco Ballet, embracing a range of emotions created by the current situation in which the world finds itself. Dance of Dreams seamlessly blends four short dance sequences – choreographed by Justin Peck, Dwight Rhoden, Janie Taylor and Christopher Wheeldon – into a miniature work of art.

Filmed against a background of locations to tug at the heart strings of anyone who’s lived in or loved the city, Dance of Dreams features six dancers from SF Ballet. Joseph Walsh performs a solo by Justin Peck, from the terrace of the San Francisco Art Institute, “in movements that suggest a yearning for what the past and future hold”.

Francis Chung’s wistful solo, by Janie Taylor, is set on the windy shoreline of Sausalito. Ellen Rose Hummel and Daniel Deivison-Oliveira are filmed near a mist-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge in a dramatic pas de deux choreographed by Dwight Rhoden, and the pas de deux by Madison Keesler and Benjamin Freemantle – a classic piece of Wheeldon elegance – is described as “an ode to perseverance through challenging times”, played out under the graceful arches of the Palace of Fine Arts.

The ballet is set to Bernard Hermann’s Scène D’Amour, from Hitchcock’s 1958 San Francisco-based thriller Vertigo, performed by members of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. Proof that the Company is rising to the challenges of the present time, Music Director Martin West has mixed and mastered 150 tracks, recorded remotely by the musicians from more than 60 locations, creatively embracing an unexpected engagement with the digital era.

“Dance of Dreams is a moment of dancing,” says Millepied, “a moment of reconnecting dancers to the city and the thing they love most.”

The ballet will be available to view on SF Ballet @ Home, YouTube, Facebook and IGTV from 12 noon PDT on August 13.

Today’s online broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera features Sir Richard Eyre’s production of Georges Bizet’s hugely popular opera Carmen.

In 1872 Bizet was commissioned by the theatre director of the Opéra-Comique in Paris to write an opera for the company. The libretto, by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy, was an adaptation of the 1845 novella by Prosper Mérimée, and although Bizet was confident that he’d created a colorful, fiery and passionate work about a seductive, bewitching and strong-willed woman, the premiere in 1875 wasn’t well received. Audiences were shocked at the obsession and violence of the storyline, and Bizet was left disconsolate and depressed. He died three months later, at the age of 36, never knowing that his opera would become one of the most popular in the world.

This production – screened in the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series on February 2, 2019 – features French mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine as the free-spirited gypsy Carmen, the object of desire of many men, but one determined to do things her way. Roberto Alagna is her lover, Don José, who sacrifices all for her, but is ultimately spurned when the toreador Escamillo attracts Carmen’s interest. The grandstanding Escamillo is sung by Alexander Vinogradov and Aleksandra Kurzak is the demure Micaëla.

The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus are conducted by Louis Langrée, and the performance will be available to view on the Met website at 7.30 pm EDT on Tuesday, August 11.

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