by Paul J. Pelkonen
A lake of blood is just one controversial image in
François Girard's new production of Parsifal, opening Feb. 15 2013 at the Metropolitan Opera.
Photo from Act II, © 2012 Opera de Lyon.
An opera house stage overflows with blood.
Anna Netrebko's face is appearing on the New York subways more frequently than Doctor Jonathan Zizmor's.
All this means one thing: the Metropolitan Opera season for 2012-2013 is on sale to the general public. This is the company's first season in four decades without music director James Levine, who is taking a year (and possibly more) of convalescent leave as he recuperates from various unknown injuries and ailments.
This season the Met is celebrating the legacies of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, composers who celebrate their 200th birthdays in 2013. (If you're wondering, Verdi's is October 10, 2013. Wagner's is May 22, and both dates fall outside the Met's coming season.) In any case, the company is offering seven Verdi operas and five Wagner music dramas, making up almost half of the schedule for the coming year.
Starting with L'Elisir d'Amore, and ending with Les Dialogues de Carmelites, regular readers (and subscribers) of this blog will receive a new preview article, one for each of the next 28 days. They will appear in the main blog feed, and will also be linked below. (It's my job, as BlogMaster, to turn the links on each day and I will endeavour to be responsible about doing so.) The Previews will of course alternate with our usual mix of opera, concert and CD reviews, saucy commentary and news items as they develop, and will re-appear on the site in the course of the season as needed.
Please note that the previews below are subject to casting changes and will be updated (to the best of my ability) in the course of the 2012-2013 season.
Here's the schedule, broken down by month:
September 2012:
L'Elisir d'Amore (opening night, Sept. 24, first regular performance Sept. 27)
Turandot (opening of the generale opens, Sept. 26)
Carmen (opens Sept. 28)
Il Trovatore (opens Sept. 29)
October 2012:
Otello (opens Oct. 9)
The Tempest (new production opens Oct. 23)
Le nozze di Figaro (opens Oct. 26)
November 2012:
Un ballo in Maschera (new production opens Nov. 8)
La clemenza di Tito (opens Nov. 16)
Aida (opens Nov. 23)
Don Giovanni (opens Nov. 28)
December 2012:
Les Troyens (opens Dec. 12)
The Barber of Seville (opens Dec. 18) English-language "holiday" production.)
Maria Stuarda (new production, opens Dec. 31)
January 2013:
La Rondine (opens Jan. 11)
Le Comte Ory (opens Jan. 17)
Rigoletto (new production, opens Jan. 31)
February 2013:
Parsifal (new production, opens Feb. 15)
Don Carlo (opens Feb. 22)
March 2013:
Francesca di Rimini (opens March 4)
La Traviata (opens March 14)
Faust (opens March 21)
April 2013:
Giulio Cesare en Egitto (new production, opens April 4)
Das Rheingold (opens April 6)
Die Walküre (opens April 13)
Siegfried (opens April 20)
Götterdämmerung (opens April 23)
May 2013:
Dialogues des Carmélites (opens May 4)
Season ends May 11.
