Thursday, May 28, 2015

Future Met Wiki: The latest on Met casting and repertoire

2016-2017 Season

New Productions


Saariaho's L'Amour de Loin
Production: Robert Lepage
Conductor: Susanna Malkki
Jaufré Rudel: Eric Owens
(Co-production with the Festival d'opéra de Québec) [1]
Rossini's Guillaume Tell
Dates: October 16 to November 12
Production: Pierre Audi
Guillaume Tell: Gerald Finley
Arnold: Bryan Hymel
(Co-production with De Nationale Opera) [2]
Gounod's Roméo et Juliette
Production: Bartlett Sher [3]
Juliette: Diana Damrau
(If a production is to be cut for budget reasons this season, this one looks the most likely. Perhaps a revival of the current Roméo would subsitute?)
R. Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier
Production: Robert Carsen
Designers: Paul Steinberg & Brigitte Reiffenstuel
Conductor: James Levine
Octavian: Elina Garanca
Marschallin: Renée Fleming
Sophie: Erin Morley
Baron Ochs: Günther Groissböck

(This is apparently now a co-production with Royal Opera Covent Garden and Opera National de Paris. Presumably, this will be replacing the Christoph Waltz production that had been rumored to be Renee Fleming's Covent Garden farewell?) [4]
Dvorák's Rusalka
Production: Mary Zimmerman
Rusalka: Kristine Opolais
Vodnik (Water Gnome): Eric Owens (?)
Prince: Brandon Jovanovich
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
Dates: Opening Night
Production: Mariusz Trelinski
Conductor: Simon Rattle
Isolde: Nina Stemme
Tristan: Stuart Skelton / Gary Lehman
Brangane: Ekaterina Gubanova
King Marke: René Pape
Kurwenal: Evgeny Nikitin (?)
(Co-production with Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and Teatr Wielki-Polish National Opera) [5]
Catalani's La Wally
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Giuseppe Hagenbach: Michael Fabiano
Wally: Angela Gheorghiu

Repertory
Verdi's Aida
Aida: Liudmyla Monastyrska
Amneris: Ekaterina Gubanova/Violeta Urmana
Radames: Jorge De Leon
Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Rosina: Pretty Yende
Count Almaviva: Javier Camarena (?)/Dmitry Korchak
Puccini's La Bohème
Musetta: Brigitta Kele
Bizet's Carmen
Carmen: Sophie Koch / Clementine Margaine
Micaela: Maria Agresta
Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac
Roxane: Patricia Racette
Cyrano: Roberto Alagna
Conductor: Marco Armiliato
Mozart's Don Giovanni
Ottavio: Matthew Polenzani
Elvira: Marina Rebeka
Anna: Hibla Gerzmava
Zerlina: Serena Malfi
Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
Tatiana: Anna Netrebko/Sonya Yoncheva
Lenski: Matthew Polenzani
Puccini's La Fanciulla del West (?)
J. Strauss' Die Fledermaus (?)
Wagner's Die Fliegende Holländer
Dutchman: Michael Volle
Senta: Christine Goerke / Amber Wagner?
Erik: Jay Hunter Morris
Mozart's Idomeneo
Conductor: James Levine
Ilia: Julia Kleiter
Idamante-Alice Coote
Idomeneo: Piotr Beczala
Voice of Neptune: Eric Owens
Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri
Lindoro: Javier Camarena
Janácek's Jenufa
Kostelnicka: Karita Mattila
Jenufa: Oksana Dyka
Steva: Joseph Kaiser
Laca: Daniel Brenna
Mozart's The Magic Flute
Holiday abridged version in English
Pamina: Layla Claire
Puccini's Manon Lescaut
Manon: Anna Netrebko/Angela Gheorghiu
Des Grieux: Aleksandrs Antonenko
Verdi's Nabucco
Nabucco: Placido Domingo
Abigaille: Liudmyla Monastyrska/Tatiana Melnychenko
Verdi's Otello (?)
Debussy's Pelléas et Melisande (?)
Conductor: James Levine
Golaud: Gerald Finley?
Bellini's I Puritani
Elvira: Diana Damrau
Arturo: Javier Camarena
Verdi's Rigoletto
Gilda: Olga Peretyatko
Duke: Jospeh Calleja
Verdi's La Traviata
Alfredo: Michael Fabiano
Special Event - Gala Celebrating 50 Years at Lincoln Center
http://futuremet.wikia.com/wiki/Future_Met_Wiki

Friday, May 15, 2015

Montserrat Caballé, Spanish Soprano, Fails to Appear in Court to Settle Tax Case

The opera singer Montserrat Caballé failed to appear in a Spanish court this week to settle a tax fraud case, and her lawyer stepped down as her legal representative in the matter.
 
Ms. Caballé, who was summoned by a judge in Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday, did not explain her absence, although one of her assistants told the Spanish news agency EFE that she had been ill. No further details were provided.
 
Ms. Caballé’s lawyer, Santiago Ayesta, told the judge that he would no longer serve as the singer’s representative in the case as he could not endorse her legal strategy, the Spanish news media reported.
 
The court is expected to set another date for Ms. Caballé, 82, to appear. If she again fails to turn up, she could face new charges.
 
Ms. Caballé, a soprano and a star of the international opera stage for five decades, reached a deal with a prosecutor in December to receive a symbolic prison sentence of six months and to pay a fine of 254,000 euros, or about $286,000, for having falsely claimed residency in Andorra. The principality, wedged between Spain and France, has long thrived as a tax haven.
 
The provisional settlement, which is subject to the approval of a judge, would allow Ms. Caballé to avoid time in prison, because Spanish law normally applies prison terms for first-time offenders in tax cases only when the sentence is for two years or more.
 
Last year, Ms. Caballé was charged with failing to declare about €508,000 in income related to her work in 2010. She agreed to pay that sum back to the Spanish tax agency, even as the criminal case proceeded.
 
The investigation focused on whether Ms. Caballé had falsely claimed residency in Andorra to avoid paying Spanish income taxes. The prosecution said that she spent most of her time in Barcelona and only occasionally traveled to Andorra.
 
Ms. Caballé also agreed to pay about €72,000 to the Spanish tax agency as interest on unpaid taxes for the work she did not declare, which included concerts and recordings.
 
That work was paid in cash and with transfers into an account held at BancSabadell d’Andorra, according to the document that detailed the settlement reached with the prosecutor. The document was shown to The New York Times by a source on the condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to reveal its contents.
 
Spain has been increasing efforts to clamp down on financial fraud. In October, a judge ordered another famous resident of Barcelona, the soccer star Lionel Messi, to stand trial for tax evasion.
Mr. Messi, who has denied wrongdoing, is accused of failing to pay Spanish taxes on millions of euros from advertising contracts.
 
Ms. Caballé began singing at the Liceu opera house in Barcelona in 1962. Her international breakthrough came four years later, as a substitute in Donizetti’s “Lucrezia Borgia” at Carnegie Hall in New York, where she received a standing ovation.
 
Ms. Caballé performed in Lucerne, Switzerland, in 2013, but for the most part she has stayed away from the stage in recent years and has been described in the Spanish news media as being in fragile health.
 
In December, she attended a concert of six sopranos that was held in her honor, at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
 
 
PIMP MY VOICE COMMENT:
 
At first I was going to blast the government for messing with this legend over $250K.  Then I thought about it.  All the money Caballe has made singing and she evades her taxes.  Really Caballe? It looks like they don't care if you go to jail.  Please pay your taxes.  It's the law.