Sunday, January 27, 2008

Lyric


JvR scolds Lyric for a safe-ish season next year, I assume due to the absence of one new or relatively new work. But what are you gonna do? They did a great job bringing and promoting Dr. Atomic this year, ditto for "The Wedding" and that other one in recent memory (how do you find past season info for Lyric?)--pound for pound, Lyric probably does better than the Met on that count. Maybe the right project just wasn't in the cards next year. One does wonder what they have in the hopper, however.

Clearly, the winners next year are the new Lulu production and the D-Vo/Forbis Tristan. I must start scheming now about how I'm going to get respectable tickets for Tristan. Despite the niceness of Dessay and Kaufmann, I find it hard to imagine really wanting to check out Manon. Nor do I have much need to see Porgy and Bess. For the rest of the meat n' potatoes, the choice cuts are distributed judiciously, with no evening really devoid of something to recommend it. Here's how I'd line-up the offerings after Tristan and Lulu:

1. Butterfly w/ Racette

2. Entfuehrung w/ Polenzani & Wall

3. Pearl Fishers w/ Cutler & Gunn

4. Cav/Pag w/ Zajick's Santuzza

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was kinda hoping that somehow Christine Brewer would be back next year - maybe 2009-10?

Anonymous said...

P.S. Past seasons of the Lyric - with cast lists - can be accessed here:
http://www.lyricopera.org/about/performanceArchive.asp

Alex said...

Ah! Thanks. And by "other one" I meant Midsummer Marriage, of course.

I feel you re: Brewer. I suppose one will have to go to NY for the Ring if one wants a fix. What I want to know is if she and Gasteen are splitting the operas or if it will be possible to get Brewer in all of them. No offense to Gasteen, but I want all the Brewnhilde I can get.

Anonymous said...

Brewer is doing a concert Fidelio in St. Louis at the end of March (w/ James Morris), which is making me contemplate a trip to Mound City.