Siegfried, The Met, Oct 2011, Overview and documentary of Siegfried's "3d" effects

Nothing really new but the première will soon be upon us and I thought it was time to up the details

Lepage, discusses Siegfried plus 3d effects "teaser":

Cast

Conductor: James Levine
Brünnhilde: Deborah Voigt
Erda: Patricia Bardon
Siegfried: Gary Lehman
Mime: Gerhard Siegel
Wanderer: Bryn Terfel
Alberich: Eric Owens

Dates: (Sold out)

Thursday, October 27, 2011, 6:00 pm

Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 6:00 pm

Saturday, November 5, 2011, 12:00 pm

Saturday 5 November will be the MET in HD performance in a cinema (hopefully) near you. See below for details:

Siegfried in HD  click below for details

• U.S. Theaters
• Canada-Atlantic Provinces
• Canada-All Other Provinces

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Deborah Voigt deserts Strauss for an affair with Wagner, but then Wagner jumps into bed with Strauss?

As reported in todays Suntimes

Voigt leaves Strauss for Wagner, and Wagner steps in for Strauss.

Or something like that.

In a surprise move that could portend other changes in upcoming seasons at the Civic Opera House, Lyric Opera of Chicago announced Monday morning that star soprano Deborah Voigt, who has figured prominently in marketing for the company’s 2011-12 season, has withdrawn from the revival of “Ariadne auf Naxos” by Richard Strauss. The demanding title role in this combination comedy-fantasy long has been a signature part for the star American soprano who turns 51 next month.

Lyric said that Voigt, who opened a run in the very different title role of Irving Berlin’s “Annie Get Your Gun” at Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, N.Y.. Saturday night, wants to focus on her upcoming debuts in the lead role of Bruennhilde in the third and fourth installments of Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Lyric said.

The six November-December “Ariadne” dates in Chicago fall between the Met’s performances of “Siegfried” and “Goetterdammerung.”

The choice was Voigt’s, Lyric said, but the Illinois native made no mention of this plan in a backstage conversation after her July 9 Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert at Ravinia in which her Strauss numbers were the highlight.

A number of industry observers have said that Voigt has been losing the lyric sound that was a trademark of hers for years and that she is shifting to roles calling for a more dramatic style such as Wagner, or lighter work such as musical theater. New management led by general director-designate Anthony Freud and artistic consultant Renee Fleming takes over at Lyric on Oct. 1 and has been examining all short- and long-term commitments the company has made.

A request for a direct comment from Voigt or her publicist had not been returned by press time.

In her place, a true rising star, Amber Wagner (no relation to the composer) will make her full-run major role debut at Lyric. Wagner received raves when she was a last-minute substitute in the part for the opera’s opening night this spring at Toronto’s Canadian Opera Company. Lyric music director Andrew Davis conducted that production as he is to at Lyric.

Amber Wagner in Performance

Wagner, 31, an alum of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center, has been a standout since her first days in the training center. A winner of the 2007 Met National Council auditions, and numerous other awards, Wagner was featured in the 2009 hit documentary on the Met competition, “The Audition.” In her scheduled closing night performance as Elsa in Wagner’s “Lohengrin” at Lyric in March, the singer “achieved a total triumph,” the Sun-Times’ Laura Emerick wrote.

“Throughout the evening Wagner displayed the presence and command of an artist of twice her experience,” Emerick wrote. “Her voice poured forth rhapsodically in exquisitely phrased lines while she more than matched the intensity” of her “formidable” fellow cast members.

Continue reading

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Brunnhilde Speaks - or at least writes: Debra Voigt

Debra Voigt to Publish Her Memoirs

According to the New York Times, the MET's latest Brunhilda has sold the rights to her memoirs to Harper Collins. Presently entitled “True Confessions of a Down to Earth Diva,” it's due to hit a bookstore, supermarket shelf or Kindle near you sometime in 2013.

Voigt first as Aida in 2001 and then 5 years later in  Salome

But why do it and why now? She is hardly at the end of her career after all. Voigt said: “It’s time for me to step up and share my story because I know there are lots of other people, especially women, who are out there suffering in silence.” While Harper Collins said that it would be an “...unbelievably honest narrative of a woman caught in a dangerous cycle of addiction and illness who overcame her demons in an utterly triumphant way.” We suspect this means past issues of Voigt's physicality will be discussed.

As to whether she will write the thing herself or if we will see the less than hidden hand of the ghostwriter has yet to be disclosed.

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Royal Opera and The Met announce cinema seasons - 2011-2012

SOURCE: BBC

Opera houses announce productions to be broadcast globally

 (Thanks to Opera Peru)

Nine Covent Garden productions, and 11 productions from The Metropolitan Opera,New York are to be
shown in cinemas around the world later this year.

The Met, which has been running a cinema season since 2006, will be broadcasting shows live including Wagner’s Siegfried, Philip Glass’s Satyagraha and Massenet’s Manon.

The Royal Opera House’s (ROH) programme, meanwhile, includes productions from the Royal Ballet, including Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty on 15 December, as well as operas such as Massenet’s Cendrillon (Cinderella) in January 2012, starring Joyce DiDonato.

Other highlights from the ROH include Bryn Terfel in Puccini’s Tosca, to be screened in November this year, and Angela Gheorghiu in Adriana Lecouvreur, to be broadcast this October.

Both houses will be broadcasting productions of Gounod’s Faust – Gheorghiu stars in the Covent Garden production while Jonas Kaufmann and Marina Poplavskaya will be singing among the lead roles in New York.

The Royal Opera House cinema season will be shown in more than 140 cinemas in the UK and more than 600 cinemas around the world. They launched their first cinema season in 2008, following the success of the Live in HD scheme run by the Metropolitan Opera.

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