It was announced yesterday and fails to fill me with inspiration. The Press Release is available here
Productions etc are summarised here and here.
The Ring we already know about; I already have my tickets; and although obviously I am looking forward to it tremendously, it is discounted in my mind as old news.
I think the repertory is reasonably interesting. It's a shame there's nothing from the first 170 years of opera's 400 years. And it's tediously inevitable that there will be Tosca and Boheme without - thus far - any star names to persuade one. Carmen is revived, with Marcelo Alvarez as Don José. Naturally I shall see it for him but remain open-minded as to whether it's vocally his forte. And sure - despite my tremendous admiration for him - that he won't bring to it what Jonas Kaufmann did. Traviata is revived yet again. Anna Netrebko undoubtedly the draw. Also, Jonas Kaufmann and Dmitri Hvorostovsky. As they are on my list of potential telephone directory singers, of course I shall go, but I think it's a shocking waste of both of their talents, considering that's all either of them are doing, when I think they ought to be offered whatever they want.
Eugene Onegin will be irresistible, with Gerald Finley starring, supported by Marina Poplavskaya and Piotr Beczala. I adore Gerald, and adored him in this role at ENO (sung in English, as opposed to ROH's Russian). Such a shame he isn't doing more.
Parsifal looks attractive, as long as I'm not Wagnered-out by then. Other major highlights are L'elisir with Rolando Villazón. I hope they won't limit this to two tickets per person, because I intend taking Jimmy, but want to go more than once. Rolando also provides the other highlight in Don Carlo, which, I think, Ring Cycle apart, is objectively the season highlight, and one hopes will be televised.
And I shall go to the three English operas: Britten, Ades and Birtwhistle in order to prove my intellectual credentials.
But, apart from the above mentioned, and also Simon Keenlyside (whom, bizarrely, I have never seen in a staged opera), but will be my pet project I think, the casting is uninspiring. So many absences, miscasts and barely presents. Plácido is only in Walküre, two performances, and I just can't see me getting a ticket for the one I haven't already booked. As I say, Dima and Jonas's one appearance hopelessly miscast, and Marcelo's one appearance, we shall see...No JDF. And that's just the tenors (oh and of course no Roberto Alagna, either, or José Cura for that matter). Sopranos missing include Angela Gheorghiu, Karita Mattila and Renée Fleming. Not that I am knocking the various people scheduled to sing. It would be delightful to hear unfamiliar singers if they prove to be delightful, but I feel that the casting is decidedly unstarry for a leading house. If they are avoiding Big Stars for the main part, they also seem to overlooking the brightest and best of emerging British talent, too, with the likes of Sarah Connolly, Alice Coote and Carolyn Sampson overlooked once again, and Iain Paterson just a Nazarene in Salome. I could go on.
Eyebrows and Shirtless aside, I think the most significant contribution will be from David McVicar. I haven't seen his Zauberflote, because I am yet to be converted to the charms of the opera, but will do so, because I now realise he is my favourite director (And it stars Shirtless). Also, Figaro, my favourite opera, with a great staging and a potentially decent cast (let's hope Ildebrando Arcangelo's singing is more impressive when not atop a horse). And a new production of Salome. Although I am not a Strauss fan, it is short. I know nothing about Nadja Michael and don't know how she will interpret the Dance of the Seven Veils. I'd get more excited about La Cenerentola if it were JDF rather than Pretty Blonde Spenceboy (with apologies to PBS fans...). And I'm not sure about Magdalena Kozena and don't care especially for Rossini.
Still, looking on the bright side, there is not much for counter-tenors...
Update: another blogview
