Andris Nelsons Innaugural Concert With Kaufmann & Opolais To Air

"Andris Nelsons’s first season as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra has come and gone — but in case you missed it entirely, you wanted more, or you just wondered what all the buzz was about, you can now catch a glimpse of the new partnership from the comfort of your living room. On Friday at 9 p.m., PBS will broadcast the young Latvian conductor’s inaugural concert with the orchestra, recorded live in Symphony Hall last September....Among the highlights on the night itself were the contributions of the two star vocal soloists, especially tenor Jonas Kaufmann’s outstanding performance of 'In Fernem Land' from Act III of Lohengrin, an account whose intensity and poetry is conveyed here. The Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, Nelsons’s wife, sings a vivid 'Un Bel Di' from Madama Butterfly as well as a smoldering duet with Kaufmann: 'Tu, Tu, amore? Tu?' from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, a work this pair is slated to perform together next season in a new Met production directed by Richard Eyre. For an additional opening night souvenir, the two singers also offered as an encore a melting, sweet-toned account of 'O Soave Fanciulla' from the Act I finale of La Bohème." [Source]

(Photo: Chris Lee)

Christine Goerke Celebrates Dramatic Voice Change

Goerke is all smiles after a four-year absence
from the MET stage, she will return in
Wagner during the 2018-19 season.

"The change, when it came, took her by surprise. 'I noticed it during the run of Alcina at City Opera (in 2003),' Goerke said. 'Handel always felt easy and comfortable, and it didn't feel easy. I went home and told my then-fiance: 'I broke it.' . And it turned out that in fact, my voice was just changing . and I had disconnected from my support, because my voice got so big and I was trying to keep it very slim.' Once she corrected the problem, she said, her voice became 'immediately twice the size, then three times, and my coach said, 'My God, there's still more in there!' It wasn't something that was broken, just something I had to grow into.' At the same time, Goerke was growing into a new personal life. She married her fiance (whom she affectionately refers to as "a tone-deaf construction worker") and had two children, girls now 4 and 7. Her reincarnation as a full-fledged dramatic soprano began when she sang the title role of Strauss' Elektra in Madrid in 2011, a part she has reprised in Chicago and London. But coming back to the Met

The soprano at the beginning
of her career (Photo: Christian Steiner)

was special. Born on Long Island, she had apprenticed with the Met's program for young artists. Her Met debut came in 1995 and she sang there regularly for a while. But since 2004, her only appearances had been in 2009 as the Foreign Princess in Dvorak's Rusalka. 'Singers should never think of a house as a 'home' because it's all business,' Goerke said. 'But this will always be home to me. I grew up here.' Within days of the Frau opening, the Met announced it had signed her to sing Brünnhilde in Wagner's Ring cycle in 2018-19, as well as to appear in Elektra and as Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin. Other Ring cycles are on her calendar, including one in Houston. And she's studying new roles, among them Isolde, Lady Macbeth and Cassandra in Berlioz's Les Troyens. And she looks forward to many years of singing at the top of her game. 'It's very rare at 44 to be able to say I'm a baby,' Goerke said. 'It's just at the beginning of where things start to get comfy in this repertoire.'" [Source] Find a fun photo, that may have foreshadowed Christine Goerke's future singing endeavors, after the jump.