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)

Kristīne Opolais And Jonas Kaufmann Not Exactly Headed For Sand

Kristīne Opolais and Jonas Kaufmann in rehearsal
for Manon Lescaut which opens June 24 in London.
(Photo: Bill Coooper/Royal Opera House)

"Louisiana, early 18th century. A few kilometres outside New Orleans: Manon and her lover, Des Grieux, have escaped the city on foot, hoping to reach an English settlement. What lies ahead of them seems insurmountable: plains so vast and mountains so high they would daunt the roughest and hardiest of men and women. As night falls, Manon can walk no further and succumbs to the unavoidable. She collapses from thirst and weariness, and dies in the ‘the depths of the desert’. The inhospitable land the two lovers describe in the last act of Puccini’s Manon Lescaut has more than puzzled contemporary audiences and directors alike. The original poster of the opera’s 1893 premiere showed sun-baked arid hills and what appears to be like an agave plant (more commonly found 2,000km away in the accurately arid desert of Arizona, not in Louisiana). To put it mildly, the setting is a largely inaccurate description of the outskirts of New Orleans, even some three centuries ago. Devastating hurricanes aside, the southern city is used to a healthy amount of rainfall. And water also abounds in lakes, streams and other watercourses that dissect this meandering delta region of the Mississippi River. It's an area alive with mammals, birds and reptiles. In fact, rather than thirst, it's likely that hungry coyotes or alligators would have led to Puccini heroine's untimely demise. So why did the composer and his librettists get it so apparently wrong?

Drowning in a flood from some hurricane might
have been more realistic than a desert death.

The original source of the opera and later adaptations offer a few possible clues. In his 1731 novel L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, French writer Abbé Prévost gives some details about what was then predominantly uncharted territory to European colonizers. Apart from a mention of ‘barren and uninhabited plains’, the author describes Manon’s resting ground only briefly: ‘We sat down in the middle of a vast plain, unable to find a single tree to give us shelter.’ One of the last scenes of the 1830 ballet-pantomime Manon, by dramatist Eugène Scribe, is also set in the ‘vast desert of New Orleans.’ But his 1856 opera Manon Lescaut, with music by Daniel François Esprit Auber, takes place in the ‘plains, and forests of North America.’ Both Prévost and Scribe seemed to have portrayed a settlers’ misconception about much of America west of the Appalachian Mountains." [Source] Read the entire article by Mattia Cabitza by clicking here. See the original poster for Manon Lescaut and a photo of Kiri Te Kanawa with Plácido Domingo in the 1983 production at the ROH, after the jump.

Anna Netrebko Wears Exclusive Fendi Fur Cape For "Manon Lescaut"

Fresh from her stint at the closing ceremonies
of Sochi Olympics 2014, Anna Netrebko wraps
herself in a new role.

"Fendi has created an exclusive fur cape for Russian soprano Anna Netrebko for her lead role in a new production of Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini. Conducted by Riccardo Muti and directed by his daughter Chiara Muti, the opera in four acts will run at Rome's Teatro dell’Opera from Feb. 27 to March 8. The white Rex rabbit cape, which is lined in silk, has been manufactured by hand at Rome’s Fendi fur atelier in collaboration with the opera house’s dressmakers and costume designer Alessandro Lai." [Source]

Anna Netrebko Performed Olympic Anthem At Sochi Opening

Netrebko Does Russia Proud: Hitting all the high notes in a gown by Katya Kotova.

On the heels of American soprano Renée Fleming singing the National Anthem for the Super Bowl, Russian superstar Anna Netrebko sang the Olympic Anthem in Sochi for Vladimir Putin, 43,000 stadium spectators, and an estimated 3 billion television audience members. The Olympics have been in the news recently for the ballooning $50 billion price tag and it seems not all the construction is complete after seven years of preparation. No word on whether there will be more singing from the country's most beloved opera singer during her stay in Sochi before she travels back to Italy for the opening of Manon Lescaut with Riccardo Muti at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma on February 27. Photos from the performance here and a many more after the jump. As a side note, Google has created a doodle that seems like a statement about Russia's anti-gay law just in time for the Olympics:

(Translation: "The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." –Olympic Charter)

Fabio Luisi Tweets About Death Of Conductor Angleo Campori

Fabio Luisi took to Twitter on November 25 to discuss the death of fellow Italian conductor Angelo Campori. Luisi also commented that Campori, who died at age 79, "was one of the last Italian conductors who knew exactly what Italian opera means and how to conduct it." Maestro Campori worked with many of the great opera sopranos: Renata Scotto, Maria Chiara, Raina Kabaivanska, Giusy Devinu, and Anna Caterina Antonacci. "For the soundtrack to Woody Allen's Hannah and her Sisters, the indie film auteur, who knows his opera, plumped for an authentically Italian excerpt from Puccini's Manon Lescaut. The cast was from the Ragio Theater of Turin, the conductor was Angelo Campori. And the complete performance from which that was taken is indicative of the conductor Campori became--a noted exponent of musical Italy. It featured in its cast good voices that were idiomatically Italianate, with Maria Chiara and Nicola Martinucci in the leads...His closest associations were with the Teatro Regio in Parma and with the Verona Arena. But he had an American profile, as well. He had been close to Leonard Bernstein and had performed at the Metropolitan Opera, in Philadelphia and elsewhere. He had been seriously ill a decade ago and had required heart surgery, since when he'd been almost completely unable to perform. He left several recordings. As well as that Manon Lescaut, there's a film of Lucia Di Lammermoor from Parma starring Alfredo Kraus and Luciana Serra, Soliva's rarely-heard Guilia E Sesto Pompeo on the CPO label and Licinio Refice's Cecilia with Renata Scotto on VAI Audio." [Source] More about the conductor, and a riveting performance he conducted of Renato Bruson in "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata" from Verdi's Rigoletto, after the jump.

Convent-bound Material Girl Dies Outside Big Easy in 1893

The first performance of Puccini's Manon Lescaut took place at the Teatro Regio in Turin on February 1, 1893.