Nathan Gunn And Mandy Patinkin Duet Show Scheduled Out To 2015

Patinkin (left) and Gunn (right) carry on the tradition
of pairings like Frank Sinatra & Luciano Pavarotti and
Carol Burnett & Beverly Sills in their show of
musical tunes combined with opera excerpts.

Despite having to cancel their appearance at the Ravinia Festival this summer due to Mandy Patinkin's filming schedule for Homeland, the duo continues to take their show on the road. The Charlotte Observer is announcing their participation in the 2014-15 concert series lineup:

March 18: “An Evening With Mandy Patinkin and Nathan Gunn” pairs the Homeland star with a quasi-operatic tenor and the baritone with Metropolitan Opera experience and a popular approach. You may get songs from musicals known well (Carousel) or less well (The Secret Garden), Americana, ’70s pop tunes, even a medley of “Singing in the Bathtub” and “Largo al factotum” from The Barber of Seville. Gunn’s wife and music director Julie Jordan Gunn and Patinkin’s longtime accompanist, Paul Ford, join them onstage. [Source] 

Watch a video of the two performers discussing how they met and came up with the idea for the show, after the jump.

Renée Fleming Heads The Line-Up Of New Productions At MET

Renée Fleming under the hot pursuit of Nathan Gunn (Photo: Brigitte Lacombe/Metropolitan Opera)

The Metropolitan Opera announced its 2014-15 season today. Check out the online brochure here. Several new productions are added to the repertoire and many works created under the Peter Gelb regime will be revived. The New Year's Eve Gala will be focused on

Susan Stroman's new interpretation of Franz Lehár's 110-year old operetta Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow as it will be performed in English) starring mega-star Renée Fleming in her role debut as Hanna. "The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play, L'attaché d'ambassade (The Embassy Attaché) by Henri Meilhac. The operetta has enjoyed extraordinary international success since its 1905 premiere in Vienna and continues to be frequently revived and recorded. Film and other adaptations have also been made. Well-known music from the score includes the 'Vilja Song,' 'Da geh' ich zu Maxim' ('You'll Find Me at Maxim's'), and the 'Merry Widow Waltz'. The operetta was first performed at the

Theater an der Wien in Vienna on December 30, 1905, with Mizzi Günther as Hanna, Louis Treumann as Danilo, Siegmund Natzler as Baron Zeta and Annie Wünsch as Valencienne. It was Lehár's first major success, becoming internationally the best-known operetta of its era. Lehár subsequently made changes for productions in London in 1907 (two new numbers), and Berlin in the 1920s, but the definitive version is basically that of the original production. The operetta toured Austria and in 1906 enjoyed productions in Hamburg's Neues Operetten-Theater, Berlin's Berliner Theater (starring Gustav Matzner as Danilo and Marie Ottmann as Hanna, who made the first complete recording in 1907), and Budapest's Magyar Szinhaz. Its English adaptation by Basil Hood, with lyrics by Adrian Ross, became

a sensation in London in 1907 and ran for an extraordinary 778 performances, followed by extensive British tours. The first performance in Paris was at the Théâtre Apollo on April 28, 1909. Many international productions, as well as revivals followed, as did sequels, spoofs and film versions. http://www.musicals101.com/widowhist3.htm. The operetta originally had no overture; Lehár wrote one for the Vienna Philharmonic to perform at his 70th birthday concert in April 1940." [Source] For a full synopsis, click here. 

Harvey "Van" Cliburn Jr. Most Certainly Approved This Photo

It appears that Nathan Gunn is very excited to be replacing Deborah Voigt for the Cliburn concerts. Special thanks to M Sharkey for such detailed photography.

Nathan Gunn Will Be Caroling With the Mormons in December

"Opera singer Nathan Gunn and actress Jane Seymour will be celebrating Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir this year. Gunn and Seymour were announced Thursday as guest stars of the choir’s annual Christmas Concerts, set for Dec. 15-18 in the LDS Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City. Choir president Mac Christensen and music director Mack Wilberg made the announcement Thursday, as recent tradition dictates, on KSL radio’s The Doug Wright Show."Gunn, interviewed by Wright by phone from Houston, said he was thrilled to perform with 'the most famous choir on the planet.' It’s not Gunn’s first time with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He performed in 1998 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. 'It was shocking,' he said of the experience. 'I wasn’t prepared for the amazing warmth coming from behind me.'....The concerts are set for 8 p.m. on Dec. 15-17, and 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 18 (a live broadcast of "Music and the Spoken Word" with mini-concert to follow), in the 21,000-seat LDS Conference Center. The 84,000 tickets are free, and will be distributed by random drawing. Registration for the ticket drawing starts this Saturday at 12:01 a.m. and runs through Oct. 17. For more information, go to mormontabernaclechoir.org. [Source]

MET Sirius XM Radio Tonight: "La Traviata"

Listen to the Metropolitan Opera perform Verdi's La Traviata live tonight at 7:00 PM EST on Sirius XM radio. Intermission guest: Nathan Gunn (see video).