u/Cheap_Ostrich3147

Sondra Radvanovsky has withdrawn from the new production for personal reasons and will be replaced by Vida Miknevičiūtė.

What are some beautiful but lesser known opera numbers? I'm making a playlist that already has ~600 songs on it, so if a number is within the top ~600 most popular opera numbers, I might already have it on the playlist! If you're not sure, include it the comments anyway - I want to make sure I have everything covered.

Sondra Radvanovsky has announced that Minnie in La fanciulla del West will be one of if not her last role. If she chooses to take on any other roles, what would you like to see her do?

• Gioconda - this was potentially in the works with Piotr Beczała at the Met for a little bit, I'm not sure if it's still happening
• Santuzza - this would definitely be an interesting role for her, and I'd personally like to hear her sing it
• Francesca da Rimini - an excellent opera that is done all too infrequently because of the demands of the title role and the principal tenor role. I think she would be a great fit for the role.

I can't find the article right now, but I also remember reading an interview with her where she talked about potentially doing Adriana Lecouvreur and The Makropulos Case as well. I can see Adriana Lecouvreur for her, but Makropulos is an interesting choice. She has sung Rusalka before, but Janáček is definitely outside the spinto-dramatic Italian rep that she has mostly lived in.

I recently watched the Met Live in HD broadcast of Eugene Onegin and I loved that Tatyana kisses Onegin at the end the same way he kisses her at the end of the first act. What are some other directorial choices that you have seen and loved?

What would you program?

• Who would you hire to sing it?
• To direct it?
• Design it?
• Conduct it?

What kinds of extra-performance events would you incorporate?

• Filming? Streaming? Radio?

How would you drive audience engagement?

Or anything else you want to share.

This may be a controversial post but I've been reading some books lately that have shifted my opinions about regietheater. There seems to be an opinion in the opera community that directorial input is okay as long as it doesn't go "too far." I'm looking to put more definitive terms on this. What makes a piece go "too far?" I suppose everyone has a different meaning of "too far."

Examples

• Calixto Bieito's brutal staging of Die Entführung aus dem Serail is, in my opinion, a good way of modernizing the text and removing racist tropes that are present in the original score and libretto. The production is very brutal and hard to read about, and I can't imagine how it must have been to watch it. Instead of making it about the brutality of Turkish men, the production focuses on the brutality of men of a certain rank in society. A production like this was almost certain to be booed extensively, but I think the juxtaposition of the quasi-comedy of the libretto with the terrifying seriousness of the production adds a lot to my personal understanding of the piece.
• Similarly, Lydia Steier's staging of Salome at the Opéra National de Paris involves some very graphic depictions of rape and an over-sexualized, over-brutalized society, but I think it is appropriate given the actions of Salome throughout the opera.
• Claus Guth's production of La bohème that takes place in space really baffled me at first, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I think Guth is trying to place emphasis on the existentialness of the opera. In interviews, he has also talked about the longing that is present throughout the score, and how, by placing the action in space, he can emphasize the characters' longing even further by isolating them from society. At the same time, I think this might be an example of trying to evoke shock in the audience by placing the opera so far away from its original setting that it becomes almost masochistic. Sometimes I think people like hate-watching opera though, and it certainly drives engagement, at least in Europe.

All in all, I respect a production that is clearly a departure from the source material more than one that is courting the line between fidelity and departure. While beautiful, I find that many (not all) of Sir David McVicar's productions walk an awkward tightrope of trying to add something new to the canon of a work while also not wanting to go too far. I also have a newfound respect for productions that do not answer all the questions, leaving some things up for audience interpretation, but I fear newcomers to opera may need some more guidance. A mentor of mine once joked that the Met should have two houses: one 4,000 seat house for La bohème, Tosca, Turandot, La traviata, Carmen, and all the other operas that draw tourists, and another, smaller house for those of us who want to see new things, and perhaps more experimental things. I'll be interested to hear what other people's thoughts are.

Hello! I was just listening to Gabriela Lena Frank who uses some Andean instruments in some of her works (or uses more standard instruments to mimic the sound of Andean instruments) and I was wondering if there are any other composers who use different ethnic instruments in their music?