2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera Season Offers Five New Productions

Summary: The 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season offers five new productions, including Bellini’s Norma, Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Puccini’s Tosca.

The Metropolitan Opera hosts the American premiere of Thomas Adés's The Exterminating Angel during the 2017-2018 Met Opera season: Michelle Trovato @michelletrovato, via Twitter Feb. 16, 2017

The 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season offers five new productions, comprising the American premiere of Adès’s The Exterminating Angel and new stagings of Bellini’s Norma, Massenet’s Cendrillon, Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Puccini’s Tosca.

On Sept. 25, 2017, the Metropolitan Opera’s 2017-2018 season opens with a new production of Norma by short-lived Italian opera composer Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (Nov. 3, 1801-Sept. 23, 1835). Glaswegian opera and theatre director Sir David McVicar directs the two-act tragic opera’s new staging.

English designer Robert Jones is responsible for the setting. The new production sets the opera deep in a Druid forest.

“Visually we’ve tried to find a world which is true to history. They worshipped in forests. They worshipped in groves. We’ve tried to stay true to that. And that, I think, is intrinsic to the story of Norma herself, intrinsic to her tragedy,” Sir McVicar explains in a Metropolitan Opera’s YouTube video released Feb. 15, 2017. “And I think her immolation at the end is a kind of return to the earth. So, as well as being deeply tragic, it’s also incredibly noble and an incredibly liberating thing for Norma to do at the end of the opera.”

The 2017-2018 season’s second new production, which opens Oct. 26, also marks a milestone as the American premiere of The Exterminating Angel by British composer and conductor Thomas Adès. The inspiration for Adès’s two-act surreal fantasy is El ángel exterminador, a 1962 surrealist film by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Feb. 22, 1900-July 29, 1983).

The premiere’s staging is directed by British director Tom Cairns, who wrote the opera’s English libretto. German designer Hildegard Bechtler is the opera’s set and costume designer. The opera’s spacious yet seemingly escape-proof portal necessarily dominates the set.

The 2017-2018 season’s third new production, Tosca by Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (Dec. 22, 1858-Nov. 29, 1924), opens Dec. 31. The three-act tragic opera’s new production is the 2017-2018 season’s second new staging directed by Sir David McVicar. Scottish designer John Macfarlane is responsible for the new production’s costumes and sets.

Sir McVicar notes the influence of the music of Tosca upon the opera’s staging in a Metropolitan Opera YouTube video released March 3, 2017: “It’s one of the most wonderful openings of any opera ever written. And those massive brass chords, I think, raise an expectation, even to a newcomer to Tosca, who’s never seen Tosca before, that there’s a certain grandeur that needs to be on stage. We certainly hope we’re going to supply that.”

The 2017-2018 season’s fourth new production is Così fan tutte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Jan. 27, 1756-Dec. 5, 1791). The two-act comedic opera opens March 15, 2018. English stage director Phelim McDermott directs the new production. Tom Pye is the new production’s set designer.

McDermott’s new staging fast forwards the opera’s original setting in 18th-century Naples to late 1940s-, early 1950s-era Coney Island in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn. The modern time and place setting are intended to represent a particular period of Americana.

“I always thought we should do Così at the Coney Island sideshow. So there’s an idea of being away from home and the idea of the fairground and the sideshow being this magical place in which the rules are not quite the same as they are in everyday ordinary life, as it were,” explains McDermott in a Metropolitan Opera YouTube video released Feb. 15, 2017.

The 2017-2018 season’s fifth new production is Cendrillon by Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (May 12, 1842-Aug. 13, 1912). The four-act fairy tale opens April 12, 2018. The new production marks Cendrillon's Metropolitan Opera debut.

The new staging is directed by French opera and theatre director Laurent Pelly, who also is the production’s costume designer. Belgian set designer Barbara de Limburg is responsible for the opera’s sets.

Pelly premiered his staging of Cendrillon at New Mexico’s Santa Fe Opera in 2006. His production emphasizes the storytelling aspect of Massenet’s fairy tale opera.

“’Once upon a time’ -- everything flows from that phrase,” Pelly explains for Belgian dramaturge Marie Mergeay’s Dec. 9, 2015, article in The Opera Platform.

The takeaway for 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season’s five new productions is the imaginative expression of the five operas’ musicality into the visual reality of evocative costumes and sets.

English stage director Phelim McDermott transplants the 2017-2018 Met Opera season's production of Mozart's from 18th century Naples to 1950s-era Coney Island: The Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera, via Facebook June 17, 2017

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

The Metropolitan Opera hosts the American premiere of Thomas Adés's The Exterminating Angel during the 2017-2018 Met Opera season: Michelle Trovato @michelletrovato, via Twitter Feb. 16, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/michelletrovato/status/832263872342061056

English stage director Phelim McDermott transplants the 2017-2018 Met Opera season's production of Mozart's from 18th century Naples to 1950s-era Coney Island: The Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera, via Facebook June 17, 2017, @ https://www.facebook.com/MetOpera/photos/a.134969600532.229232.20807115532/10158975405170533/

For further information:

Barnett, Laura. “Hildegard Bechtler, Designer - Portrait of the Artist.” The Guardian > Culture > Theatre > Portrait of the Artist. Sept. 17, 2013.
Available @ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/sep/17/hildegard-bechtler-portrait-artist

Berry, Mark. “Director Tom Cairns and Thomas Adès Interviewed Before Tomorrow’s World Premiere of The Exterminating Angel.” Boulezian. July 27, 2016.
Available @ http://boulezian.blogspot.com/2016/07/director-tom-cairns-interviews-thomas.html

Cooper, Michael. “Highlights From the Met Opera’s 2017-18 Season.” The New York Times > Music. Feb. 15, 2017.
Available @ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/arts/music/metropolitan-opera-2017-2018-season-highlights.html?smid=tw-nytimesarts&smtyp=cur

Marriner, Derdriu. "2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera Season Includes a Premiere and a Requiem." Earth and Space News. Monday, June 12, 2017.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/06/2017-2018-metropolitan-opera-season_12.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera Season Schedules 26 Productions." Earth and Space News. Monday, June 19, 2017.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2017/06/2017-2018-metropolitan-opera-season_19.html

Meet Me At The Opera @MMATOpera. "Metropolitan Opera 2017-18 New Season. Five new productions. Opens with Bellini's Norma starring Sondra Radvanovsky." Twitter. Feb. 15, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/MMATOpera/status/832004752984641536

Mergeay, Marie. “’Once Upon a Time’ -- Everything Flows From That Phrase.” The Opera Platform. Dec. 9, 2015.
Available @ http://www.theoperaplatform.eu/en/article/cendrillon-interview-laurent-pelly

Metropolitan Opera. "Joyce DiDonato and the Met's New Production of Cendrillon." YouTube. June 13, 2017.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs1IfgUUnOs

Metropolitan Opera. "Phelim McDermott on his new Production of Così fan tutte." YouTube. Feb. 15, 2017.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbdM6sOijKE

Metropolitan Opera. "Sir David McVicar on his new Production of Tosca." YouTube. June 16, 2017.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIw2k-kvCa8

Metropolitan Opera. "Sondra Radvanovsky and Sir David McVicar on the Met's new Production of Norma." YouTube. Feb. 15, 2017.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCAo2rIf3nc

Metropolitan Opera. "Thomas Adès and Tom Cairns on The Exterminating Angel." YouTube. June 5, 2017.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ7-PanwJCI&t=1s

The Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera. "Single tickets to the 2017–18 season go on sale to the general public Sunday, June 25! The new season features 5 new productions including a new Così fan tutte set in a carnival-esque environment inspired by 1950s Coney Island. More info: bit.ly/2rA9vIr Photo by Martin Smith/English National Opera." Facebook. June 17, 2017.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/MetOpera/photos/a.134969600532.229232.20807115532/10158975405170533/

Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera. “Today is the day! Stay tuned for the 2017-18 Season Announcement at 12 noon ET!” Twitter. Feb. 15, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/MetOpera/status/831881133025591296

Michelle Trovato @michelletrovato. "Excited to see this @metopera next season: An Explosive Opera of 'The Exterminating Angel.'" Twitter. Feb. 16, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/michelletrovato/status/832263872342061056

New York Times Arts @nytimesarts. “Next season at the @MetOpera: a new ‘Tosca,’ a Thomas Adès premiere and Mozart on Coney Island.” Twitter. Feb. 15, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/nytimesarts/status/831913227776884737

“On Stage 2017-18.” The Metropolitan Opera > Season.
Available @ http://www.metopera.org/Season/2017-18-Season/

Ross, Alex. “An Explosive Opera of ‘The Exterminating Angel.’” The New Yorker > Musical Events. Aug. 22, 2016.
Available @ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/22/thomas-ades-the-exterminating-angel