2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera Season Includes a Premiere and a Requiem

Summary: The 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season offers 26 productions, opening with Bellini’s Norma and including an American premiere and Verdi’s Requiem.

The 2017-2018 Met Opera season's 26 productions include the U.S. premiere of British composer and conductor Thomas Adès' The Exterminating Angel as well as new productions of Mozart's Così fan tutte and of Puccini's Tosca: New York Times Arts @nytimesarts, via Twitter Feb. 15, 2017

The 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season offers 26 productions, including the American premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel, holiday stagings of Hansel and Gretel and The Magic Flute, and also the Verdi Requiem.

The 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season opens Sept. 25, with a new production of Norma by short-lived Italian opera composer Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (Nov. 3, 1801-Sept. 23, 1835). Staging is by Scottish opera and theatre director Sir David McVicar. Milanese conductor Carlo Rizzi holds the baton on opening night.

A love triangle propels Norma’s two acts. American-Canadian soprano Sondra Radvanovsky appears as Norma, the Druids’ high priestess who forms a love triangle with Roman proconsul Pollione and young Druid priestess Adalgisa. American operatic lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato appears as Adalgisa. Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja appears as Pollione, whose rediscovered love for Norma causes him to join her in the finale’s death scene.

On Oct. 26, the 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season includes the American premiere of The Exterminating Angel by British composer and conductor Thomas Adès. El ángel exterminador (“The Exterminating Angel”), a 1962 surrealist film by Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel (Feb. 22, 1900-July 29, 1983), inspired Adès’s third opera.

Adès claims the conductor’s podium for all performances of The Exterminating Angel. The opera’s librettist, British director Tom Cairns, is production director.

The Exterminating Angel’s American premiere happens almost one and one-fourth years after the English-language opera’s world premiere. On July 28, 2016, northwestern Germany’s Salzburg Festival hosted the opera’s world premiere. The prestigious music festival also hosted the world premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin, which the Metropolitan Opera premiered during the 2016-2017 season.

Music Director Emeritus James Levine returns to the podium Sept. 27 to Oct. 14 to conduct the full-length German version of Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Jan. 27, 1756-Dec. 5, 1791). Staging of Mozart’s magic fable is by American film, opera and theatre director Julie Taymor.

James Levine also will conduct three works by Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Oct. 10, 1813-Jan. 27, 1901). He conducts two Verdi operas, Il Trovatore between Jan. 22 and Feb. 15 and Luisa Miller between March 29 and April 21.

James Levine conducts four concerts of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem between Nov. 24 and Dec. 2. Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova, Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk, Latvian tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko and Italian bass Ferruccio Ferlanetto appear as the requiem’s soloists.

The holiday roster also includes two operas that are popular with all ages: Hansel and Gretel and The Magic Flute. Five performances of The Magic Flute are scheduled between Nov. 25 and Dec. 9. Seven performances of Hansel and Gretel are scheduled between Dec. 18 and Jan. 6.

The Magic Flute is sung in English, with an estimated run time of 104 minutes. Julie Taymor’s staging, which appears earlier in the 2017-2018 season’s full-length German-language production, is also used for the holiday production.

Hansel and Gretel is sung in English, with an estimated run time of 2 hours 15 minutes. Staging is by British theatre and opera director Richard Jones. Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles holds the baton for all seven performances.

The Metropolitan Opera’s music director designate, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conducts two revivals during the 2017-2018 season. Parsifal, a three-act German-language opera by composer and librettist Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813-Feb. 13, 1883), plays between Feb. 5 and Feb. 27. Staging is by French-Canadian director François Girard. Elektra, a one-act German-language opera by Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864-Sept. 8, 1949), is performed between March 1 and March 23. Elektra features the staging legacy of French opera and theatre director Patrice Chéreau (Nov. 2, 1944-Oct. 7, 2013).

The takeaway for the 2017-2018 Metropolitan Opera season’s inclusion of a premiere and a requiem is the excitement of anticipating both new productions and revivals in yet another season of performances at the Metropolitan Opera.

Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel's 1962 surrealist film, El ángel exterminador (“The Exterminating Angel”), inspired British composer and conductor Thomas Adès' The Exterminating Angel, which has its U.S. premiere during the 2017-2018 Met Opera season: Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera, via Facebook Feb. 15, 2017

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

The 2017-2018 Met Opera season features the U.S. premiere of British composer and conductor Thomas Adès' The Exterminating Angel as well as new productions of Mozart's Così fan tutte and of Puccini's Tosca: New York Times Arts @nytimesarts, via Twitter Feb. 15, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/nytimesarts/status/831913227776884737

Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel's 1962 surrealist film, El ángel exterminador (“The Exterminating Angel”), inspired British composer and conductor Thomas Adès' The Exterminating Angel, which has its U.S. premiere during the 2017-2018 Met Opera season: Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera, via Facebook Feb. 15, 2017, @ https://www.facebook.com/MetOpera/photos/a.10158357868585533.1073741928.20807115532/10158357948040533/

For further information:

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

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

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&spfreload=5

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

Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera. "United States Premiere: Ades’s The Exterminating Angel The Met presents the American premiere of Thomas Adès's The Exterminating Angel, inspired by the classic Luis Buñuel film of the same name. . . .Photo by Monika Rittershaus/Salzburg Festival." Facebook. Feb. 15, 2017.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/MetOpera/photos/a.10158357868585533.1073741928.20807115532/10158357948040533/

"The Metropolitan Opera's 2017-18 Season Will Feature 220 Performances of 26 Works, With Five New Productions, Including Two Met Premieres." The Metropolitan Opera > About > Press Releases. Feb. 17, 2017.
Available @ http://www.metopera.org/About/Press-Releases/2017-18Season/

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

Royal College Music @RCMLondon. "#RCMOpera alumna Sophie Bevan will be making her @MetOpera debut this year in @Thomas_adès' The Exterminating Angel." Twitter. Feb. 17, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/RCMLondon/status/832615321450250240