Mr. Domingo has delivered every year on his promise to stage at least one American opera. Opening on Oct. 8 will be the company’s production of Carlisle Floyd’s “Of Mice and Men,” an opera based on John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novella. Performances are conducted by the San Diego Opera’s Karen Keltner, and Michael Hendrick and Rod Nelman star as the unhappy but idealistic Lennie and George. Francesca Zambello directs, in the co-production with the Bregenz Festival in Austria and the Houston Grand Opera (Oct. 20 through Nov. 12).
As summer’s heat and humidity make way for autumn’s chill, Washington’s relatively light summertime musical fare ripens into a substantial harvest of fall concert dates.
The Washington Opera is taking a big step this season by staging all its operas in the Opera House, a dream of Artistic Director Placido Domingo. But to do this, the company is changing the structure of its season. Instead of its usual late-October opening, the season’s first opera, Jacques Offenbach’s “Tales of Hoffmann” is opening tonight, with three more operas scheduled in the coming weeks. But opera won’t return until March 30, when Giuseppe Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera” (“A Masked Ball”) opens.
The Washington Opera is offering a tried-and-true lineup this year, and most performances should sell quite briskly. Offenbach primarily composed frothy 19th-century French operettas. But with “Tales of Hoffmann,” he penned an operatic masterpiece about the life and loves of famed tale-teller and rake Ernst Hoffmann. The composer never lived to see it produced, and various endings are fiddled with to this day.
Director Marta Domingo, wife of Mr. Domingo, will present her own version in these performances. The stellar cast includes Washington’s own Denyce Graves in a mezzo “trouser role” as Hoffmann’s companion Nicklausse, Metropolitan opera bass-baritone Alan Held singing three of the famous “four villains” roles, and bass C.Y. Liao singing the other. This new co-production, shared with the Kirov Opera/Mariinksy Theater of St. Petersburg and the Los Angeles Opera, will be conducted by Emmanuel Villaume (Sept. 8 to Oct. 5).
Rotating with “Hoffmann” and opening Sept. 13 will be Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutte” (“They All Do It”). The music is well known, and the opera is frequently staged. The appeal this time is the cast. Met stars and brothers Richard and Dwayne Croft portray Ferrando and Guglielmo, and Dwayne Croft’s wife, soprano Ainho Arteta, sings the role of Fiordiligi. The other female lead, Dorabella, will be sung by Joyce DiDonato. The production is from Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile, and will be conducted by Music Director Heinz Fricke.
Mr. Domingo has delivered every year on his promise to stage at least one American opera. Opening on Oct. 8 will be the company’s production of Carlisle Floyd’s “Of Mice and Men,” an opera based on John Steinbeck’s Depression-era novella. Performances are conducted by the San Diego Opera’s Karen Keltner, and Michael Hendrick and Rod Nelman star as the unhappy but idealistic Lennie and George. Francesca Zambello directs, in the co-production with the Bregenz Festival in Austria and the Houston Grand Opera (Oct. 20 through Nov. 12).
Wrapping up the company’s fall stanza will be 10 performances of Puccini’s beloved “Madama Butterfly.” This Polish production from Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki-Opera Narodowa will be conducted by Renato Palumbo with choreography by Emil Wesolowski. The title role will be shared by three sopranos — Veronica Villarroel, Catherine Malfitano and Xiu Wei Sun. Tenors Marcus Haddock and Dariusz Stachura platoon as the American sailor, Pinkerton, and Elizabeth Bishop sings the role of Suzuki. Performances run Oct. 27 to Nov. 17. In the spring, in addition to the Verdi, the company will mount ambitious productions of Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky’s “The Queen of Spades” and Georges Bizet’s ever-popular “Carmen.”
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