Robert Lepage to helm Met premiere of The Tempest
Director François Girard to make Met Opera debut
CBC News
Posted: Feb 24, 2012 6:56 PM ET
Last Updated: Feb 24, 2012 6:51 PM ET
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Canadian director Robert Lepage returns to the Metropolitan Opera stage in fall 2012 with the New York premiere of the Thomas Adès opera The Tempest.
Canadian Robert Lepage is to helm the Met premiere of The Tempest. (Canadian Press)British composer Adès will conduct his own work, a version of Shakespeare's play that had its world premiere in 2004 at London's Royal Opera House.
Lepage, whose Ring Cycle at the Met will be complete with this season’s Gotterdammerung, will direct the production, which stars British baritone Simon Keenlyside as Prospero. Quebec director Lepage is in great demand internationally for his innovative staging and the advanced designs of his productions.
Met artistic director Peter Gelb announced the 2012-13 season of the world-renowned New York opera company on Thursday. The lineup will include 12 "live in HD" productions, which will be streamed to cinemas worldwide.
François Girard's Met debut
Another Canadian director will make his Met debut as part of the forthcoming season. Quebec’s François Girard, writer-director of the film The Red Violin and producer of Cirque du Soleil’s Zarkana at Radio City Music Hall, will helm Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, starring German tenor Jonas Kaufmann.
A new production of Rigoletto, set in the Rat Pack world of 1960s Las Vegas, is planned to mark Guiseppe Verdi’s bicentennial. It will be directed by Michael Mayer, who helmed the hit musical Spring Awakening on Broadway.
The Met has abandoned plans to have Luc Bondy direct Verdi’s tale of twisted seduction and murder. Bondy’s take on Rigoletto, set in the 19th century instead of the 16th, opened at the Vienna Festival in 2011 and is also set to be staged in Milan in November. However, the version has not been received warmly by Met audiences, who greeted his 2009 production of Puccini's Tosca with intense booing.
Also in the upcoming Met season:
- Gaetano Donizetti’s comic masterpiece L’Elisir d’Amore starring Russian soprano Anna Netrebko.
- Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera directed by David Alden.
- Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, directed by David McVicar and featuring U.S. mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato as the queen.
- George Frideric Handel’s Giulio Cesare, a production from the Glyndebourne Festival also directed by McVicar.
- Three complete Ring Cycles.
Principal conductor Fabio Luisi is stepping in for James Levine during the 2012-13 season. (Koichi Miura/Metropolitan Opera/Associated Press)The Verdi slate includes existing productions of Aida, Don Carlo and La Traviata, with Placido Domingo singing the baritone role of Germont.
Principal conductor Fabio Luisi has taken on the duties of James Levine, the Met’s music director, who stopped conducting at the end of last season because of health problems. The upcoming season includes no performances by Levine.
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