“Whenever I go to an opera, I leave my senses and reason at the door with my half-guinea, and deliver myself up to my eyes and my ears.” So wrote British man-of-letters Lord Chesterfield in 1752. Get ready to leave your senses and reason at the door of the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center, because the Israel Opera’s new season is going to be a real treat to the eyes and ears.
Last season ended with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, the jewel in the crown of Russian opera. The 2013-2014 season will open in October with Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor, another hallmark of the Russian operatic tradition which retells the story of the twelfth-century battle between the Russian Prince Igor and the Polovtsian Khan Konchak. This ornate performance will be staged by the New Moscow Opera in their first-ever visit to Israel. They’ll bring with them a host of fine singers and dancers for the famous Polovtsian dances of Act II, which will have you swaying in your seat.
Something’s coming, something good – and that something is Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. The familiar story of the star-crossed lovers, with Bernstein’s lively music and Stephen Sondheim’s world-famous lyrics, will be sung in November by an international cast of singers.This critically-acclaimed production, directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely, was presented in Israel in the 2009-10 season. A protégé of the original choreographer, Jerome Robbins, McKneely tries to maintain the spirit in which West Side Story was created, keeping many of Robbins’ ideas in his staging.
If by December your feet aren’t tired from tapping along to the Polovtsian dances and to Dance at the Gym, you’ll hopefully have enough energy for the waltzes and csárdás of Emmerich Kalman’s sparkly operetta The Csárdás Princess, sung in Hungarian and presented by the Budapest Operetta Theater. With its catchy melodies and hilarious plot-twists, The Csárdás Princess is considered Kalman’s greatest hit and one of the world’s favorite operettas.
Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) is a good example of why you should never mix business with pleasure – political intrigue and a high-profile love triangle lead to the tragic deaths of those involved. This production will feature a roster of Israel Opera regulars: Ira Bertman and Mirela Gradinaru (our most recent Desdemona and Violetta, respectively) will share the role of Emilia, while Boaz Daniel and Ionut Pascu will portray Renato. Daniele Callegari, who conducted the Israel Opera’s 2012 Rigoletto, will be back for this production.
Conductor David Stern will return in February for new production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, a rip-roaring comedy about a young widow who, with an almost Rosina-like chutzpah, manages to evade the advances of the miserly old Don. Hila Baggio and Shiri Hershkovitz will share the role of Norina, baritone Marco Camastra will star as Pasquale, and David Adam Moore will return to portray the scheming Doctor Malatesta.
The season will continue with The Tales of Hoffmann, the multiple-story-arc opéra fantastique by Jacques Offenbach. The eponymous Hoffmann is loosely based on the actual Romantic-era writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, who wrote the original story of The Nutcracker. In a collection of interlinked stories, Hoffmann describes four beautiful women and four different incarnations of evil. Conducted by Frédéric Chaslin, music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, this production will feature an interesting phenomenon in opera: the female leads will be sung by one soprano, and the villains sung by one bass-baritone, as per the composer’s original instructions. The role of Hoffmann will go to another hero of the Israel Opera, Gustavo Porta.
Get a box of tissues ready for an elaborate new production of La Bohème, Puccini’s masterpiece tragedy about the doomed relationship between the poet Rodolfo and the seamstress Mimi. This production will be conducted by Daniel Oren and directed by Stefano Mazzonis di Pralafera, who directed the most recent Otello at the Israel Opera. The cast will feature some fabulous familiar voices: tenor Giorgio Beruggi will sing Rodolfo, and three world-famous soprani will portray the ill-fated Mimi: Ira Bertman, Elena Mosuc, and Maria Agresta. In the supporting roles – the various starving-artist friends of the couple – we will be hearing Israel Opera regulars Ionut Pascu, Carlo Striuli, Noah Briger and others.
Two Verdi operas will end the season, continuing the Verdi Bicentenary celebrations. The first will be a revival production of Rigoletto starring the stunning coloratura Hila Baggio as Gilda, the innocent girl who leaves her gilded cage and falls in love with the undeserving Duke of Mantua (Jean-François Borras), only to sacrifice her own life to and save his. Carlos Almaguer will star in the title role, the Duke’s unhappy court jester whose hate towards the immoral courtiers finally leads to tragedy. You might remember this production, directed by David Pountney, from the 2011-2012 season. Israeli wunderkind Daniel Cohen will conduct.
Drumroll, please: the Masada Opera Festival will return from its year-long hiatus in June 2014, with an all-new La Traviata conducted by Daniel Oren and starring Elena Mosuc and Aurelia Florian as the Lady of the Camelias. The desert will be dressed in the colors of Paris and filled with Verdi’s music, as the love-struck young Alfredo meets Violetta, a sickly courtesan of whom his father greatly disapproves. This is the most-performed opera in the world, and features some of opera’s best-loved melodies, from Alfredo’s toast in Act I to the final love duet as Violetta succumbs to tuberculosis. No other place in Israel is grander than Masada for an opera production, and La Traviata promises to be an exciting finale for this season.
Consult the Israeli Opera website for dates, times and tickets.
