The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991 | |
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![]() Deutsche Grammophon DVD, 00440-073-4582 | |
Genre | Opera and musical theatre |
Directed by | Brian Large |
Country of origin | United States |
Original languages | English, French, German and Italian |
Production | |
Executive producer | Peter Gelb |
Producers | Joseph Angotti Louisa Briccetti |
Editor | Gary Bradley |
Running time | 179 minutes |
Production company | Deutsche Grammophon |
Original release | |
Network | Cablevision |
Release | 23 September 1991 |
The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991 was a four-hour concert staged by the Metropolitan Opera on 23 September 1991 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its opening night in its second home at Lincoln Center. It was televised by Cablevision, and issued by Deutsche Grammophon on Laserdisc and VHS videocassette in 1992 and on DVD in 2010.
Originally based in a theatre on the junction of Broadway and 39th Street in New York City, the Metropolitan Opera began performing in its second home at Lincoln Center in 1966, starting the second phase of its life with the première of an opera commissioned for the occasion, Samuel Barber's Antony and Cleopatra . The Met celebrated the silver anniversary of that event with a gala that lasted for some four hours. [1]
The event began with Luciano Pavarotti, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Leo Nucci, Cheryl Studer and Birgitta Svendén in the last act of Otto Schenk's production of Rigoletto , a staging in which Pavarotti had appeared at its first outing two years earlier. Plácido Domingo, Charles Anthony, Dwayne Croft, Justino Díaz, Mirella Freni and Paul Plishka followed in the third act of Franco Zeffirelli's production of Otello . Hermann Prey, Croft, Barbara Daniels, Andrij Dobriansky and Anne Sofie von Otter concluded the gala in a performance of an abridged version of the second act of Schenk's production of Die Fledermaus , deploying the theatre's revolving stage and incorporating eleven items sung by guests at Prince Orlofsky's party. [1]
The original stage productions were supported by the Gramma Fisher Foundation of Marshalltown, Iowa, with supplementary help from Mr and Mrs Paul M. Montrone for Rigoletto, from Mrs John D. Rockefeller for Otello and from Mrs Donald D. Harrington for Die Fledermaus. The revival of Rigoletto was supported by the Edith C. Blum Foundation. The television broadcast of the gala was supported by the Texaco Philanthropic Foundation, Inc., the National Endowment For the Arts and the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation. The gala was jointly produced by the Metropolitan Opera, Cablevision, NBC, PolyGram and MAX Japan. [1]
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Rigoletto (Venice, 1851), with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876), after Le roi s'amuse ("The king amuses himself", Paris, 1832) by Victor Hugo (1802–1885).
Presented in a stage production by Otto Schenk (b. 1930), with set and costume design by Zack Brown, lighting design by Gil Wechsler and stage direction by Sharon Thomas. Featuring Luciano Pavarotti as the Duke of Mantua, Cheryl Studer as Gilda, the Duke's daughter, Leo Nucci as Rigoletto, the Duke's court jester, Nicolai Ghiaurov as Sparafucile, a brigand, and Birgitta Svendén as Maddalena, Sparafucile's daughter.
Act Three
Giuseppe Verdi
Otello (Milan, 1887), with a libretto by Arrigo Boito (1842-1918), after The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (?1603) by William Shakespeare (1564-1616).
Presented in a stage production and set designed by Franco Zeffirelli (1923-2019), with costume design by Peter J. Hall (1926-2010), lighting design by Gil Wechsler and stage direction by Fabrizio Melano. Featuring Plácido Domingo as Otello, a Moor, commander-in-chief of the Venetian fleet, Mirella Freni as Desedemona, Otello's wife, Justino Díaz as Iago, an ensign, Sondra Kelly as Emilia, Iago's wife, Uwe Heilmann as Cassio, a platoon leader, Paul Plishka as Lodovico, ambassador of the Venetian republic, Charles Anthony as Roderigo, a Venetian gentleman, and Dwayne Croft as a herald.
Act Three
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)
Die Fledermaus ("The flittermouse", Vienna, 1874), with a libretto by Karl Haffner (1804-1876) and Richard Genée (1823-1895), after Le réveillon ("The supper party", Paris, 1872) by Henri Meilhac (1830-1897) and Ludovic Halévy (1839-1908), after Das Gefängnis ("The prison", Berlin, 1851) by Julius Roderich Benedix (1811-1873), and with dialogue by Paul Mills adapted from that written by Otto Schenk and translated by Marcel Prawy (1911-2003).
Presented in a stage production by Otto Schenk, with set design by Günther Schneider-Siemssen (1926-2015), costume design by Peter J. Hall, lighting design by Gil Wechsler and stage direction by Paul Mills. Featuring Hermann Prey as Gabriel von Eisenstein, a wealthy gentleman of leisure, Barbara Daniels as Rosalinde, Eisenstein's wife, Barbara Kilduff as Adele, Rosalinde's chambermaid, Grace Millo as Ida, Adele's sister, Anne Sofie von Otter as Prince Orlofsky, a wealthy Russian, Andrij Dobriansky as Ivan, Orlofsky's servant, Dwayne Croft as Dr Falke, a notary, and Gottfried Hornik as Frank, a prison governor.
Act Two
Party guests' sequence
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Die Zauberflöte ("The magic flute", K. 620, Vienna, 1791), with a libretto by Emmanuel Schikaneder (1751-1812)
Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (Paris, 1887), with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ("The barber of Seville, or The useless precaution", Rome, 1816), with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini (1784-1831), after Le barbier de Séville (Paris, 1775) by Pierre Beaumarchais (1732-1799)
Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896)
Mignon (Paris, 1866), with a libretto by Jules Barbier (1825-1901) and Michel Carré (1821-1872), after Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre ("Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship", 1795-1796) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
West Side Story (New York City, 1957), with a book by Arthur Laurents (1917-2011) and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930), after Romeo and Juliet (circa 1595-1597) by William Shakespeare
Umberto Giordano (1867-1948)
Andrea Chénier (Milan, 1896), with a libretto by Luigi Illica (1857-1919), based on the life of André Chénier (1762-1794)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Il dissoluto punito, ossia Il Don Giovanni ("The rake punished, or Don Giovanni", K. 527, Prague, 1787), with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838), after El burlador de Seville y convivado de piedra ("The trickster of Seville and the stone guest", ?1616) by Tirso de Molina (1579-1648)
Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Linda di Chamounix (Vienna, 1842), with a libretto by Gaetano Rossi (1774-1855)
Mitch Leigh (1928-2014)
Man of La Mancha (New York City, 1965), with a book by Dale Wasserman (1914-2008) and lyrics by Joe Darion (1917-2001), after Wasserman's teleplay I, Don Quixote (1959), after El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha ("The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha", 1605-1615) by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
Francesco Cilea (1866-1950)
Adriana Lecouvreur (Milan, 1902), with a libretto by Arturo Colautti (1851-1914), after Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849) by Eugène Scribe (1791-1861) and Ernest Legouvé (1807-1903)
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
La Bohème ("The Bohemian", Turin, 1896), with a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa (1847-1906), after Scènes de la vie de bohème ("Scenes of Bohemian life", 1851) by Henri Murger (1822-1861)
Johann Strauss II
Die Fledermaus (resumed)
Edward Rothstein reviewed the gala in The New York Times on 25 September 1991. The Met's first night at Lincoln Center, he recalled, had been an utter catastrophe, and the gala celebrating its silver anniversary in its second theatre had begun with disappointments just as discouraging as those of the première of Barber's Antony and Cleopatra in 1966. [2]
The third act of Rigoletto began the concert with "a nearly funereal mood, and not quite the one anybody had in mind". Luciano Pavarotti's "groping make-out scene" with the injudiciously cast Birgitta Svendén was unfortunate, and his singing did not show him at his best. His voice sounded constricted, and a histrionic laugh could not conceal that a climactic note had cracked. An excerpt "drained of human characters, offering pasteboard roles and posing voices" was partly redeemed by the force and personality of Nicolai Ghiaurov as Sparafucile. [2]
Matters improved with the third act of Otello, but only marginally. Justino Díaz was "curiously insubstantial" as Iago, and Plácido Domingo "stolid" as the Moor of Venice. Mirella Freni exhibited her ability to sing high notes very loudly. Conducting, James Levine "seemed to treat the music as a collection of fragments designed for glitter and response ... belting out exclamations with little thought for proportion and sense and drama". One began to question whether the idea of turning bleeding chunks of operas into showcases for celebrities might not be essentially misconceived. [2]
But the feeling of the evening lifted abruptly with the second act of Die Fledermaus. Hermann Prey's "winsome" Eisenstein and Barbara Daniels's "brash" Rosalinde introduced "a party that became a triumphant homage to the powers of the voice", as the tradition of interpolating guest appearances into Orlofsky's festivity was honoured in "one of the most exquisitely refined and extravagant assemblages of vocal artistry" in the Met's entire 108-year history. [2]
Hermann Prey evoked memories of his 1966 Met Papageno with an aria that brought the bird-catcher to life with expressive artlessness. Thomas Hampson won an overwhelming ovation with the energy, accuracy and supernatural acting of his "Largo al factotum". Kathleen Battle combined delicately engraved phrasing and a tone of sensuous velvet in "O luce di quest'anima". Frederica von Stade was charming and kindly in "Ah! Que j'aime les militaires". Broadway was acknowledged by Sherrill Milnes in "Maria" and by Samuel Ramey in "The impossible dream". Ferruccio Furlanetto, currently starring at the Met as Don Giovanni, contributed Leporello's catalogue of his master's conquests. [2]
June Anderson was immaculate and celestial in "Je suis Titania". Aprile Millo was suitably overcome by emotion in "La mamma morta". Mirella Freni was forcefully eloquent in "Io son l'umile ancella". And Pavarotti and Domingo joined forces in a duet from La Bohème, "clowning with scarves, clasping shoulders and hands and showing a subtle but good-hearted rivalry in their singing and bows". [2]
All in all, despite its moments of strain and its lapses into vanity, the gala was "a grand-scale tribute to a great opera company", and one was left admiring the gifts of the evening's soloists and Levine's manifest affection for them. [2]
The gala was also reviewed by Martin Bernheimer in The Los Angeles Times , [1] by Peter G. Davis in New York Magazine [3] and by Tim Page in Newsday . [1] It was also discussed in Opera News , [4] Opernwelt, [5] Stereo Review [6] and in Dantia Gould's The pay-per-view explosion (1991). [7]
The gala was recognized three times in the Primetime Emmy Awards for 1992. Brian Large won an award for Outstanding Individual Achievement - Classical Music/Dance Programming - Directing, and Plácido Domingo and Kathleen Battle both won awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement - Classical Music/Dance Programming - Performance. [8]
The gala was broadcast live on Cablevision pay-per-view television on 23 September 1991. [1]
Deutsche Grammophon issued the gala in several formats, all with 4:3 NTSC colour video: a 181-minute pair of CLV (constant linear velocity) Laserdiscs (catalogue number 072-528-1) released in 1992, [9] a 167-minute VHS videocassette (catalogue number 072-528-3) also released in 1992 [10] and a 179-minute pair of Region 0 DVDs (catalogue number 00440-073-4582) released in 2010. [1] The DVDs have audio in both lossless PCM stereo and an ersatz 5.1 channel DTS surround sound upmix synthesized with the AMSI II (Ambient Surround Imaging) technology created by Emil Berliner Studios. [1] They have subtitles in Chinese, English, French, German and Spanish, and - although only for items sung in that language - Italian, and are accompanied by a 24-page booklet with four photographs and an essay by Richard Evidon in English, French and German. [1]
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851.
Ileana Cotrubaș is a Romanian operatic soprano whose career spanned from the 1960s to the 1980s. She was much admired for her acting skills and facility for singing opera in many different languages.
Sherrill Milnes is an American dramatic baritone most famous for his Verdi roles. From 1965 until 1997 he was associated with the Metropolitan Opera. His voice is a high dramatic baritone, combining good legato with an incisive rhythmic style.
Nicolai Ghiaurov was a Bulgarian opera singer and one of the most famous basses of the postwar period. He was admired for his powerful, sumptuous voice, and was particularly associated with roles of Mussorgsky and Verdi. Ghiaurov married the Bulgarian pianist Zlatina Mishakova in 1956 and Italian soprano Mirella Freni in 1978, and the two singers frequently performed together. They lived in Modena until Ghiaurov's death in 2004 of a heart attack.
Mirella Freni, OMRI was an Italian operatic soprano who had a career of 50 years and appeared at major international opera houses. She received international attention at the Glyndebourne Festival, where she appeared as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni and as Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore.
Justino Díaz is a Puerto Rican operatic bass-baritone. In 1963, Díaz won an annual contest held at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, becoming the first Puerto Rican to obtain such an honor and as a consequence, made his Metropolitan debut in October 1963 in Verdi's Rigoletto as Monterone.
June Anderson is a Grammy Award-winning American coloratura soprano. She is known for bel canto performances of Rossini, Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini.
Piero Cappuccilli was an Italian operatic baritone. Best known for his interpretations of Verdi roles, he was widely regarded as one of the finest Italian baritones of the second half of the 20th century. He was enormously admired within the field of opera for his rich and abundant voice, fine vocal technique and exceptional breath control. In the great Italian tradition he fused words and music into elegant phrases. He focused on Italian repertory, particularly the operas of Verdi, singing 17 major roles.
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a French opera director, set and costume designer.
Leo Nucci is an Italian operatic baritone, particularly associated with Verdi and Verismo roles.
Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto Story (2005) is a film version of Giuseppe Verdi's 1851 opera Rigoletto. Filmed in Siena in 2002, it was directed by Gianfranco Fozzi and produced by David Guido Pietroni and Maurizio De Santis distributed worldwide by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Otto Schenk is an Austrian actor, and theater and opera director.
Charles Anthony Caruso, better known by his stage name of Charles Anthony, was an American actor and tenor noted for his portrayal of comprimario characters in opera. Anthony had the distinction of appearing in more performances at the Metropolitan Opera than any other performer. He celebrated his fiftieth anniversary with the company in 2004, and gave his farewell in the role of the aged Emperor Altoum in Turandot, at the Met, on January 28, 2010.
Daniel Oren is an Israeli conductor.
Aprile Millo is an American operatic soprano who is known for her interpretations of the works of Giuseppe Verdi. Although she has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses and with many orchestras and ensembles internationally, Millo has spent much of her career appearing in productions at the Metropolitan Opera.
Ferruccio Furlanetto is an Italian bass. His professional debut was in 1974 in Lonigo, he debuted at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1979, in a production of Verdi's Macbeth, conducted by Claudio Abbado. He has gone on to sing numerous roles, including both Don Giovanni and Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Philip II in Verdi's Don Carlos, Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Zaccaria in Verdi's Nabucco, Méphistophélès in Gounod's Faust, Orestes in Strauss' Elektra, Fiesco in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the title role of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, as well as many other roles.
Joan Pons Álvarez is a Spanish operatic baritone, known internationally as Juan Pons. He is most famous for his Verdi roles.
Betsy Norden is an American soprano who appeared with the Metropolitan Opera over 500 times.
The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala was a televised concert, lasting more than eight hours, that New York City's Metropolitan Opera staged on 22 October 1983 to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of its first performance. A 230-minute selection of excerpts from the concert was released on home media.
James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Opera Gala was a concert lasting approximately eight hours, that the Metropolitan Opera staged in 1996 in honour of its then principal conductor and artistic director. Excerpts from the gala were released by Deutsche Grammophon on a 72-minute CD, a 161-minute VHS videocassette and a 161-minute double Laserdisc in 1996, and on a 293-minute double DVD in 2005.