Great Performances » Deborah Voigt

GP at the Met: La Fanciulla del West: About the Opera

colin fitzpatrick — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 22:05:43 +0000

The Metropolitan Opera’s production of La Fanciulla del West, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the opera’s 1910 world premiere at the Met, will air on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances Sunday, April 24 at 12 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). In New York, THIRTEEN will air the program Thursday, April 21 at 8 p.m. ET. The program was originally seen live in movie theaters on January 8, 2011 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1500 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 46 countries around the world.

Deborah Voigt sings the title role of Minnie in Giancarlo Del Monaco’s 1991 production, with Marcello Giordani as Dick Johnson (the disguised bandit Ramerrez) and Lucio Gallo as the villainous sheriff Jack Rance. San Francisco Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti conducts the work, which the composer told The New York Times in 1910 he considered “the best of [his] operas.”

Watch a preview:

(View full post to see video)

Set in a mining camp during the California Gold Rush, saloon owner Minnie has her sights set on the mysterious Dick Johnson, and nothing—not horses, hangmen, nor a high-stakes poker game—can keep her from finding true love.

The debut of La Fanciulla del West on December 10, 1910 was the first-ever world premiere presented by the Met. It earned nineteen curtain calls for Puccini, stage director David Belasco, stars Emmy Destinn and Enrico Caruso, and conductor Arturo Toscanini. A review in the New York Herald suggests that the evening was a triumph for all involved: “The event had been looked forward to as socially one of the most brilliant in the history of the house, and the result justified expectation…In a word, it was the kind of premiere of which older Europe would have been very proud and of which New York would have been envious.”

As for the current production, the Associated Press praised Voigt for “a riveting and moving portrayal” displaying a “shining top that pierced through the sumptuous orchestration…her warm, endearing manner combined with an infectious stage-dominating moxie to make [the role] all her own.” As Dick Johnson, Giordani “is at his best here” said the New York Daily News. Under the baton of Luisotti “the score emerged as arguably Puccini’s most subtly written and boldly modern music” (The New York Times).

Great Performances at the Met: La Fanciulla del West was directed for the live HD transmission by Barbara Willis Sweete and hosted by Met soprano Sondra Radvanovsky. Jay David Saks is the music producer. The performance is sung in Italian with English subtitles.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, public television viewers and PBS. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding for Great Performances at the Met: La Fanciulla del West is provided by The Sybil B. Harrington Endowment Fund.

For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

GP at The Met: Tristan und Isolde: Introduction

daniel ross — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:07:17 +0000

Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

Composer: Richard Wagner

Librettist: Richard Wagner

Production: Dieter Dorn

Conductor: James Levine

Performers: Deborah Voigt (Isolde), Robert Dean Smith (Tristan), Eike Wilm Schulte (Kurwenal), Matti Salminen (King Marke)

Synopsis:
Richard Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde is conducted by James Levine in this visually spare and dramatically gripping interpretation. Join GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Met for this special presentation, when Deborah Voigt—one of the world’s most celebrated Wagnerian sopranos—undertakes the iconic role of Isolde for the first time at the Met. Robert Dean Smith, a veteran Tristan of the Bayreuth Festival, portrays the other half of the archetypal couple on this transcendent theatrical journey.

Opera synopsis courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera

Funding for GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET: “Tristan und Isolde” has been provided by Toll Brothers, the Glibert S. Kahn and John J. Noffo Kahn Foundation, the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS.

Related Web Sites

GP at The Met: Tristan und Isolde: Production Credits

daniel ross — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:02:13 +0000

Web Credits

Producer: Anu Krishnan
Designer: Lenny Drozner
Graphic Art: Ying Zhou-Hudson, Emily Nonouchi
Technical Director: Brian Lee
Production Assistant: Diana Cofresí-Terrero
Copy Editor: Leslie Kriesel
HTML Implementation: Brian Santalone

Thirteen Online is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York’s Kravis Multimedia Education Center in New York City. Anthony Chapman, Director of Interactive & Broadband. Bob Adleman, Business Manager. Carmen DiRienzo, Vice President and Managing Director, Corporate Affairs.

Television Credits

GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET: “Tristan und Isolde”

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