San Francisco Opera's 2011-12 season announcement: slice into 1/3s
Renee Fleming as Lucrezia Borgia. Photo by Karin Cooper/Washington National Opera. |
The announcement for the San Francisco Opera 2011-12 season came out this morning. Here is my early take on it: 1/3 is great, 1/3 is "meh",1/3 is why? and 1 is wtf are they thinking?
The Great? Three new company premieres:
Renée Fleming and Vitalij Kowaljow in the company premiere of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia.
Susan Graham and David Daniels in Handel's Xerxes.
The long overdue company premiere of John Adam's Nixon in China.
Potentially great?
The world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis' Heart of a Soldier featuring Thomas Hampson.
Definitely "meh":
Don Giovanni- new production, but the cast isn't a draw.
The Magic Flute- in English (bad)- at least it's a new production and Nathan Gunn and Heidi Stober will perform Papageno and Pamina.
Attila- great, possibly amazing, cast, but in Attila?
The why?:
Carmen (AGAIN!)
Turandot (Puccini AGAIN!)
Magic Flute (AGAIN)
Don Giovanni (AGAIN)
Two Mozart operas?
And finally, one wtf?:
Carmen "for families"?
At least Maya Lahyani is performing the role, which makes this a must-see for me, but how do you sanitize the characters in Carmen?