Odd Couple Oddly Coupled

There are problems on the horizon. One worries that too much hope has been pinned to the deep pockets of superpatron Alberto Vilar, in view of his own famous capriciousness, not to mention the uncertainty of the market since 911. The promised Lucas-designed Ring, which sounded too good to be true when it was first announced for 2003, now appears to be just that; the announcement of its delay (to 2006, was it?) came with the kind of backing-and-filling double talk that always sows distrust. Marta Domingo continues to cast her diminutive shadow; she will stage next season‘s Tales of Hoffmann, which will, at least, use Michael Kaye’s interesting new edition last seen here in 1988. If I had to pinpoint the most horrible operatic experience from the past season, it would be Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari‘s Sly, which the Metropolitan Opera dug out for Domingo: depressingly low-grade music, stupidly staged (by Marta Domingo) without even the most rudimentary sense of blocking or dramatic design. Does it loom on our horizon? Our only safeguard is that the winds generally blow from west to east.

Still, the more immediate horizon has Monteverdi’s Poppea to offer (again, in a Berio reworking), and our first-ever look at Prokofiev‘s War and Peace, with Russian performing forces by the gazillion occupying the territory at First and Grand, financed by Vilar and marshaled under Valery Gergiev’s baton. To start off, there‘s more Puccini, his Girl of the Golden West too long away, with the very promising Simone Young on the podium and Domingo as ”Meester Johnson of Sacramento.“ It couldn’t be all bad.