Secco Recit

The Metropolitan opera has announced their 2016-17 season, and at a glance, I think it's a much stronger season than the current one. Let's break it down a little. The current season consists of twenty-four operas: Anna Bolena The Barber Of Seville La Boheme Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci Don Pasquale La Donna Del Lago Elektra L'Elisir D'Amore Die Entfuhrung Aus Dem Serail Die Fledermaus Lulu Madama Butterfly Manon Lescaut Maria Stuarda Le Nozze Di Figaro Otello Le Pecheurs De Perles Rigoletto Roberto Devereux Simon Boccanegra Tannhauser Tosca Il Trovatore Turandot (I have to wonder: When the Met does The Barber Of Seville in English, that's what they call it, but when they do it in Italian, they call it Il Barbriere Di Siviglia. Same with Hansel And Gretel or Hansel Und Gretel and Die Zauberflote or The Magic Flute. So why don't they call their English-translated holiday production The Bat?) That's sixteen tragedies, six...

I like to do my research before seeing a show. This gives me some idea as to whether I will like a show before I even make the decision to see it, and by keeping myself on top of the plot and -- especially important in a musical -- the lyrics, it allows me to focus on the individual aspects of that specific performance rather than trying to keep a gauge on the show as a whole. The operas haven't changed for over a hundred years. The productions have. I attended the Met Live in HD broadcast of Bizet's  The Pearl Fishers  the other day. I'll be calling it The Pearl Fishers  because I don't want to have to spell out that impossible French title with all the accents. Now I'm going to get into a lot of stuff about drama and playwriting and Carmen  later that has nothing to do with this production, so if you're just here for the review, I'm going to get it out of the way quickly now. Everything was great. The audio in the broadcast sounded off a few times. I was...