Metropolitan Opera to Stage Two-Thirds of Donizetti's

Submit Site

Submit Article

Metropolitan Opera to Stage Two-Thirds of Donizetti's
23rd April, 2008

The Metropolitan Opera is planning to stage two-thirds of Donizetti's "Three Queens" trilogy for soprano Anna Netrebko and mezzo Joyce DiDonato, the Associated Press has reported.

A new production of Anna Bolena, Donizetti's 1830 opera and the composer's first major work chronicling the Tudors, will find Netrebko in the title role for the opening night of the Met's 2011-12 season, Met general manager Peter Gelb told the AP. American mezzo Joyce DiDonato, a recipient of the Met's Beverly Sills Artist Award, is reportedly in talks to sing Mary Queen of Scots in Maria Stuarda during the 2012-13 season.

According to the Associated Press, the company has no plans to stage Donizetti's 1837 tragedia lirica, Roberto Devereux.

"The problem is casting," Gelb told the AP of the soprano role in Roberto Devereux, which portrays Queen Elizabeth. "There's no singer around today who can sing it."

Netrebko was reportedly approached with the possibility of performing all three queens — Anne Boleyn, Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth — but demurred, opting to commit only to Anna Bolena.

"I am very excited to be taking on Donizetti's Anna Bolena," Netrebko is quoted as saying. "Fortunately, it's far enough in the future that I'll have time to learn it really well — the mad scene is even greater than the one in Lucia di Lammermoor, and the tragedy is awesome. But I don't get to die in this one — the opera ends just before she gets beheaded!"

For her part, DiDonato told the AP that she plans to use the performing edition of Maria Stuarda sung by Janet Baker at English National Opera in 1983, in which the role of Mary, Queen of Scots is sung by a mezzo and Elisabetta a soprano. "People know they're not going to hear a high interpolated E-flat," DiDonato is quoted as saying. "Hopefully, I'm establishing myself in the bel canto tradition. It's going to be different, and I think that's a good thing."

All three works, while never staged at the Met, were given legendary performances in the 1970s by Beverly Sills at New York City Opera in productions by director Tito Capobianco.

Release link: http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/news/pressrelease.aspx?id=1495