Home and abroad: a guide to the conclusion of the CBC's 2007 season (and some choice picks for further viewing).

September 22 * Armida

Joseph Haydn

You may be familiar with Handel's very different treatment of the relationship between the sorceress Armida and the good Christian knight Rinaldo in his first London opera (named for the knight), or even from operas on the same subject by Gluck and Rossini. But this new Salzburg production of Haydn's 1784 opera is an even rarer bird. Ivor Bolton conducts the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, with Annette Dasch in the title role and tenor Michael Schade as her troubled counterpart, Rinaldo.

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September 29 * Eugene Onegin 

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

This new production from this summer's Salzburg Festival is particularly notable as a rare opportunity in North America to experience one of the most dramatic opera conductors, Daniel Barenboim, on the podium in live performance. He leads the Vienna Philharmonic and an all-star, largely European cast. Peter Mattei sings the title role to Anna Samuil's Tatyana. Vocally, though, our greatest interest is in hearing Canadian tenor Joseph Kaiser, here making his debut as Lensky.

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Czech film director Petr Weigl is well known for his naturalistic, on-location opera films employing professional actors lip-synching to a pre-recorded studio soundtrack. In this case, the audio used for Tchaikovsky's red-letter-day-gone-bad is Sir Georg Solti's classic Decca recording starring Bernd Weikl in the title role, with Teresa Kubiak (Tatyana), Stuart Burrows (Lensky) and Nicolai Ghiaurov (Gremin).

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October 6 * Der Freischutz

Carl Maria von Weber

The Vienna Philharmonic is in the pit again, this time conducted by Markus Lenz, for a milestone in the development of a romantic tradition in German opera. Another new production at this summer's Salzburg Festival, Peter Seiffert, one of today's leading heldentenors, sings Max, the hapless forester who unwittingly makes a pact with the devil to win his love, Agathe. Canadian bass John Relyea sings the traitorous Kaspar.

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There are a few DVD versions of Der Freischutz to choose from, though some are tedious Eurotrash productions that simply miss the mark. This 1968 TV production from Hamburg, one of the first colour opera films made, is traditional in approach and dated in look, but at least lets Weber's score make its own case freely. It also boasts an exceptional cast, including Arlene Saunders, Edith Mathis, Hans Sotin, Franz Grundheber, Tom Krause and, as Kaspar, the great Gottlob Frick.

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October 13 * Benvenuto Cellini

Hector Berlioz

The last of the quartet of broadcasts from Salzburg this year--and again of a new production--is of Berlioz's colorful, sprawling epic about the riotous life and times of someone whose famous (and infamously unreliable) autobiography is as much about a Renaissance playboy as an artist. Berlioz's opera is huge in scale, fast-paced and exuberant almost to a fault. American tenor Neil Shicoff was slated to sing the title role, but pulled out of the festival, a move some related to his not getting the nod to take over the Vienna State Opera. German tenor Burkhard Fritz replaced him, with Mikhail Petrenko as the Pope and Maiya Kovalevska as Cellini's love interest, Teresa. Kate Aldrich, in the trouser role of Ascanio, Cellini's apprentice, joined the cast at the last minute after the wonderful Vesselina Kasarova injured herself in rehearsals. For such a volatile work, Salzburg made an inspired choice in putting Valery Gergiev on the podium, again with the Vienna Philharmonic in the pit.

October 20 * Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg

Richard Wagner

Every ticket at Bayreuth is hard to come by, but the new production of Wagner's paean to German art was the hottest ticket of this summer's festival. The reasons, though, were largely non-musical, with the focus firmly on the Bayreuth directing debut of Katharina Wagner, the composer's great-granddaughter and a leading contender to take the reins of the festival from her aging and ailing father, Wolfgang. Sebastian Weigle conducts a largely young cast, though with veterans Franz Hawlata as Sachs and Artur Korn as Pogner. The American Robert Dean Smith, excellent in last year's Bayreuth Tristan, sings Walther. (See Barry Millington's Letter from Bayreuth, p. 14.)

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Wagner's great human comedy is well represented on video, but there's no question this 2001 Metropolitan Opera telecast stands out from the crowd. Not only do we have Gunther Schneider-Siemssen's traditional, romantic sets, but also an exemplary cast. Can one imagine a better pair of lovers than Karita Mattila (Eva) and Ben Heppner (Stolzing)?

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Although the role was new to him, James Morris triumphs as Hans Sachs, while Sir Thomas Allen's Beckmesser and James Levine's authoritative conducting are brilliant.

October 27 * Parsifal

Richard Wagner

This summer marked the final performances of this hugely controversial Bayreuth production of Wagner's final opera by Christoph Schlingensief. The director seemed to be looking for a visual equivalent of Wagner's dense and shifting musical fabric for the stage, resulting in a multimedia staging that--though brilliant in some respects--drained the audience in its intellectual and emotional assault by the end of Act I, and distracted from the music. It will be a pleasure just to listen, because the musical standards are high. Adam Fischer, a very fine Wagnerian, conducts, with Jukka Rasilainen as Amfortas, Robert Holl as Gurnemanz, Evelyn Herlitzius a very effective Kundry and Alfons Eberz, on stage anyway, a telling Parsifal.

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"Wagner's music [for Parsifal]," director Nicholas Lehnhoff writes, "mercilessly tells of total loneliness, of living in an empty world stripped of all its former meaning."

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While Lehnhoff's well-travelled production (taped here in Baden-Baden) is ably conducted by Kent Nagano, Finnish bass Matti Salminen (Gurnemanz) is the undisputed star of this compelling, but bleak, production. While ChristopherVentris is somewhat disappointing as Parsifal, the rest of the cast is outstanding, including Waltraud Meier in her signature role as Kundry.

November 3 * La fanciulla del West 

Giacomo Puccini

Here's a Dutch take on one of Puccini's Metropolitan Opera creations. A live radio broadcast from Amsterdam's famed Concertgebouw, Dutch maestro Edo de Waart, who takes over as Chief Conductor for Santa Fe Opera this October, conducts the Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra with Dutch diva Eva-Maria Westbroek as the gun-toting heroine, Minnie.

Two Americans, however, square off as Minnie's competing love interests--baritone Stephen Kechulius as Sheriff Jack Rance and tenor Hugh Smith as Dick Johnson.

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Italian director Giancarlo del Monaco serves up the original spaghetti western in fine style in this Metropolitan Opera Wild West production. With the American conductor Leonard Slatkin firmly in the saddle, the musical side of things is clearly in control and never allowed to stray. Sherrill Milnes is the personification of Sheriff Jack Rance, while Barbara Daniels and Placido Domingo are ideally cast as the lovers Minnie and Dick Johnson (a.k.a. Ramerrez), right down to their final "Addio, mia California!"

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November 10 * Katerina Ismailova

Dmitri Shostakovich

The first of two broadcasts from Paris is a concert presentation of Shostakovich's 1963 revision of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the 1934 original that put the composer at such odds with Josef Stalin. The revision is perhaps more lyrical than the original, and some of the sexually suggestive music is missing, but the piece packs a powerful punch nonetheless.

The broadcast features a largely East European cast, though Norway's Solveig Kringelborn, who replaced the originally scheduled Katarina Dalayman, won high praise for her visceral portrayal of the frustrated Katerina. Tugan Sokhiev conducts the Orchestre National de France and the Radio France Chorus.

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Although it premiered in Russia in 1966, this historic fim has only recently been remastered and released commercially in the West. Shot on location, it stars the great Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, a passionate singing actress, as the tragic Katerina. The film cuts roughly 30 minutes from the opera, but the adaptation was under the composer's direct supervision. Herbert von Karajan told Vishnevskaya at the time that it was "the best of all filmed operas."

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November 17 * Louise

Gustave Charpentier

This piece about a young woman who wants to run off and live with her lover rather than marry him may have been scandalous in its time (1900), but it's tame stuff these days. Its musical charm made it a staple at Paris's Opera Comique for a good part of the last century, but this broadcast is of its first appearance, last spring, on the stage of the Opera. Our reviewer, Carl Morey, had high praise for the performances of Jose van Dam (Louise's father), Mireille Delunsch (Louise) and Paul Groves (the poet, Julien). Sylvain Cambreling conducts.

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La vie Parisienne! This historic, 1938 black-and-white film by the noted French director, Abel Gance, vividly brings Charpentier's portrait of the working class in 19th-century Paris to life. This is not, however, the complete opera, but major scenes linked by spoken dialogue (a version Charpentier apparently sanctioned). American soprano Grace Moore studied the title role with the composer, so her presence adds a certain authenticity to the proceedings. Others in the cast include the great Georges Thill as her lover, Julien, and Andre Pernet as her father. Bel Canto supplies neither subtitles nor translations.

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November 24 * Hansel und Gretel

Engelbert Humperdinck

The final European broadcast this season is from the Philharmonie, home of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, which is here conducted by Mark Elder. This sonorously Wagnerian setting of the folk tale is a holiday-season favorite that never palls. This concert performance has a top-notch cast, with mezzo Marjana Lipovsek tearing up the stage as the Witch, baritone Franz Grundheber as Peter, soprano Susan Bullock (Brunnhilde on the CBC broadcast of the Canadian Opera Company's Ring cycle) as Gertrud, mezzo Katarina Karneus as Hansel and soprano Miah Persson as Gretel.

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There are several good versions of Humperdinck's popular opera on DVD, but this August Everding production from Munich holds a special charm. Shot in studio in 1981 to a pre-recorded soundtrack, it features mezzo Brigitte Fassbaender and soprano Edita Gruberova--both looking and sounding shockingly youthful and waiflike--as Hansel and Gretel. The legendary Sena Jurinac, who was to retire from the stage two years after this film was made, makes a frightening Witch (with less hocus-pocus than most). Others in this splendid cast include Helga Dernesch (Gertrud), Hermann Prey (Peter) and Norma Burrows (Dew-fairy). Sir Georg Solti conducts.

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December 1 * Transit of Venus 

Victor Davies

It says something about the vibrant state of opera in Western Canada that the first SAATO Canadian broadcast of 2007 was of Calgary Opera's January premiere of Frobisher by composer John Estacio and librettist John Murrell and that this final Canadian broadcast is of Manitoba Opera's world premiere of a new work by composer Victor Davies and librettist Maureen Hunter (working from her own successful play of the same name). The splendid cast includes Russell Braun, Judith Forst, Jean Stilwell, Colin Ainsworth and Monica Huisman. James Meena conducts. (See New Productions/New Roles, p 18.)

SATURDAY AFTERNOON AT THE OPERA

September 22  Armida                   Haydn         Salzburg Festival
September 29  Eugene Onegin            Tchaikovsky   Salzburg Festival
October 6     Der Freischutz           Weber         Salzburg Festival
October 13    Benvenuto Cellini        Berlioz       Salzburg Festival
October 20    Die Meistersinger von    Wagner        Bayreuth Festival
                Nurnberg
October 27    Parsifal                 Wagner        Bayreuth Festival
November 3    La fanciulla del West    Puccini       Concertgebouw,
                                                       Amsterdam
November 10   Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk  Shostakovich  Theatre du
                                                       Chatelet, Paris
November 17   Louise                   Charpentier   Opera Bastille,
                                                       Paris
November 24   Hansel und Gretel        Humperdinck   Philharmonie,
                                                       Berlin
December 1    Transit of Venus         Davies        Manitoba Opera

A complete listing of the CBC's opera broadcasts, with casting, is
available online at www.cbc.ca/sato/schedule. Check local listings for
times of radio broadcasts.