Summer Opera 2006

It is never too soon to start making your summer travel plans, which if you are like us, involve going places to hear classical music. Last year was our first year at Ionarts covering the range of top-notch operas produced in the summer (see the summary of our coverage last summer in 2005), often at special festivals or by companies that work exclusively in the summer. Operabase has updated its database of opera festivals for 2006, too, which attempts to be comprehensive (and is so, as far as I can tell). I choose those productions that interest me and any that are in the Washington area.

May 12, 14, 16, and 18
Claudio Monteverdi, L'Orfeo
Concert d'Astrée, conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm
Théâtre du Châtelet

May 12 to 21
Henry Fielding, The Life of Tom Thumb (ballad opera)
Carter Family Marionnettes with Anne-Carolyn Bird, soprano
Northwest Puppet Center (Seattle, Wash.)

May 19, 22, 25, 28, and June 2, July 17
Handel, Orlando (first performance in Munich)
With David Daniels (Orlando), conducted by Ivor Bolton
Directed by David Alden
Münchner Opern-Festspiele
Bayerische Staatsoper (Munich)

May 20 to June 24
Rossini, Barber of Seville
Kate Lindsey, Hugh Russell, Alek Shrader, Patrick Carfizzi
Opera Theater of St. Louis

May 20, 21, and 29
Patrick Burgan, Peter Pan
With Gaële Le Roi
Théâtre du Châtelet

June 1 to July 4
Festival Kurt Weill
One Touch of Venus (June 1 to 11)
Der Jasager (June 7 to 10)
Der Lindberghflug (June 24 to July 4)
Die sieben Todsünden (June 24 to July 4)
Opéra de Lyon

June 2 to 9
Michel van der Aa, After Life
Production directed by the composer

Those who have died are required to choose a favourite memory to take with them into eternity as they arrive at an intermediary point; they may only proceed on their path to heaven once they have named their most defining moment. They are allowed one week in which to make their choice, during which time they are helped by others who have predeceased them but who themselves have not been able to make their choice and so therefore must remain at the intermediary point.

De Nederlandse Opera (Amsterdam)

June 3 to July 2
Dmitri Shostakovich, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Conducted by Mariss Jansons
De Nederlandse Opera (Amsterdam)

June 4 to 16
Michael Berkeley, Jane Eyre
Directed by Colin Graham
Opera Theater of St. Louis

June 10, 13, and 16
Duke Bluebeard's Castle and Daphnis et Chloé
Conducted by Pierre Boulez, with Jessye Norman
Théâtre du Châtelet

Continue reading Opera in the Summer, 2006.