BOSTON — I enjoy coming to this historic city because many locals have strong opinions and there are many stimulating conversations to be had. Once we put aside the vexing question of why Boston sports teams seem to have supernatural powers when playing their New York rivals, people here are ready to talk about politics, literature (whether it is Anthony Trollope, Emily Dickinson or John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick), art, music, good cooking and so much more. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to some very old people who went to school with Leonard Bernstein. The centennial of his birth in Brookline comes in 2018 and the Boston Symphony will honor him on opening night and throughout the upcoming season.

A current topic in many conversations has been witches. They are part of local lore — not just on Halloween. Most Americans know that nearby Salem had notorious trials in 1692 resulting in 19 innocent persons being hanged following accusations of witchcraft. Now, 325 years later, Salem commemorated these events by dedicating a memorial to citizens who were put to death. Boston broadcast and print media covered the ceremony, interviewing descendants of those who were killed.

These observances made me think about the many operas in the repertory that have witches, conjurers, sorcerers, heretics and more. A couple are set in or near Boston.

The story of the Salem witch trials was the source material for Arthur Miller’s classic 1953 play, The Crucible. The playwright made no secret of the resonance he found in the witch hunts led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who pursued citizens who were called “un-American.” Robert Ward composed an opera based on the play, with a libretto by Bernard Stambler, that premiered at the New York City Opera in 1961 and won the Pulitzer Prize for music.

The most famous Boston witch opera is surely Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, which premiered in 1859. People familiar with Ballo know it is based on the story of the libertine (and opera-loving) King Gustav III of Sweden, who was assassinated at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792. Italian censors considered the depiction the killing of a European monarch unacceptable for stages in Rome and Naples. Verdi and his librettist Antonio Somma reluctantly moved the setting from Stockholm to colonial Boston and the role of the king became Riccardo, Earl of Warwick and Governor of Boston.

In the first act, Riccardo — disguised as a fisherman — visits the witch Ulrica (called Madame Arvidsson in the Swedish version) and she tells his fortune: He will be killed by the first person to shake his hand. That turns out to be his loyal friend Renato (Count Anckarström in the Swedish version), husband of Amelia, who loves Riccardo but does not give herself to him. And yet, Renato ultimately stabs Riccardo to death at the masked ball for which the opera is named.

Ulrica is a small but vivid role whose scary incantations (abetted by Verdi’s spooky orchestral music) can cast a spell over the entire performance. Most opera fans can tell you that the legendary Marian Anderson made her belated Met debut in 1955 in this part.

Until the late 19th century Ballo was usually performed in its Boston version and one can still occasionally find a production preferring Massachusetts to Sweden. My inclination is to always respect the intentions of those who have created an opera, especially when it is Verdi, who really knew what he was doing. Yet, I find it more plausible — given the history of this part of New England — for there to be operatic witches in Boston instead of Stockholm.

The Met did the Boston version in 1980, directed by Elijah Moshinsky, and it was very persuasive dramatically. It did not hurt that the cast included Luciano Pavarotti, Katia Ricciarelli, Louis Quilico and a properly scary Bianca Berini as Ulrica. Berini was, shall I say, a “character,” and when she played witchy characters such as Azucena in Il Trovatore, she seemed to be drawing on inspiration that was a lot more than mere acting. Watch her cast a spell as Ulrica in the Met’s Boston Ballo (and pay attention to her eyes!). 

Boston is an unusual opera town in that it does not have one nationally famous company like other major cities, and yet a lot of good opera can be found here if you know where to look. I consult the Boston Opera Calendar for performances by Boston Baroque, Boston Lyric Opera, Boston Symphony, the Handel and Haydn Society, Odyssey Opera, Opera on Tap, White Snake Projects and performances at colleges such as the New England Conservatory, Boston College and Boston University. Harvard College Opera was founded in 1992 and presents a fully staged opera each February with an undergraduate cast and production team. In 2018 it will be Die Fledermaus.

There will be other musical events in Boston in the coming season depicting witches, conjurers and heretics. The Boston Symphony under Andris Nelsons will perform the second act of Tristan und Isoldeon April 5 and 7, 2018, and then will bring it to Carnegie Hall on April 12. The scheduled leads are Camilla Nylund and Jonas Kaufmann, performing Tristan for the very first time. Isolde is one of several Wagnerian women with occult knowledge. Others are Ortrud, Kundry, Sieglinde and Gutrune. Isolde has various potions for casting spells whose preparation she learned from her mother. That is a grimoire I would love to read!

Another famous character from history, Joan of Arc, may not have been thought of as a witch in the Boston sense, yet she was reviled and feared as a heretic and burned at the stake in France. Joan is the perfect subject for an opera. She will have her musical moment this season in Boston as Odyssey Opera presents “Trial by Fire,” a series of operas and oratorios associated with her. There will be Tchaikovsky’s Maid of Orleans, Donizetti’s Siege of Calais, Norman dello Joio’s The Trial at Rouen, Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher and Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco. 

The sanctity of the operatic masterpiece is becoming an increasingly dim memory. The question is, how much do we mind?

The summer has been a series of wildly personal productions, with Heartbeat Opera reshuffling the acts of Madama Butterfly in May and National Sawdust's production of Handel's Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (which closed Thursday) updated to a study in homicidal psychology. Yet to come is the Schubert song cycle Winterreise, re-imagined on Aug. 12-13 at the Mostly Mozart Festival (which isn't an opera strictly speaking, but is indeed staged). These productions go beyond wild director-driven staging, but take the next step toward the bleeding edge: The actual DNA of the piece is being changed. There was a bit of that in Madama Butterfly, but there's much greater intervention in the Sawdust Aci. Some recitatives and arias were pre-recorded with electronic accompaniment so that some of the characters could sing after they had died, haunting those who were still living. The composer and conductor Hans Zender's version of Schubert's Winterreise has been around for years, but until now it hasn't had this kind of a U.S. showcase. If its two recordings are indications, the voice is accompanied not by piano, but a diverse chamber orchestra full of folk instruments. In brief sections, the singer screams out the text.

When the outcome is such riveting theater as Christopher Alden's production of Aci, you can't argue with what it took to get there. You don't worry about this becoming the norm for Handel's early Italian works because director Christopher Alden and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo (who sang Galatea and is listed as co-producer) are such singular talents. This is something only they could do, Costanzo in particular: Besides singing Handel's ornate music with complete security, he is an extremely accomplished actor — in a package that's so magnetic it's surprising that his recently announced recording contract with Decca didn't come sooner. Mark Grey's video design was a key component, showing giant rivulets of blood when the characters met death.

But what if — just for the sake of argument — this kind of presentation did become the norm? Aci is a relatively modest 1708 serenata written for a wedding, and though it's recognizable as Handel, it isn't exactly a masterpiece, and is so loosely plotted that it almost invites radical interpretation. The simple tale of Aci trying to protect Galatea's virtue against the overpowering Polifemo was recast with Aci and Galatea as low-level workers being sexually harassed by a boss driven by all manner of inner demons, with a sort of contagious toxicity that has the characters committing suicide if they aren't actually killed.

Performances of the original aren't unknown in this era of good Handel singing but are rare enough that there's maybe no wrong reason to bring the piece to the mainstream public. Besides the electronic effects, any number of arias (especially near the end) were distorted by slow tempos (successfully sustained by the Ruckus Ensemble) that were necessary to accommodate the weightier scenario of Alden's production. Then again, such arias anticipate those dark-night-of-the-soul moments of later Handel operas. And going back to recordings of Handel's Messiah from the 1950s and '60s, such tempos were employed purely as artistic choices.

The production's gender switch — the male Aci was played by soprano Ambur Braid and and the female Galatea was Costanzo — turned out to be a non-issue: The piece's inner dynamics among the characters were virtually unchanged. Also, vocal casting made sense because Costanzo's voice is far more suitable to the female role than to the male one. Braid was also excellent as Aci. Even though good casting is paramount with Handel, the less-vocally-savvy Davone Tines as Polifemo compensated by illuminating the theatrical complexity of Alden's concept.

Tenor Ian Bostridge in 'The Dark Mirror: Zender's Winterreise'

(National Taichung Theater)

So why am I less hopeful about Winterreise? The Netia Jones production has a promising pedigree (including good reviews from previous London performances), with Ian Bostridge singing a piece he probably knows better than anybody. But Zender's contribution to Schubert's elegant songs — which earn their masterpiece status by sketching an entire world with relatively few notes — is to take away the implication and underscore the obvious. The first song, with its short passages of screamed text, brings out the anguish of the protagonist, who is in such a state of heartbreak that he goes out into the snow to die. But doesn't the very nature of Schubert's suicide mission tell you what you need to know?

Accompaniments by guitar and accordion are used in folksy passages, but not to any improved effect. Much of it feels willfully irreverent, like putting lipstick on the Mona Lisa. The song "Mut," with its snow imagery, seems to be accompanied by some children's toys. It's embarrassing. The final song, "Der Leiermann," about the protagonist being led into the hereafter, has every line punctuated with a different burst of instrumental color — saxophones in one, flutes in another — that subverts the hypnotically understated repetition heard in the voice/piano Schubert original. Can the staging override and even harness such things? Maybe.

The difference between Alden and Zender is this: Alden has a vital story to tell and is employing Handel to tell it. Zender is just magnifying what's already there in ways that leave me saying, "Tell me something I don't know." Interventionists need an extremely good reason for doing what they're doing. That was the case in June in London when I saw a chamber version of The Cunning Little Vixen — simply titled Vixen — by something called Silent Opera directed by Daisy Evans: It heavily adapted Janacek's tale of human and animal characters to a modern urban story of runaways living on the street. Janacek's rich orchestral score was replaced, in an intimate studio-theater setting, by street instruments; and with savvy singers, the production's message was the dominating factor — with the opera as its indispensable servant. 

In Aci, Alden probed the mind of the mind of a rapist/murderer — a story that can't be told enough. And when Alden had to bend the piece, he did so with good purpose. And didn't Handel radically re-purpose his own music time and again? Maybe Alden isn't a genius of Handel's calibre. But who is?

Tannhäuser, Richard Wagner’s masterpiece about the legendary German poet of the same name, is your 1pm Saturday at the Opera Broadcast. The work premiered in 1845, but Wagner couldn’t keep away from it, reworking his opera and visiting it with numerous changes. A revised Tannhäuser premiered in almost 20 years later.

Tannhauser is a talented wordsmith who has spent a year with Venus, the goddess of love. When he returns to the earthly realm, he stuns pilgrims and nobility with his passionate song to Venus, earning him the condemnation of most — save for his love Elisabeth. In order to repent for his terrible since, Tannhäuser is ordered to travel to Rome with penitent pilgrims, much to Elisabeth's despair.

Cast:

Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis

Tannhäuser: Johan Botha

Elisabeth: Amber Wagner

Venus: Michaela Schuster

Wolfram: Gerald Finley

Landgraf Hermann: John Relyea

Much like the staggering beauty of her voice, Audra McDonald is impossible to ignore. The only artist to sweep all four acting categories at the Tony’s, she’s the most decorated Broadway star of all time. Reviews of her award-winning performances overflow with accolades, describing her stage presence as “spellbinding,” “haunting,” and “genius.” But for the California native, things haven’t always been easy. She talks to Alec about getting into Juilliard, making it on Broadway, and the suicide attempt that helped shape who she is today.

Many of the world's great operas were once considered flops. It's hard to believe but it's true. Like great movies or book that over time develop into classics, so too have some operas received a change in audience opinion. Let's take a look at some of them.

Mozart’s CosìFan Tutte is an excellent example of an opera season regular that took a good while to find its legs. The opera, with a libretto by Mozart collaborator Lorenzo Da Ponte, premiered in 1790 — just under two years before the composer’s untimely death. WQXR's Fred Plotkin noted in conversation that a consequence of Mozart’s death was that he couldn’t promote the opera the way he wanted to. And when Da Ponte left Europe for New York, an enthusiasm for Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro came along, while Così was left behind.

For generations after its premiere, Così was not considered a serious opera — it was seen as some kind of farcical joke; the weakest of Mozart’s operas.  “Così, when passed off as a sex farce, loses the deeper meaning of the opera,” says Plotkin. “It’s deeply psychological, and it took decades to fully understand it.”

That understanding came to the United States in 1910, when it received its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera. It was 1934, when the opera took a turn at the Glyndebourne Festival, that it began to emerge as a staple of the operatic repertoire. Così actually opening a major festival was unprecedented, and under the discerning baton of conductor Fritz Busch, the opera finally received a serious production and treated with the integrity it deserved.

The impact that the right production can have for rehabilitating an opera’s image pops up again and again. There’s Nabucco, for instance. It received an 1842 premiere and didn’t appear at the Met until 1960. Simone Boccanegra (1857), Plotkin contends, wasn’t fully realized until Giorgio Strehler’s 1976 production. And sometimes, a great production can catapult a favorite into higher levels of the audience’s graces, like David McVicar’s 2009 production of Il Trovatore. New opera houses, such as the Metropolitan Opera's new home in 1966 and a new Paris Opera building in 1989, made way for more technologically advanced productions, too.

But can a great production take sole credit for making the audience appreciate a great opera? In the opinion of dramaturg Cori Ellison, one must also consider a particular cultural ethos — something has to have occurred for a talented conductor or director to decide to put that opera on in the first place.

It’s here that a lot of commentary starts to fizzle out in a hot pan. Common explanations point towards audience expectations anticipating an evolving creative endpoint. That itself is a faulty road to travel, as musicologist Linda Shaver Gleason explains in a post on her blog, Not Another Music History Cliché.

To Ellison, the so-called “canonical” operas are in flux, and one can usually pinpoint a reason for their unpopularity. Looking at Così again, the opera’s relative obscurity was due in part to the time in which it premiered. It’s heavy on enlightenment themes, like rationality and experimentation. “Così Fan Tutte came right before the dawn of romanticism, and that spelled the obsolescence of the opera,” said Ellison to WQXR. “Beethoven railed against the immorality of Così, and when it was performed, it was often set to completely different librettos that were in keeping with the sensibilities of the time.”

Richard Strauss’ operas are representative of this. His Salome was the archetypical succeès de scandale. Elektra elicited boycotts from New York’s Greek community. But after World War I, German expression was on the rise, and Strauss’ operas began to take on a neoromantic color. World War II did him no favors either. As a 1987 article in the journal of Modern Austrian Literature explains, Strauss’ post-Rosenkavalier operas experienced an American renaissance in the 1950s, after the war. Ellison agrees. “Not many German operas were performed in America during War years, and there was a rehabilitation of German composers’ work after World War II. In the '50s an interest in Strauss came back, alongside serialists. [Strauss] also had to be rehabilitated a bit.”

Ellison’s says that one can usually detect trends in the changing tides of the operatic repertoire by reading opera references and catalogs where titles come and go from edition to edition. One year, Monteverdi may be in, and another he may be out. Meyerbeer’s work may look like it’s here to stay, but in the next edition you may begin to see it fade.

Plotkin believes opera is prismatic. “You and I, depending on where we shine our light, see different facets of the operatic gem.” The light may come after seeing a brilliant production. Or perhaps it’s the result of a massive shift in human experience. Either way, there’s no guarantee that the operatic favorites of today will be around twenty years from now. There may be a newcomer, or an unearthed flop of the past.

Now we ask you: What are some operas (or concert pieces) that you think are under-performed and want to see performed more? Do you have any theories about the changing public perception? Comment below!

Tannhäuser, Richard Wagner’s masterpiece about the legendary German poet of the same name, is your 1pm Saturday at the Opera Broadcast. The work premiered in 1845, but Wagner couldn’t keep away from it, reworking his opera and visiting it with numerous changes. A revised Tannhäuser premiered in almost 20 years later.

Tannhauser is a talented wordsmith who has spent a year with Venus, the goddess of love. When he returns to the earthly realm, he stuns pilgrims and nobility with his passionate song to Venus, earning him the condemnation of most — save for his love Elisabeth. In order to repent for his terrible since, Tannhäuser is ordered to travel to Rome with penitent pilgrims, much to Elisabeth's despair.

Performed by Lyric Opera Chicago.

Cast:

Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis

Tannhäuser: Johan Botha

Elisabeth: Amber Wagner

Venus: Michaela Schuster

Wolfram: Gerald Finley

Landgraf Hermann: John Relyea

In 1965, Maria Callas sang her final two Met performances, as Tosca. Her Scarpia was Tito Gobbi and the conductor was Fausto Cleva. At the first performance her Mario Cavaradossi was Franco Corelli. At the second it was Richard Tucker. Approximately eight thousand people could have seen Callas in her swan song performances at the Met, but nearly every opera lover old enough to have been out of swaddling clothes claims to have attended one of those Callas Toscas.

I suspect that something similar will take place regarding the six performances that tenor Jonas Kaufmann recently gave as Verdi’s Otello at the Royal Opera House in London. It was his first undertaking of the dauntingly difficult role and, by most accounts, it was a stunning success. Kaufmann is perhaps the most glamorous opera singer now before the public, but his allure should not cloud the fact that he is a serious and remarkably gifted artist.

My forward-thinking father (even though he was a Tebaldi fan) took 8-year old me to the first of the two Callas Toscas, reasoning that it was important that I be able to say that I saw the famous soprano. As it happens, the artist who impressed me on that day was Tito Gobbi, a performance I can still vividly recall. I did not get to London for Kaufmann’s Otello, but I had a chance to preview the June 28 HD transmission from the Royal Opera that will soon appear on screens in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and elsewhere.

There is only one screening scheduled for New York: at the Landmark Sunshine cinema on Houston Street at 7:00 pm on Aug. 8. It also will screen on Aug. 8 in Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Albany, among other markets. It screens Aug. 6 and 8 in Houston, Los Angeles, Madison, Seattle and other cities. There are also assorted dates in smaller cities (from Naples, Florida, to Walla Walla, Washington) across the country through September. The Royal Opera has a search function for audiences to find screenings near them.

Here is a five-minute video of Jonas Kaufmann, Antonio Pappano, Maria Agresta and others discussing Verdi’s Otello.

It almost went unnoticed in the pandemonium about Kaufmann, but should be mentioned, that Desdemona was Maria Agresta, Marco Vratogna sang Iago and the Royal Opera music director Antonio Pappano conducted. The production was directed by Keith Warner. The set by Boris Kudlička is somewhat monochromatic, which serves to focus our attention on the three principal performers. It is quite different from designs done at the Met at the end of the 20th century, which had Zeffirellian realism and detail.

It is not my ken to review but I will certainly say that it is worth your seeing this Otello on a screen near you. Remember that Kaufmann’s Otello does not exist in a void and was made better by his colleagues, especially Agresta and Pappano. Remember too, as is the case with all operas at the movies, that the sound system cannot rival the live acoustics in the Royal Opera and that a person (the HD director) has decided what you will see at every moment.

Most of the critics were very enthusiastic about the live performance on opening night. Zachary Woolfe in The New York Times described Kaufmann as “an Otello for the ages.” He added, “more impressive than any single passage was his uniform security in a role that strains even top tenors. Mr. Kaufmann is simply right for the role (he was, we might say, born to sing it): His voice’s gloomy melancholy, the naturalness with which it portrays wounded outsiders, made it perfect for this wary general.”

Barry Millington in the Evening Standard found Warner’s production “thought provoking” and said that Kaufmann “modulates effortlessly between the amorous and the unhinged, grippingly charting the character’s psychological decline.”

The Independent’s Cara Chanteau, in an overall positive notice, called Pappano’s conducting “a thing of wonder.”

Tim Ashley in the Guardian gave Kaufmann pretty good marks for his first outing, saying that “his interpretation will doubtless deepen over time, but this is already an accomplished portrayal, sung and acted, for the most part, with considerable intelligence.”

The Royal Opera has an outstanding educational initiative, known as Insights, that results in videos and other documentation of these activities. An 80-minute event took place there on June 8 that included a lecture about Otello, a performance by young artists, a fascinating lesson about Iago by Antonio Pappano (starting at 28 min., 30 sec.) and a conversation (at approximately 50 min.) with the maestro, Kaufmann and Oliver Mears, the new director of opera (or what might be called general manager, although he reports to a chief executive). Even if you cannot attend the HD, watching this video is time very well spent.

Say “José Carreras” and the typical response is, “One of the Three Tenors along with Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti.” True, of course. The lucrative megaconcerts between 1990 and 2003 dominate the imaginations of people with only a passing acquaintance with opera.

But genuine lovers of the lyric art cherish memories and the recorded legacy of José Carreras, a singer-poet if ever there was one. If you heard him live in the period before he was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 1987, you know what I mean. I can think of no opera singer who sang more soulfully, making each word and sound a moment of emotional outpouring that was always sincere and never exaggerated.

Following his diagnosis, Carreras underwent a painful regime of radiation, chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. I once heard him discuss these treatments, each of which lasted 48 minutes, in which he had to remain completely still. To get through them, he “sang” in his head some 48 minutes of music.

There was no guarantee that Carreras would survive, let alone sing, but he did. If he did not have the same stamina as before and occasionally his voice betrayed him (as happens to all singers), his artistic sensitivity deepened. His Three Tenor performances, including friendly rivalry with his two confrères, helped raise funds for the José Carreras International Leukaemia Foundation that supports patients and funds research.

Carreras was born in Barcelona in 1946 and, though a citizen of Spain, identifies with being a Catalan and his region’s autonomous tendencies. He was invited, at the age of 24, to sing Gennaro opposite Montserrat Caballé’s Lucrezia Borgia in Barcelona’s wonderful Gran Teatre del Liceu. Caballé, a glorious star at the age of 37 and a singular voice if ever there was one, recognized Carreras’ gifts and chose him as her artistic partner.

Just as Joan Sutherland selected Pavarotti as her tenor of choice, appearing with him in live performances and recordings for Decca, Caballé and Carreras became a team in opera houses and on Philips records. While they did standard repertory such as Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata, Un Ballo in Maschera and Tosca, Carreras made a great contribution to reviving early Verdi operas by recording Un Giorno di Regno, Il Corsaro, La Battaglia di Legnano, I Due Foscari and Stiffelio with sopranos such as Caballé, Jessye Norman and Katia Ricciarelli.

In this duet from Lucia di Lammermoor, we hear Carreras’s voice at its sweetest and his ardent singing is what made audiences swoon. The secret to Carreras’ singing is that he combined a sensitive and open heart with words and music, and really felt every emotion they provided. He did not try to put the music across the footlights and orchestra pit as many singers do but, instead, created such an intense experience on the stage that listeners were drawn toward him.

In “E lucevan le stelle,” the mournful aria in Tosca in which Mario Cavaradossi recalls tender romantic moments with his beloved, most singers put forth as much volume as they can muster. Carreras almost always preferred to find the poet in every character he played—modulating volume and expression of words—which meant that audiences loved him (the character) and felt for him more deeply. This is art instead of brute force.

The first time I heard Carreras live was at La Scala in 1976, as a teenager attending school in Italy. I had gone to Milan to hear Caballé (who cancelled) and Grace Bumbry in Aïda but a friend persuaded me to stay an extra night for the Giorgio Strehler production of Simon Boccanegra, conducted by Claudio Abbado and starring Mirella Freni, Piero Cappuccilli and Carreras as Paolo. Here he is from that performance, age 29, and already so accomplished and passionate that he brought down the house.

Listen to him, in French, as the doomed writer Werther in Massenet’s opera. His French is not as incisive as his Italian or the sovereign usage by Frederica von Stade (his beautiful Charlotte), and yet these two singers really allow us to feel what the characters do. It is their lack of histrionics that makes this happen, and that is rare artistry.

When Franco Zeffirelli’s legendary staging of La Bohéme was new in December 1981, it starred Teresa Stratas and Carreras with Renata Scotto, a famous Mimì, as Musetta. Although Pavarotti and Domingo (and just about every other tenor) would play Rodolfo in this production, it was Carreras who was considered the most appropriate when it was new. Who better to play the character of the poor poet in love? James Levine once told me that part of his responsibility as the conductor of this Bohéme was to not break into tears as a result of the intensely moving performances of Stratas and Carreras. By this Levine meant that a musician so touched by the music and story might not be able to properly give a performance.

Opera lovers are always asked what the greatest live performance they've ever been to is. Mine was a 1979 Andrea Chénier in Barcelona with three Catalan stars: Caballé as Maddalena, Carreras in the title role and Juan Pons as Carlo Gerard. Poetry, passion, glorious music and a hometown audience cheering the artists at a time in history when Catalans achieved more autonomy in government and in the language they could speak.

Watch and listen to the video below. This performance, conducted by Eugenio M. Marco, came a few months after the one I attended but has all the passion and integrity that the artists previously summoned. The video quality is variable, but the sound is more than good enough for a live recording made 38 years ago. What you do not see is the absolutely delirious ovation given by the Liceu audience, which I rank among the best in the world.

José Carreras is on his final world concert tour and appears at Carnegie Hall on Sept. 28.

Macbeth is a terrifying, yet fascinating, look at the dynamics of power and the delusions that come with it. The play is a Shakespeare staple, and Verdi’s operatic interpretation of it has been chosen as your 1 pm Saturday at the Opera broadcast.

Verdi’s opera features some of his finest choral music. Take the witches, for example. In Shakespeare’s play the witches are three — together the prophecy Macbeth’s rise and fall. Verdi, however, assigns those key roles to a chorus, divided into groups of three.

Macbeth premiered in 1847, and Verdi revised the opera in 1865, as a French production.

Cast:

Conductor: James Conlon

Macbeth: Plácido Domingo

Lady Macbeth: Ekaterina Semenchuk

Banquo: Ildebrando D’Arcangelo

Macduff: Joshua Guerrero

Malcolm: Josh Wheeker

Lady-in-Waiting: Summer Hassan

Doctor: Theo Hoffman

The opening of the Metropolitan Opera is always the highlight of the fall opera season in New York and the Met has appealing offerings this autumn. But New York has many other appealing and unusual performances elsewhere. It is not too soon to buy tickets for most of them. What follows is a selection, hardly exhaustive, of performances that should be meaningful and appealing. Set aside time and money for at least two performances, one at the Met and one at another company that is of interest to you. And if you can afford more than two, do four or six or whatever your time and budget permit. Opera is always better when seen and heard live with a passionate audience.

Sept. 6, 8, 10, 12 Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West is always welcome. Many opera lovers consider it his best score. Hear it at the New York City Opera and decide for yourself.

Sept. 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 26 Productions and casts at Brooklyn’s LoftOpera are always worth the trip and intermissions are as much fun as the performance. The opera this fall is Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.

Sept. 21, 22, 24, 25, 27 Michel van der Aa’s opera Blank Out, about the life of South African poet Ingrid Jonker, will star soprano Miah Persson at the Park Avenue Armory, and will have a multimedia production, including film. Van der Aa is a composer to watch and his works are coming to North America more frequently.

Sept. 25 Bellini’s Norma gets a new production by David McVicar on the Met’s opening night with a must-hear cast of Sondra Radvanovsky, Joyce DiDonato and Joseph Calleja, conducted by Carlo Rizzi. Subsequent performances are on Sept. 28, Oct 3, 7, 11, 16, 20 (Marina Rebeka sings Norma for the last two). Performances in December (1, 5, 8, 11) will star Angela Meade, Jamie Barton and Calleja.

Sept. 28  Beloved tenor José Carreras makes his Carnegie Hall farewell as part of his final world tour.

Oct. 2 Angel Blue, a much-admired young soprano, makes her Met debut as Mimì in La Bohème. She will also appear on Oct 6, 9, 14, 19, 23 and 27.

Oct. 3 “A Room with a View” might not be opera but is music about Italy, particularly Florence, the city where opera was born. Works by Britten, Claude Baker (inspired by Liszt) and Tchaikovsky. Columbia University’s Italian Academy.

Oct. 18, 19, 21. Claudio Monteverdi, the first great opera composer, was born 450 years ago. Three of his masterpieces will be performed as part of the Great Performers at Lincoln Center series: Orfeo, The Return of Ulysses, The Coronation of Poppea, all led by John Eliot Gardiner with the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists. The performances are sold out, but keep an eye out for returns.

Oct. 21 The legendary orchestra of Rome’s Accademia di Santa Cecilia and its music director Antonio Pappano are too seldom heard in New York. On Oct. 20 at Carnegie Hall they will perform with pianist Martha Argerich. The following evening will include Mahler’s Sixth Symphony and adventurous Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan singing Salvatore Sciarrino’s La nuova Euridice secondo Rilke in its New York premiere.

Oct. 23 Renée Fleming appears in recital at Carnegie Hall, which includes a world premiere by Caroline Shaw.

Oct. 26 The Exterminating Angel at the Met. A new opera by an important composer is always a major event. Thomas Adès will conduct. He wrote the music and collaborated on the libretto with Tom Cairns, who is doing the production of the opera based on the film by Luis Buñuel. Its world premiere in Salzburg in 2016 was a big success. The cast includes many talented singers who are also inspired actors. Among them are Alice Coote, Sophie Bevan, Iestyn Davies, Rod Gilfry, Audrey Luna and the legendary John Tomlinson. More performances on Oct. 30, Nov 3, 7, 10, 14, 18, 21.

Nov. 6 The Oratorio Society of New York under Kent Tritle presents an all-Brahms program at Carnegie Hall including the Schickalslied and the wondrous German Requiem. Soloists are soprano Susanna Phillips and rising baritone John Chest.

Nov. 11 Massenet’s Thaïs might be a bit too luscious and overripe for some listeners but when you have the masterful Emmanuel Villaume conducting the marvelous soprano Ailyn Pérez and the superlative baritone Gerald Finley at the Met, this is a performance that must be heard. Nov. 15, 18, 22, 25, 28, Dec. 2.

Nov. 12  Beethoven’s exquisite Missa Solemnis can be heard at David Geffen Hall with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Radio Choir and Swedish soloists.

Nov. 16, 18 Barbara Hannigan makes her U.S. recital debut at the Armory. Her first program will be works of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Zemlinsky, Alma Mahler, Wolf) and the next will be entirely devoted to the music of Erik Satie. Reinbert de Leeuw will be at the piano for both concerts.

Nov. 24, 27, 29, Dec. 2  Verdi’s Messa da Requiem is always urgent, affecting and relevant, especially with artists of the caliber of James Levine, the Met Orchestra and Chorus, and soloists Krassimira Stoyanova, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Aleksandrs Antonenko and the one-and-only Ferruccio Furlanetto.

Dec. 10  Real opera galas in New York are few and far between but the one that is never to miss is the Richard Tucker Gala that has most of the great international stars who are in town the day of the concert. The focus of the gala is always the young artist receiving the prestigious Richard Tucker Award, which goes this year to the splendid soprano Nadine Sierra, whose distinctive voice and artistry marked her out as exceptional while still in her mid-20s.

Dec. 18 Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and pianist Kathleen Kelly join in Zankel Hall for an innovative program that you should not miss. Barton is the real deal. 

In 1861, Richard Wagner was ready to take his opera Tannhäuser to the Paris Opéra. He knew that in order to please his Parisian audience, he had to revise it to include a ballet, which he managed to do. But that’s as far as he got in terms of understanding the audience's sensibilities, for he made the fatal error of placing it at the end of the first act. You see, in France, it was perfectly normal to show up to the opera exceptionally late, and so the dance number —which nobody wanted to miss — was usually placed at the end of the second act. You did not mess with the ballet’s order of business. Wagner learned that the hard way when Tannhäuser was booed offstage, and then canceled after just three performances.

That’s a pretty brutal reaction. So, why did French audiences take ballet in opera so seriously — and what was it even doing there in the first place? 

As Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker point out in their aptly-titled book A History of Opera, a ballet sequence gives the audience a break from the singing. It’s a distraction — politely, a divertissement — that allows you, the honored guest, to “take in the view” without having to balance your attention with any significant plot details. Abbate and Parker even go a step further and liken it to a magnificent CGI sequence in film or television. 

via GIPHY

The French have taken ballet in opera seriously* from what just might be the beginning of time, if by “beginning of time” you mean “sometime around 1645.” It was then that the Italian cardinal Jules Raymond Mazarin (born with the decidedly more Italian surname of Mazzarini) started to bring Italian opera to the court of King Louis XIV. But there was a problem: It just wasn’t French enough. So they tailored the operas to fit their own cultural tastes. Italian castrati were removed in favor of baritones. Arias soared a little less than their Italian counterparts and recitatives seemed to match the natural rhythm of speech. And, since this was a question of French taste, there had to be ballet. 

That uniquely styled artistic dance had been a staple of French court entertainment since at least 1581, during the reign of Henry III. Author John Walter Hill, in Baroque Music, points out that these French “ballets de cour” were based on the Italian masquerades, but in France they took on a decidedly political tone, steeped in tales of mythology and bathed in heavy-handed allegory. A perfect example of this is the Balet Comique de la Royne, considered the first ballet de cour. It was a massive, showy spectacle that all but worshipped the French monarch, obliterating the fourth wall. Royne began with a knight addressing the king directly, for it is the king alone who can foil the evil plot of the mythological witch Circe. But just when things are going wrong, Jupiter, the chief of the gods, intervenes and defeats her. He takes her wand, then presents it to the king who, again, is sitting right in the audience, and declares him the “Jupiter of France.” 

If you think that sounds like a reinforcement that whole “divine right of kings” idea, which was really gaining steam (among kings, at least) around this time, you’re right. King Henry’s France was embroiled with the Wars of Religion between the Protestant Huguenots and Roman Catholics, and there was a crisis of succession brewing, since the king was childless. His court really couldn’t have picked a more obvious way to emphasize their authority, and subsequent French monarchs chose a similar divine branding strategy (though, we all know how that worked out for them).

When Mazarin died in 1661, France went full tilt on making opera their own. At the front of those efforts was the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. He first teamed up with the playwright Molière to create a new kind of production called comédies-ballets, which featured spoken dialog interspersed with music, song and dance.

Not long after this, Lully got the ultimate hookup from his royal buddy King Louis XIV. The two had quite a relationship; in 1653 the 20-year-old composer wrote the music for a 12-hour ballet de cour called Ballet de la Nuit, which featured a then 14-year-old King as Apollo the sun god (it’s no coincidence that Louis later styled himself the “Sun King”). 

In 1672, Lully established the Académie Royal de Musique, and Louis promptly granted him alone the rights to any performance in all of France that was either a) sung in its entirety, or b) required the contributions of more than two singers and six instrumentalists. Yeah, Lully had a monopoly on opera.

With his librettist Phillipe Quinault, Lully set to work on the new genre of tragédie en musique. Like the ballets de cour, these tragedies were often based in mythology and leaned heavily on the allegory. They also, among other things, were divided into five acts (instead of the traditional Italian number of three), which lent more importance to the chorus and involved a lot of dancing — all hallmarks of “French” opera.

So next time you catch Les Troyens or Romeo et Juliette, don't worry about why the dancing is going on. Enjoy it as a light break from the singing. Or ponder its roots as political propaganda. And be thankful you don't have to battle Jean-Baptiste in a game of Monopoly.

*Ballet in opera isn’t uniquely French — but in French opera the dancing is usually framed within the context of the narrative, while in other operatic traditions it is sometimes removed from the drama. Contrast, for example, with dances in Italian opera seria, which Abbate and Parker note are intermezzo or post-opera spectacle. 

I hear so often that opera is dying, that there are no new works, that production styles are either moribund or crazy. And yet, we are in a period of real creative ferment in opera. There is a remarkable number of new works being commissioned. Some companies, such as Houston Grand Opera and San Francisco Opera, have long traditions of fostering new operas. There are indispensable groups you should know about, foremost among them Beth Morrison Projects and American Opera Projects that exist to create new opera. Visit their websites often.

Here is a list of important new operas this fall and early winter, plus rarities and special performances worth traveling to attend.

Opera Philadelphia’s much-anticipated new festival includes an astonishing three world premieres and a Philadelphia premiere. These are only part of the offerings. Pulitzer Prize winners Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell have created Elizabeth Cree, inspired by the novel by Peter Ackroyd. We Shall Not Be Moved, by composer Daniel Bernard Roumain and librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph, will be staged by the excellent Bill T. Jones. The Wake World, with music and libretto by David Hertzberg, is inspired by an Aleister Crowley story and the highly personal art collection amassed by Albert C. Barnes in Philadelphia. The opera will take place in the Barnes Museum. War Stories, presenting works by Monteverdi and Lembit Beecher, has its local premiere. In addition, there will be the East Coast premiere of the famous production of Die Zauberflöte from Berlin’s Komische Oper. (Sept. 14-25.) 

Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice is hardly new but it's getting an important staging at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. American John Neumeier is little known in his homeland but this director, choreographer and set, costume and lighting designer is immensely respected in Europe. In addition to a talented lineup of singers and the ideal conductor Harry Bicket, this production will feature members of the Joffrey Ballet. If you miss it, it will be at the Los Angeles Opera March 10-25, 2018. (Sept. 23, 27, Oct. 1, 6, 9, 12, 15.) 

Atlanta Opera stages Kurt Weill’s 1933 The Seven Deadly Sins, certain to be as edgy and relevant as ever. Its immersion into the seven sins (pride, covetousness, lust, wrath, gluttony, envy and sloth) mirrored Weill’s Germany in 1933 and will surely prove meaningful today. Atlanta native Jennifer Larmore, who lately has delved into unusual and daring repertory, performs on Sept. 28, Oct. 1, 3, 5; Gina Perregrino will sing on Sept. 29, 30, Oct 4, 6. (Sept. 28–Oct. 6.)

Any time a tenor undertakes the title role of Verdi’s Otello, it is worth noting. In this case it will be the excellent Russell Thomas, who will be joined by Mary Elizabeth Williams (Desdemona) and Nmon Ford (Iago), with Robert Spano leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a concert performance. (Oct. 7, 10.)

Washington National Opera does its first production of Handel’s bewitching Alcina with a superb collection of women as its artistic forces. The title role will be sung by Angela Meade. Other singers include Elizabeth DeShong, Ying Fang and Daniela Mack. The talented Anne Bogart directs and the outstanding Jane Glover conducts. (Nov. 4, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19.)

Boston Lyric Opera gives the world premiere of Mr. Burke and Mr. Hare, music by Julian Grant and libretto by Mark Campbell. Based on real events, it is the story of two Edinburgh men who went on a killing spree in the 1820s, purportedly to provide fresh cadavers to the local medical school. (Nov. 8, 9, 12.)

Los Angeles Opera is doing several new and unusual works in its 2017-18 season. Persona, based on the film by Ingmar Bergman, is a 2015 opera with music by Keeril Makan and libretto by Jay Scheib. (Nov. 9, 10, 11, 12.)

San Diego Opera presents As One an excellent work by Laura Kaminsky (with a libretto by Mark Campbell and Kimberly Reed) about a transgender woman. The character of Hannah Before is sung by a baritone and Hannah After by a mezzo. I saw it in its premiere at BAM. The opera works because of the way the voices contrast and reveal how Hannah was and is the person we encounter. (Nov. 10, 11, 12.)

Lyric Opera of Kansas City presents Everest, music by Joby Talbot and libretto by Gene Scheer, depicts the existential challenges faced by climbers caught in a 1996 blizzard on the world’s highest mountain. The company stages As One Jan. 27-28. (Nov. 11, 15, 17, 19.) 

Girls of the Golden West, by John Adams and Peter Sellars, is one of the most eagerly anticipated new operas in a very long time. Commissioned by San Francisco Opera and set during the period of the Gold Rush (1849-53) in the Sierras north of the city, this work draws from original accounts and sources describing women at a time when they were far outnumbered by men who arrived to seek their fortune in gold. (Nov. 21, 24, 26, 29, Dec. 2. 5. 7, 10.)

Houston Grand Opera gives the world premiere of The House Without A Christmas Tree, (music by Ricky Ian Gordon, libretto by Royce Vavrek), based on the original story by Gail Rock. It should be a new kind of holiday opera that speaks to modern yet timeless concerns of fractured families and how they might find healing and reconciliation. (Nov. 30, Dec. 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 14, 16, 17.)

Pittsburgh Opera presents The Long Walk, a 2012 opera with music by Jeremy Howard Beck and libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann that explores the difficulties endured by an American soldier after returning home from the war in Iraq, where he disarmed explosives — one of the most frightening things imaginable. (Jan. 20, 23, 26, 28.)

New Orleans Opera presents Tabasco: A Burlesque Opera by George W. Chadwick. It has not been performed in this culinary mecca since its premiere in 1894. (Jan. 25, 26, 27, 28.)

Jacques Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman is your selection for this saturday’s edition of Saturday at the Opera. And it’s a particularly good one, especially if you’re in the mood for masked identities, wild relationships and a good night at the tavern.

Hoffman tells the story of the titular character’s eccentric love life. At a party, Hoffman is encouraged to recount his three most notable relationships: with an exceptionally life-like automaton, a woman who will die if she sings too much and a woman out to steal his reflection. It’s wild and fantastic; and a (sur)real good time.

Cast:

Conductor: Plácido Domingo

Hoffmann: Vittorio Grigolo

The Muse / Nicklausse: Kate Lindsey

The Four Villains: Nicolas Testé

Olympia: So Young Park

Giulietta: Kate Aldrich

Antonia / Stella: Diana Damrau

The Four Servants: Christophe Mortagne

Luther: Kihun Yoon

Hermann: Theo Hoffman

Nathanael Brian: Michael Moore

Spalanzani: Rodell Rosel

Schlémil: Daniel Armstrong

Crespel: Nicholas Brownlee

Voice of Antonia’: Mother: Sharmay Musacchio

When summer high season ends, it’s the right time to travel to Europe, even for a few days, for some opera, good food and museum exhibitions. The continent’s beastly heat wave will have abated. Airfares often drop and good values can be found if you know how search travel websites. I have spotted November fares from New York to key European capitals for less than $600 round trip.

My biggest motivation is to hear musicians who seldom come to the States while seeing productions by directors and designers I admire. European theaters continue to commission new operas and that motivates me because I always want to discover something new. Here is a selection of some of the best Europe has to offer this fall, with an emphasis on off-the-beaten path:

Helsinki, Finland  My favorite Ingmar Bergman film is Autumn Sonata, in which Ingrid Bergman played Charlotte, a self-centered piano virtuoso who returns to the family she ignored. One of the daughters, played by Liv Ullmann, bears decades of resentment that are the makings of great opera. Höstsonaten (music by Sebastian Fagerlund, libretto in Swedish by Gunilla Hemming) premieres at the Finnish National Opera with the marvelous Swedish mezzo Anne-Sofie von Otter as Charlotte and Swedish soprano Erika Sunnegårdh and Finnish soprano Helena Juntunen (who deserves to be known internationally) as her daughters. Sept. 8-Oct. 5. 

Amsterdam, Netherlands  The Dutch National Opera presents a talented group of artists led by conductor Michele Mariotti, director Christoph Loy and beloved soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek in a new staging of La Forza del Destino. Sept. 9-Oct. 1.

Athens, Greece  Maria Callas died Sept. 16, 1977, and, to commemorate this occasion and Callas’s artistry, a gala concert will take place two days before the anniversary. Later in the month, the Greek National Opera gives its first performances of Strauss’ Elektra with Iréne Theorin in the title role and Greece’s Agnes Baltsa as Klytemnestra. This is one of the most exciting things on the European opera calendar this fall. Sept. 14, Oct. 15-31.  

Ghent/Antwerp, Belgium  The Flemish Opera does vivid productions of unusual operas that merit attention. Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane. His most famous opera, Die Tote Stadt, takes place in Ghent while this one has an unspecified setting. The music should be richly melodic. From Nov. 17-Dec. 6, Flemish Opera presents, in Ghent only, Donizetti’s rarely-seen Le Duc d’Albe with a good cast. Sept. 15-Oct. 10. 

London, England  I am a big admirer of the work of director Phelim McDermott, who is creating a new Aïda at the English National Opera. The opera will be sung in English with two appealing casts. Sept. 28-Dec. 2.

Toulouse, France  Eugen d’Albert’s 1903 opera Tiefland does not come around very often (though it will be at Sarasota Opera in March, 2018). It gets a new production at Toulouse’s venerable Theatre du Capitole at a time of year when the weather and food are glorious in this most French of cities. Sept. 29-Oct. 8. 

Turin, Italy  Gianandrea Noseda conducts Tristan und Isolde for the first time, with alternating casts at the Teatro Regio. Oct. 10-27.  

Vienna, Austria  Theater an der Wien is staging Robert Carsen’s new production of Wozzeck, starring Florian Boesch and Lise Lindstrom. They are also presenting great opera in concert throughout the autumn, including Handel’s Ottone and Giulio Cesare and Beethoven’s Leonore and Egmont. Oct. 15-27.  

Wexford, Ireland  Everything old is new again in Wexford, which was named best festival at the International Opera Awards. One comes here to discover lost or seldom-seen works, mostly in Italian. In succession you can attend Cherubini’s Medea, Foroni's Margherita, Alfano's Risurrezione, Rossini’s La Scala di Seta and, from the mainstream, Rigoletto. There will be the world premiere of Andrew Synnott’s two one-act operas Counterparts and The Boarding House adapted from Joyce’s Dubliners. Oct. 19-Nov. 5. 

Paris, France  Bryn Terfel is Falstaff at the Opéra Bastille. Fabio Luisi conducts. Restaurants in Paris will be full of glorious seafood at their peak that would gladden the palate and belly of Sir John. Oct. 26-Nov. 16. 

Catnip for voice lovers: Jamie Barton makes her Madrid, Spain debut in a concert version of Donizetti’s La Favorite with Javier Camarena and Simone Piazzola. Daniel Oren conducts. Nov. 2, 6.  

Zurich, Switzerland  A new production by Sebastian Baumgarten of Weill and Brecht’s Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny, with Fabio Luisi conducting, Annette Dasch and Christopher Ventris lead a strong cast, including a not-to-miss Karita Mattila as Leocadia Begbick. Nov. 5-24. 

Munich, Germany  The superb soprano Anja Harteros performs in very few places so you must travel to where she is. Harteros sings four Toscas at the Bavarian State Opera, with Joseph Calleja as Mario and Željko Lučić as Scarpia, and Daniele Callegari conducting. New Yorkers should be warned that this is the Luc Bondy production, now leaving the Met repertory. It is not to everyone’s taste, but would not prevent me from the chance to see and hear Harteros. She then joins Jonas Kaufmann and Marco Armiliato for four performances of Andrea Chénier beginning Nov. 29. Nov. 8-17, Nov. 29-Dec. 8.  

Milan, Italy  La Scala opens its season with a new production of Andrea Chénier with Yusif Eyvazov in the title role, his wife Anna Netrebko as Maddalena and Luca Salsi as Gerard. Riccardo Chailly conducts. Dec. 7-Jan. 5, 2018.