Godunov Going Fast – Only 7 More Days to Watch

Calixto Bieito's production of Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Gudonov for the Bayerische Staatsoper is on view at Arte live, but only for a few more days. The musical values are high and the production is strange, as  expected; but it's much lower on the gross-out meter than we've come to expect from Bieito. Watch it before it disappears.

Meanwhile, La Sonnambula is still online for about another month. 

And if you live in Europe, you have 14 days to see the Bregenz Festival Die Zauberflöte (not available in the U.S.)

Gratuitous Friday – Angela Brower is Dorabella

Angela Brower appears as Dorabella in the new Cosi fan tutte from Deutsche Grammophon. Here is another appearance she made as Dorabella at the Bayerische Staatsoper with Aga Mikolaj as her sister. This is their duet from Act 2.

The New Cosi – Nézet-Séguin, Persson, Villazón, and Friends

Here is the follow-up to last year’s intriguing Don Giovanni, just released in Europe a few days ago and due in the U.S. on August 20. There are some lesser known names here, and most are worth keeping track of. The recording promises to be good, and it will be worth it just to hear Miah Persson's Fiordiligi again!

Rolando Villazón explains the plot* (in his inimitable, fun, animated, but confusing way):

This Magic Moment – Mozart at the Bregenzer Festspielen 2013

© Bregenzer Festspiele/Karl Forster 

David Pountney’s fantastical, gigantical Zauberflöte is on display this summer (and next) on the stage in the lake at the Bregenzer Festpielen. There is a video on Arte Live Web, but apparently it’s only available to European viewers. It keeps telling me, very politely of course, “Sie haben keine Rechte...”

However, there’s always hope that someone will make it available to all via that video-sharing website or other pirate-y sources. But in the meantime, there are a handful of video clips to tease, titillate, or tick us off. Among the fine (double and triple) cast of singers is Rainer Trost as Tamino. The lovely and talented Ana Durlovski reprises her Queen of the Night, last seen in Baden Baden; she also appeared recently as our damaged sleepwalker im Stuttgart.

And in Addition to Herheim...More Met Rumors

I love the interwebz! Intermezzo reported that Peter Gelb, in an interview for the Austrian Kurier,  said that Calixto Bieto will be directing at the Met in the near future. Likely Impossibilities picked that item up, and opined:

Why didn't he give this interview to the Times's Anthony Tommasini, who is also in Salzburg; or the New Yorker's Alex Ross, who is as well? This is quite rude to loyal Met audience members who care about these things. (While some of them will be hostile to this development, many would welcome it, and it seems bad form to talk about it behind New York's back.)

Hear, hear!! Save the good stuff for us, PG! So meanwhile, Parterre box passed the notice along, and among her reader comments were the following:

oedipe says:

“Calixto Bieto und Robert Lepage werden auch wieder an der MET inszenieren.” 

Separately or together? It may make a difference.

Ilka Saro says:

Bieito will be directing a production of Lakme, with Natalie Dessay as Nilakantha, set in a Nevada bordello. Lepage will add projections and a bunch of people walking on the ceiling.

and I says: I love an opera lover with an overdeveloped sense of whimsy!