Table Of Contents: November 2007

AMERICA'S FINEST: THOMAS HAMPSON RETURNS TO SAN FRANCISCO

Vol. 72, No. 5

Classics Master:
   Stephen Wadsworth
   and the Met's New
   Iphigénie en Tauride
Sure Hand: Conductor
   Anne Manson at
   NYCO
Paul Curran at Lyric
   Opera of Chicago
Farewell to Luciano Pavarotti
Baritone Lucas Meachem
Reunion: Cornell MacNeil

Features

Luciano Pavarotti: 1935-2007

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He was the King of the High Cs - and the face of opera for millions of fans all over the world. PETER G. DAVIS remembers the singular life and legacy of the great tenor.

Homecoming

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Thomas Hampson, whose European opera career has outpaced engagements in his native country, is now appearing with more frequency in U.S. opera houses. This month, San Francisco Opera welcomes the baritone's first stateside Macbeth; later this season, he'll sing Germont at Lyric Opera of Chicago and Don Carlo in the Met's Ernani. DAVID J. BAKER listens in.

The Real Thing

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Opera as drama? You'd better believe it, when Stephen Wadsworth is in charge. JAMES C. WHITSON talks to the director, whose production of Iphigénie en Tauride arrives at the Met this month.

Driving the Drama

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FRED COHN follows the beat of Anne Manson, who believes that a conductor can't just bury her head in the score. This month she leads Samuel Barber's Vanessa at NYCO.

Shadow Player

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Director Paul Curran loves a challenge. Is that why he's chosen Die Frau ohne Schatten for his Lyric Opera of Chicago debut? GEORGE HALL reports.

Vintage Portraits

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In the early 1950s, opera fans tuned in for the DuMont Network's Opera Cameos, a weekly anthology series that presented half-hour abridgements of the classics - with casts that included Beverly Sills, Ettore Bastianini and Salvatore Baccaloni. SCOTT BARNES savors the gold in these broadcasts, now available for viewing at Manhattan's Paley Center for Media.

Departments

Recordings

CRITIC'S CHOICE: A deluxe new recording of Frank Martin's Le Vin Herbé; Jacobs adds Don Giovanni to his Harmonia Mundi catalogue; Hawlata and Gustafson star in Stephan's Die Ersten Menschen; Mackerras paces an English-language Hansel and Gretel; EMI rereleases its 1962 Bartered Bride; a new recording of Rossini's Le Comte Ory from Naxos; Bartoli salutes Malibran; a lieder recital by Robert Holl and Roger Vignoles. VIDEO: Shostakovich's Cherry Town is delightfully loopy; Spoleto offers an eloquent Ercole su'l Termodonte; Magee and DeVol are superb in Konwitschny's Lohengrin; Vishnevskaya offers a fearless portrayal of Katerina Izmailova; Cavani directs a forceful Macbeth in Parma.

In Review

NORTH AMERICA: Santa Fe Opera presents Tea: A Mirror of Soul, Platée, Daphne; Cincinnati Opera offers Gounod, Mozart, Adams and Verdi; Wolf Trap revives Musto's Volpone; Aspen hears Cavalli's Eliogabalo; Bard offers a rarity by Zemlinsky; Chabrier's L'Etoile shines at Wolf Trap; Levine conducts Berlioz, Brahms and Bartók at Tanglewood. INTERNATIONAL: Katharina Wagner's Die Meistersinger scandalizes Bayreuth; Loy directs Il Turco in Italia in Munich; Britten's The Turn of the Screw arrives at Glyndebourne; Melbourne hears Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice. CONCERTS AND RECITALS: A Tanglewood recital from van Dam; Mostly Mozart presents Golijov's Pasión, Mozart's Requiem, Monteverdi's Vespers.

Viewpoint: Final Bow

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by F. PAUL DRISCOLL

OperaWatch

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by F. PAUL DRISCOLL

On the Beat

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Jovanovich is this year's Tucker Prize winner; in Nashville, Elmer Gantry with music finally gets its chance; Il Tabarro barges into Brooklyn.
by BRIAN KELLOW

Sound Bites: Lucas Meachem

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by OUSSAMA ZAHR

Reunion: Cornell MacNeil

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by RUDOLPH S. RAUCH

Obituaries

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Veteran soprano Rose Bampton, a link to the Gatti-Casazza era at the Met, dies at ninety-nine; COC general director Richard Bradshaw; composer Tikhon Khrennikov; bass Nicola Zaccaria; sopranos Teresa Stich-Randall and Jeanne Beauvais

Books

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Alex Ross listens to the twentieth century; Lawrence Kramer on the viability of classical music

Dateline: United States

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by OUSSAMA ZAHR

Dateline: Canada & Europe

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Coda: Desert Island Tenors

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by RICHARD SPEER

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