New York Hearts Seattle
It's funny, because just the other day Seattlest was nattering about composer Adam Guettel and his winning ways on Broadway, and now the Met is jumping up and down in our inbox trying to catch our attention with some "let's eat Seattle's lunch" news.
Let's just fire up the Contextualyzer first, so you're up to speed. The Met is old. Old, old, old. However, they have bold new plans, courtesy of their new General Manager Elect, Peter Gelb. Like they want to use moon-based lasers to deliver opera via brain-implants (we're speculating, of course, but it seems that's where hi-def digital delivery of opera to movie theaters would naturally lead).
A-a-a-nywho. Here's the part where we count all the ways Seattle got there first.
[I]n 2010-11, visionary director Robert Lepage will begin staging a new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, culminating with a full Ring cycle in the 2011-12 season...
A new Ring? Yeah, we've heard of that.
There's also a new Met/LCT Opera/Theater Commissions program, to develop new shows for the Met and Lincoln Center Theatre.
The initial group of artists selected to take part in the Met/LCT Opera/Theater Commissions initiative includes Adam Guettel, Jake Heggie, Michael John LaChiusa, Wynton Marsalis, Rachel Portman and Nicholas Wright, Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner, Michael Torke and Craig Lucas, Rufus Wainwright, and Scott Wheeler.
Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas were the creative duo behind a little work called Light in the Piazza that had its premiere at plucky local theater the Intiman. Composer Jake Heggie is currently working on a commission for Seattle's Music of Remembrance, after his End of the Affair hit Seattle Opera last fall. And Rufus Wainwright? Well, okay, we won't argue that.
The Met is also borrowing the Intiman's Bart Sher to direct Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia this November. Bart's as busy as a bee-inspired beaver these days, actually, since he's been tapped to direct The Light in the Piazza on the musical's national tour (it's at The Paramount Theatre from April 17-29, 2007). The Intiman has just announced they're gonna do George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House, directed by Jon Jory, instead of the previously announced, Bart-helmed, Man and Superman this summer.
If it weren't Wynton, New York would hardly be worth visiting these days. Hell, we might just stay home and read Gothamist, do some occasional bailing out in the basement.
