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Gala performance to be transmitted live in HD to 600 theaters in North and South America as well as to Times Square and Fordham University’s Lincoln Center Plaza, and broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio SIRIUS channel 78; Music Director James Levine, Marco Armiliato, and Patrick Summers conduct, with Ramón Vargas, Thomas Hampson, and Dwayne Croft singing leading roles in scenes from La Traviata, Manon, and Capriccio; Legendary designers John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel create costumes for Fleming

August 28, 2008

New York, NY (August 28, 2008) – The Metropolitan Opera opens its 2008-09 season on September 22 with a gala performance that kicks off its 125th anniversary, starring Renée Fleming in three fully-staged scenes, including some of her most acclaimed portrayals. Costumes for Fleming have been specially created for each of the scenes in the Opening Night Gala by three of the world’s legendary fashion designers: John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel.

The program opens with Act II of Verdi’s La Traviata, and continues with Act III of Massenet’s Manon, and the final scene of Richard Strauss’s one act opera, Capriccio. Met Music Director James Levine conducts the second act of La Traviata, which has two scenes: the first at Violetta’s country house and the second at a grand Parisian mansion in the elaborate staging by Franco Zeffirelli. Ramón Vargas sings the role of Alfredo Germont, and Thomas Hampson that of his father, Giorgio. Christian Lacroix has designed two costumes for Fleming, one for each scene.

The Manon act is also in two parts: the first is the spectacular “Cours-la-Reine” scene featuring the heroine’s famous “Gavotte,” followed by the searingly dramatic scene in the church of St. Sulpice. Ramón Vargas is Manon’s lover, the Chevalier des Grieux, Dwayne Croft her cousin, Lescaut, and Robert Lloyd the Chevalier’s father, the Comte des Grieux, with Marco Armiliato conducting. Fleming’s costume for scene one and an additional cloak for the second scene are by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel.

The musically transcendent finale of Capriccio, conducted by Patrick Summers, music director of the Houston Grand Opera, concludes the evening, with Fleming in a costume created by John Galliano.

Renee Fleming as Violetta and Thomas Hampson as Germont perform in “La Traviata” in New York, on Sept. 19, 2008. Photographer: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera via Bloomberg News

By Manuela Hoelterhoff

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) – Usually the setting for shouting matches around the prompt box between temperamental divas and short tenors, the Metropolitan Opera opening last night featured three haute-couture designers and one shape-changing soprano, the fabled Renee Fleming.

Dressed by Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel and John Galliano, Fleming sailed through scenes from three operas by three very different composers: Verdi, Massenet, Strauss. All were staged in wonderfully opulent productions (Franco Zeffirelli, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, John Cox) that showed off the company at its grandest along with Fleming's astonishing versatility and dramatically reduced embonpoint.

As Violetta, she wore a floral gathered dress with cinched waist by Lacroix, very suitable indeed for the gardening the briefly reformed courtesan takes up in Act II.

An intermission later, she turned into Manon, Massenet's material girl, shopping on the Cour de la Reine in a subtly sparkling mauve rococo number with lace sleeves by Lagerfeld. Finally, in perhaps the most startling transformation, she topped herself off with page-boy wig, and sauntered into the Countess's salon wearing Galliano's art deco sheath to sing the last scene from ``Capriccio, a wordy opera from which most people don't wish to hear more. Table for Ten Why the fuss? For the Met, the opening gala is a big fundraiser and these frocks were finished long before the titans who love this place had a few holes in their pockets. Just what the future holds for the Met is anybody's guess, but last night raked in a record-breaking $6.2 million. Tickets zoomed up to $100,000 (which included chicken dinner for ten in an outdoor tent). Early on, a funny assortment of celebrities paraded along the red carpet, people like Henry Kissinger, Jane Fonda and Martha Stewart, who could do her TV show from Violetta's country house with those perfect potted plants and that couch with a fringe (knit by the girl herself on a rainy day). Martha later held court on the Grand Tier with mezzo Susan Graham, who hosted the live transmission to various movie theaters in this hemisphere and also Times Square and the Fordham campus across the street. Fondling one perfect orange, Martha promised Susan she would make her a new drink called The Grande Dame. Thomas Hampson What about us? I could have used some kind of elixir during the four-hour marathon whose early highlight was an emotionally affecting duet between Violetta and Alfredo's provincial father, sung by Thomas Hampson, one of the few singers around with Fleming's linguistic range, stylistic command, and riveting looks. He surely merited a designer of his own. Did no-one think of Ralph Lauren to kit him out – and also dissuade feisty tenor Ramon Vargas from those high-heeled boots? Making a surprise appearance were the sets from ``Manon. I had quite forgotten how magical they were, such a phantasmagoric assemblage of 18th-century architecture, acrobats, hawkers, festively dressed crowds. Fleming sang the showy aria a little carefully, but then pulled out all the stops in the next scene set in the church of St. Sulpice.

You may remember that the feckless des Grieux has fled here to escape her wiles and become a priest. As Fleming threw open her cape to reveal that tight Lagerfeld dress, the poor man just didn't stand a chance. Vargas did some impressive emoting before high-tailing it out the door with her.

After a short interview with Susan Graham, and a trip to her dressing room, Fleming returned with the ``Capriccio'' finale which has the autumnal glow of the Last Songs without their searching texts. Are words or music more important as we proceed through life – or write an opera?

1942 Clunker

By the time this clunker arrived in Munich in 1942, Strauss was really old and beaten down by the Nazis. More urgent topics could obviously not be discussed in this climate of fear. Of course, Strauss answered his own question. Who can remember a single line from the piece? But all of us at the Met last night will remember Fleming's radiant singing.

Three conductors ably supported the diva: James Levine, looking buoyant after his health scare this summer, Marco Armiliato and Patrick Summers.

(Manuela Hoelterhoff is executive editor of Muse, Bloomberg's leisure and arts section. Any opinions expressed are her own.)

An audience in Times Square had a free treat on Monday evening: projections of the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night, with Renée Fleming in excerpts from “La Traviata,” “Manon” and “Capriccio.”

The Metropolitan Opera opened its 125th-anniversary season on Monday evening with a gala Renée Fleming showcase. Everything about the three-part evening was fashioned, quite literally, for Ms. Fleming.

She was featured in three favorite roles: Violetta in Act II 0f Verdi’s “Traviata”; Manon in Act III of Massenet’s “Manon”; and the Countess in the final scene of Strauss’s “Capriccio.” To lend an extra touch of diva dazzle to the evening, the Met commissioned three renowned fashion designers to create Ms. Fleming’s costumes: Christian Lacroix for “Traviata,” Karl Lagerfeld for “Manon” and John Galliano for “Capriccio.”

For weeks waggish opera bloggers had dubbed the evening “The Renée Fleming Fashion Show,” “The Renéesance” and such. And in a way the gala was, as the Met’s general manager Peter Gelb said recently on “Charlie Rose,” a “kind of retro affair.”

Mr. Gelb had been critical of the Met’s penchant, under his predecessors, for presenting an opening-night gala as a showcase for a star, or a pair of stars, in sundry acts from existing productions. A major opera company, he argued, should open its season with a major statement, meaning an ambitious new production, as he did during his first two seasons with Anthony Minghella’s cinematic production of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” in 2006 and Mary Zimmerman’s updated staging of Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” in 2007.

But Ms. Fleming had been promised a chance to anchor an entire opening night before Mr. Gelb’s arrival. She is one of the Met’s most valuable and popular stars, so naturally Mr. Gelb honored that promise.

There were the typical posh trappings to this glittery opening night. Celebrities and dignitaries could be spotted arriving on the red carpet and wandering the aisles, including Helen Mirren, Barbara Cook, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Henry and Nancy Kissinger. But to give a populist reach to the gala, the performance was broadcast live to a network of high-definition movie houses in some 500 theaters in North America and Argentina. Hundreds more saw the performance on simulcast screens set up in nearby Fordham Plaza (since the Lincoln Center Plaza is closed for reconstruction) and in Times Square.

Ms. Fleming wanted her special night and wanted to make it enjoyably luxurious. Still, she had serious artistic goals. Hearing her in three works of such contrasting styles did not make for the most cogent operatic experience. But it was a challenging feat to bring off. She gave her all and, for the most part, sang beautifully.

In Act II of “Traviata,” when we find Violetta living in an airy country home near Paris with her smitten lover, Alfredo, Ms. Fleming, from her first phrases, sang with supple phrasing and found a distinctive vocal coloring — earthy, tremulous, clarion — to match the dramatic and musical moment. As is her way, she took a boldly expressive approach to dynamics, which is not to all tastes. Still, I have seldom heard the music sung with such rhythmic honesty.

The tenor Ramón Vargas was an impassioned Alfredo. But the baritone Thomas Hampson was disappointing as Alfredo’s patriarchal father Germont. His singing, though powerful and burnished, was too often blunt and bellowed. He made a stiff-backed father, so determined to extricate his son from this scandalous affair that he seemed impervious to the personal dignity of Ms. Fleming’s vulnerable Violetta.

In the second scene of Act II, when the story moves to the soirée at the Paris home of the wealthy Flora, another Met audience was made to endure Franco Zeffirelli’s garish sets, exceeded in their tasteless extravagance only by the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Still, James Levine conducted a taut, exciting performance, so nimble and bracing that it reminded me of the classic Toscanini recording.

Marco Armiliato conducted Act III of “Manon,” in the highly stylized, handsome production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. The act begins at an outdoor fair in Paris, a scene crowded with festive people: vendors, acrobats and more. Ms. Fleming, as the coquettish and fatally superficial young Manon played things to the hilt, tossing off the florid and coyly alluring melodies, soaking up the adulation of the crowd. But she was at her best in the second scene. Learning that the disconsolate lover she abandoned, the Chevalier des Grieux, is about to take vows as a priest, she tracks him down at the Chapel St. Sulpice and lures him back during an intense and unrelenting duet. Mr. Vargas, as des Grieux, was again in ardent form.

But the highlight of the program was the final 20-minute scene, nearly a soliloquy, from Strauss’s final opera, “Capriccio.” This opera is a breezy yet profound dialectical drama that explores an aesthetic question: Is the music more important than the words in a song, an opera?

The debate is embodied in the opera’s love triangle, with two men, a composer and a poet, competing for the affection of the widowed Countess, who in this final scene must decide how the opera her suitors are writing jointly should end: in effect, choosing between them.

As the Countess facing the question, Ms. Fleming lovingly shaped the arching, infectious phrases and showed this keenly perceptive character going through bouts of confusion, girlish ardor, flattered vanity and world-weary resignation.

She looked glamorous in the black dress and Art Deco-styled cape that Mr. Galliano designed for her. At least I think the style was Art Deco. Fashion is not my thing. You can see for yourself in an online montage linked to this article, not to mention a lavish spread in the current issue of Vogue, with Ms. Fleming modeling all of her designer costumes.