Met life.

Moffo_lucia_3Siepi_giovanni_2

A Wellsung post from last week has become a new meme/party trick at Parterre Box: What is your "birth opera"? The idea is to dig into the Metropolitan Opera Archives online and find out what the company was doing on the day you were born. (Those born during months in which the Met was dark have taken the liberty to turn their attention to other houses in the comments following La Cieca’s post.)

As it happens, the Met was busy on the day I was born, playing both a matinee and an evening performance in Boston:

LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR {346}

Lucia...................Anna Moffo
Edgardo.................Sándor Kónya
Enrico..................Nicolae Herlea
Raimondo................Raymond Michalski
Normanno................Robert Nagy
Alisa...................Carlotta Ordassy
Arturo..................Charles Anthony

Conductor...............Joseph Rosenstock

DON GIOVANNI {260}

Don Giovanni............Cesare Siepi
Donna Anna..............Teresa Stich-Randall
Don Ottavio.............Jan Peerce
Donna Elvira............Mary Ellen Pracht
Leporello...............Fernando Corena
Zerlina.................Jeanette Scovotti
Masetto.................Theodor Uppman
Commendatore............Justino Díaz

Conductor...............Joseph Rosenstock

So, how about it? What’s your "birth opera"?

Playlist:

Antonio Vivaldi [att.] – Andromeda Liberata – Simone Kermes, Max Emanuel Cencic, Venice Baroque Orchestra/Andrea Marcon (Archiv)

Antonio VivaldiAmor Profano – Simone Kermes, Venice Baroque Orchestra/Andrea Marcon (Archiv)

Joseph HaydnDie Schöpfung – Simone Kermes, Dorothee Mields, Steve Davislim, Locky Chung, Johannes Mannov, Balthasar-Neumann Choir and Ensemble/Thomas Hengelbrock (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)

Punch BrothersPunch (Nonesuch)

Elvis CostelloThis Year’s Model (Hip-O/Universal)

8 responses to “Met life.”

  1. As it turns out I was born on an auspicious date: the day Giulietta Siminato made her Met debut as Azucena in Trovatore:
    [Met Performance] CID:183000
    New production
    Il Trovatore {302} Metropolitan Opera House: 10/26/1959.
    (Opening Night {75}
    Rudolf Bing, General Manager
    Debuts: Giulietta Simionato, Roald Reitan
    Review)
    Metropolitan Opera House
    October 26, 1959
    Opening Night {75}
    New production
    Rudolf Bing, General Manager
    IL TROVATORE {302}
    Giuseppe Verdi–Salvatore Cammarano
    Manrico……………..Carlo Bergonzi
    Leonora……………..Antonietta Stella
    Count Di Luna………..Leonard Warren
    Azucena……………..Giulietta Simionato [Debut]
    Ferrando…………….William Wilderman
    Ines………………..Helen Vanni
    Ruiz………………..Charles Anthony
    Messenger……………Robert Nagy
    Gypsy……………….Roald Reitan [Debut]
    Conductor……………Fausto Cleva
    Director…………….Herbert Graf
    Designer…………….Motley

  2. The Met and San Francisco were both dark on my birthday. Wah.

  3. Only because everyone already knew you deserved to have the spotlight all to yourself that day, Lisa.

  4. I seem to be having a Soprano Moment and can’t figure out how to search the database for my birthday… ??

  5. It took me a minute to figure out as well, ACB (although I note that La Cieca spelled it out): Go to the Met archive site, click on Key Word Search, then simply enter your full birth date in the top search field. Voila! Do report.

  6. Far too much fun for a day this gloomy. Here’s mine.

  7. This is so entertaining, I’m only surprised no one suggested it sooner. Mine is here.

  8. Oddly enough–as I was being born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on May 30, 1973–the Met was performing Il Trovatore (with Richard Tucker) a mere 50 miles away in Detroit.

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