If you were among the many who experienced the imaginative, semi-animated production of “The Magic Flute” that Minnesota Opera presented last year, you set a record for the most popular production in the company’s 50-plus-year history. If you weren’t, you have another chance.
The Minnesota Opera is bringing that production back as part of its 2015-16 season. It’s also reviving its 2008 staging of Antonin Dvorak’s “Rusalka” and is presenting Giacomo Puccini’s very popular “Tosca” for the first time since 2006. Lest you think it a “greatest hits” season, know that it opens with a relatively rarely staged comedy by Richard Strauss and concludes with the world premiere of Paul Moravec’s operatic adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, “The Shining.”
Here are details on the 2015-16 season:
— “Ariadne auf Naxos.” Not since 1987 has Minnesota Opera staged Richard Strauss’ comedy about low and high art battling for the attention of audiences. It revolves around the inadvertent double booking of rowdy comics and stuffy opera singers for the same party, and features soprano Amber Wagner in the title role and tenor Brian Jagde as the god, Bacchus. Michael Christie opens his fourth season as Minnesota Opera music director, conducting a production that runs Sept. 26-Oct. 4.
— “The Magic Flute.” You’ve never seen anything quite like this collaboration between the Komische Oper Berlin and English theater troupe 1927. Mozart’s final operatic masterpiece about love, honor, snakes and bells is lent the patina of an old silent film, the singers surrounded by cartoon projections full of arachnid queens and floating pink elephants. Christie Hageman Conover, Julien Behr and Andrew Wilkowske return to the lead roles, Nov. 14-22. And they’re bringing the production to Duluth, too.
— “Rusalka.” Local favorite Kelly Kaduce returns to the role she sang in ’08, the water nymph who falls for a prince and becomes human, but loses her voice. Marianne Cornetti, outstanding as the witch in November’s “Hansel and Gretel,” is one again in Dvorak’s sad romance, which runs Jan. 23-31.
— “Tosca.” Giacomo Puccini is such a popular composer that, no matter which of his works Minnesota Opera presents, the production generally doubles up on performances and singers in the leading roles. Such is the case with his tale of love, jealousy and corruption involving an opera singer, an artist and a vicious police chief. One set of singers features Hungarian soprano Csilla Boross making her company debut alongside Rafael Davila and Stephen Powell (revisiting the villainous Scarpia after a memorable take on him at the Minnesota Orchestra’s 2010 Sommerfest). Eight performances take place between March 12 and 26, 2016.
— “The Shining.” Yes, Minnesota Opera does the classics well, but some of its finest productions have come when it’s premiered new operas like Ricky Ian Gordon’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” Kevin Puts’ Pulitzer-winning “Silent Night” or Douglas Cuomo’s “Doubt.” Another Pulitzer winner, Paul Moravec, is adapting Stephen King’s novel about a family at a haunted hotel and is reportedly hewing far closer to King’s book than Stanley Kubrick’s film. Baritone Brian Mulligan showed during 2013’s excellent “Hamlet” that he does well with characters driven mad by ghosts, so he should make for a very interesting Jack Torrance alongside Kaduce’s Wendy. It runs May 7-15, 2016.
All performances take place at the Ordway Music Theater. Season subscriptions ranging from $815 to $110 and three-opera packages starting at $75 are currently available at mnopera.org, and will be available at 612-333-6669 on Monday Tickets to individual productions go on sale in July.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at rhubbard@pioneerpress.com.
