Open season for opera fans

Altogether there are some 10 operas this season, including two at Masada next June – Samson and Delilah by Saint Saens and Verdi’s A Masked Ball.

By HELEN KAYE
The Israel Opera season starts in November at the opera house in Tel Aviv (photo credit: Courtesy)
The Israel Opera season starts in November at the opera house in Tel Aviv
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Israel Opera fans have two new operas to absorb for the new season: the Israeli debuts of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (April 2016) and Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers (July 2016) tells the story of a love triangle set in a Sri Lanka far more exotic than the real one.
Altogether there are some 10 operas this season, including two at Masada next June – Samson and Delilah by Saint Saens and Verdi’s A Masked Ball. There’ll also be a performance of Rigoletto by Verdi at the Sultan’s Pool in Jerusalem that same month.
At the opera house in Tel Aviv the season starts in November with a production from the Lithuanian National Opera of that perennial and beloved favorite by Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro.
Israel Opera music director Daniel Oren will conduct Verdi’s Il Trovatore in December with another Verdi, Macbeth, to be conducted by Daniele Callegani in May 2016.
For the lighthearted there’s the Budapest Operetta production of Strauss Jr.’s The Bat (February 2016) followed by Rossini’s La Cenerentola (April 2016) Always on the alert for something new, Israel Opera general director Hanna Munitz has planned a family Opera Festival next Succot with special hour-long shows of beloved operas such as The Magic Flute.
“For me, being head of the Israel Opera is not ‘just a job.’ It’s a passion.” she says. “I’m always looking for new challenges, for ways to bring opera and the public closer together.”