The Season at a glance

[muckefuck]

Oh, what the hell. It don't usually do rankings, but this represents something of a consensus view:

1. Rigoletto Just about everything right--for a change.
2. Der Rosenkavalier With better conducting (curse of Davis again), this could've been a contender for the #1 spot.
3. Orfeo ed Euridice First controversial choice; probably a rank lower without Nuphy's strong vote.
4. Die Zauberflöte Familiar production. Could've been saved by better singers, but Papageno in particular underwhelmed.
5. Carmen Beats out La cenerentola by being fundamentally a great opera rather than a decent one.
6. La cenerentola Points for the set design and the tenor.
7. Manon Lescault Twenty minutes of dying "in the desert near New Orleans". Nuff said.
8. The Midsummer Marriage Undisputed bottom of the barrel, due almost solely to the truly abysmal quality of the opera rather than that of the production or performers.

Best Performance Hands down, Anne Schwanewilms as the Marschalin.

Honourable Mentions I suppose if we wanted to perform some affirmative action, we could put "Female" in there and give Juan Diego Flórez "Best Male" for his turn as Don Ramiro, but I'm not down with that. Overall, the guys simply failed to wow this season and we do them no favours by not pointing that out so they try harder next time. I'd much rather hand out prizes to Patricia Racette for her sublime Micaëla (and she'll be back for Dialogues of the Carmelites--squee!) or Karita Mattila for almost single-handedly making Manon worth hearing.

Best Conducting Jesús López-Cobos for Rigoletto.

Best Set Design/Best Stage Direction Rigoletto again. An ingenious, well-crafted set and well thought-out blocking and stage business. Why can't you guys accomplish this for more than two or three operas per season?