butts in seats

Whelp. The Met announced their 17/18 season this morning, and perhaps the biggest surprise is that none of these really come as a surprise. A few highlights:

• Norma: solid opening night; with Radvanovsky, DiDonato & Calleja I would definitely attend if possible
• Cendrillon: new production, harmless fun
• Exterminating Angel: Adès' newest work with awesome-looking cast; for my money this is the event of the season
• Ermonela Jaho: nice to see the Albanian soprano returning to the Met but sadly in the awful current Butterfly production, creepy doll and all
• Parsifal: truly a world-class cast in Vogt, Mattei, Pape, and wait for it... Evelyn Herlitzius in her Met debut
• Nozze: whoa, this actually looks fun!? Yoncheva, Sierra, Kwiecien, Abdrazakov, count me in!
• Thaïs: Ailyn Perez as Christian Lacroix Thaïs? okayyyy; Gerald Finley will make a ravishing Athanaël
• Jonas Kaufmann* + Anna Netrebko: as far as I can tell their only appearance this year is the new McVicar Tosca but not with each other!???? UGHH

La forza del destino: very clear now that the Bieito Forza would've added some oomph to this ~ok~ season
*(jk: J.K. has dropped out of Tosca)