Placido Domingo will get ample airtime on PBS' 'Great Performances' in 2011 [Updated]

Plácido Domingo is headed for some serious tube time in 2011.

WNET, the New York City public television station that produces the "Great Performances" series for PBS, announced Thursday that it is readying a retrospective called "Plácido Domingo: My Favorite Roles," and has also slotted a telecast of "Il Postino," in which Domingo stars as the Chilean poet  Pablo Neruda, in Daniel Catán's treatment of the beloved film (set in Italy) and the original novel by Antonio Skarmeta (set in Chile) on which the film was loosely based.

In "My Favorite Roles," according to WNET, Domingo, L.A. Opera's general director, "looks back and reflects ... on his choicest roles from opera houses around the world." Excerpts from "Carmen," "Tales of Hoffmann" and "Tosca" are promised, and "Great Performances" has tapped its own archives for footage of Domingo performing at La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera and Berlin State Opera.

No broadcast dates were given for either program. KOCE, the Orange County PBS affiliate that takes over for KCET Jan. 1 as the PBS flagship station in Southern California, has slotted Saturdays at 8 p.m. for the periodic new shows in the  "Great Performances" series -- starting New Year's Day with the Vienna Philharmonic's annual New Year's concert, conducted by Franz Welser-Most and hosted by Paula Zahn. That's also when KOCE will rename itself PBS SoCal.

The monthly "Great Performances at the Met" opera series will be shown the first Wednesday of each month, starting Jan. 5 with Donizetti's "Don Pasquale," featuring Anna Netrebko.

In October, crews taped multiple performances of "Il Postino" toward the end of its premiere run at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, said Los Angeles Opera spokesman Mark Lyons. The opera closed on Tuesday at Theater an der Wien in Vienna, and the third and final stop for its shared world premiere is Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, where it is scheduled to open in June.  It remains to be seen (or unseen) how PBS will handle the nudity involved in the opera -- likely via strategic camera angles.

The "Great Performances" crew also found time to cross the street to Walt Disney Concert Hall to capture the Oct. 7 opening night of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's season.

That program, "Celebración! Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil With Juan Diego Florez," will, perhaps fittingly, be KCET's farewell to "Great Performances" when it airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. The Los Angeles station goes independent on Jan. 1 and will no longer carry PBS programming; Huntington Beach becomes PBS-central for greater Los Angeles come the New Year, although KOCE recently announced it plans to move its studios early in 2011 to an office building in Costa Mesa, just across the San Diego Freeway from the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

 -- Mike Boehm

[Updated 9:45 p.m.: An earlier version of this story misspelled Daniel Catán.]

RELATED

Opera review: L.A. Opera premieres 'Il Postino'

'Il Postino's' route: '50s Chile to '70s Italy to Thursday night in L.A.

Gustavo Dudamel coming to PBS in December, along with Eva Mendes.

It's official: PBS lineup moves to KOCE-TV starting Jan. 1

Critic's notebook: Will KCET keep its pledge?

 

Photo: Plácido Domingo and Cristina Gallardo-Domas in a love scene from L.A. Opera's "Il Postino;" Gustavo Dudamel and singer Juan Diego Florez perform at L.A. Phil's Oct. 7 opening night concert. Credits: Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles Times ("Il Postino); Gary Friedman/Los Angeles Times

 

 

 

Comments

[Isabel Rojas-Williams]

I am delighted to read your article, nevertheless I would like to make a slight correction: the music for "Il Postino" was composed by Daniel Catán (not "Catalan" as stated in this article). Pablo Neruda would be extremely proud to know that the music of an opera based on his life was composed by Daniel Catán. Catán is the first Mexican composer to have an opera produced in Spanish in the United States.

Isabel Rojas-Williams
Art Historian

[Isabel Rojas-Williams]

Thank you for the prompt correction on Daniel Catán's name!

[zach]

So they're skipping over Das Rheingold and starting with Don Pasquale?

[Laurence Glavin]

I love this! Especially during December, PBS overdoses on pop material by overrated, usually washed up "artists" in order to raise funds. Then after these viewers have sent a check to their public TV stations, instead of doo-wop or Andre Rieu, they get OPERA, and Gustavo ?Dudamel, and Gould. Serves them right.

[Laurence Glavin]

Sorry for the typo: I meant GLENN Gould.

[Patricia]

I think KCET should lose their slot in the HD lineup. Some little local show does not need to be broadcast in HD. Let's save the HD channels for the important national content like the PBS Newshour and Great Performances.