Plans were then already under way to replace his Tosca and Carmen, however, and days later Zeffirelli told New York magazine, “I imagine the Met must present masterpieces with a different approach, but who is going to give a better approach than what I did? They must preserve some of my productions, which are really masterpieces.”Īccording to Robert Tuggle, director of archives at the Met, Zeffirelli has directed 11 productions at the famed opera house. On March 29, 2008, when Zeffirelli was 85, he and Gelb came together on the Met stage to celebrate the record-breaking 347th performance of the director’s greatest triumph with the company, his 1981 La Bohème. Zeffirelli has been outspoken in his resentment of this process, the driving force behind which is Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager.

This week brings us the latest episode in the ongoing saga of replacing those sumptuously detailed but somewhat dusty productions created by Franco Zeffirelli for the Metropolitan Opera with new stagings, in this case his 1970 double bill of Cav and Pag (Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci) with a new version, by Sir David McVicar.

Met opera schedule april 2015