Seattle Opera‘s next season brings a cavalcade of famous names, beginning with the operas themselves: audience favorites like Porgy and Bess, Carmen, and Madama Butterfly, are joined by an opera that won over Seattle 24 years ago, Orphée et Eurydice, but hasn’t been back since. Completists and anyone who cares about a united Italy will be looking forward to the Seattle Opera premiere of an opera about a Hun you may have heard of: Attila, from a young Italian upstart named Verdi. 

Summertime is usually reserved for Wagner in Seattle, so this Porgy, which unites Gordon Hawkins and Lisa Daltirus in a true Seattle production (it’s toured here previously), may make the somnambulist opera subscriber blink a few times and recheck his tickets. John DeMain returns to conduct Gershwin’s chock-full-of-hits score, and Chris Alexander directs. Set and costumes are from New York Harlem Theatre. (By the way, if you ever run across a copy of Jim Cullum’s dixieland jazz version, buy it.)

In the lead in Carmen you’ll hear a newcomer, Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili, with Joseph Calleja and Michael Todd Simpson as the men she leads into poor life choices. Attila brings back John Relyea, with Venezuelan soprano Ana Lucrecia Garcia as Odabella and Antonello Palombi as Foresto. For Orphée, William Burden and Davinia Rodrìguez (Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!) are the lead couple. The season closes with Madama Butterfly, with the Met’s Patricia Racette making her Seattle Opera debut as Cio-Cio-San, and Italian tenor Stefano Secco as her second-thought-having Pinkerton.

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Other names of note: Pier Giorgio Morandi makes his Seattle Opera debut conducting Carmen. Perhaps saving on airfare, Bernard Uzan directs both Carmen and Attila, back to back. Carlo Montanaro leads the orchestra for Verdi’s opera, and Charles Edwards will provide the set design. For Orphée, the very good José Maria Condemi will direct, working with choreographer Yannis Adoniou and conductor Gary Thor Wedow. Designer is the young Philip Lienau. Another Butterfly? This one features inventive director Peter Kazaras, with new-to-Seattle Julian Kovatchev waving his baton around. 

The biggest names for opera cognoscenti have to be the relative rarity Orphée and the occasionally revived Attila, which finally got its own Met production last year. The New York Times review boils the plot down for you: “Attila the Hun conquers Italy; falls for the beautiful Odabella, daughter of a vanquished leader; rejects overtures from Roman general Ezio; and is killed by Odabella after marrying her.” If that sounds like an odd summary of Attila’s career, keep in mind that the subject of Italian opera is generally Italy. To tide you over, here’s one of the opera’s famous moments, which argues for an Italy free of foreign rule:

If 2009 was an unusually nostalgic year in local music for certain wistful Seattle Gen-Xers, 2010 was the opening cymbal crash of an encore. Defunct old favorites reunited. Extant old favorites continued to soar. A tight-knit community that first rocked the world a quarter-century ago grew ever closer, through remembrance of lost friends and the sharing of new music. Here are five 2010 music-related events that tickled those Seattleites who’ve been listening all these years. (Part two here.)

10. Pearl Jam Launches Satellite Radio Station
What do you give the fans who have everything (hundreds of official bootlegs, multiple live records, nine studio releases since 1991)? On October 22, the 20th anniversary of the band’s first show, Pearl Jam gave its fans the whole sonic shebang, in 24-hour rotation: Pearl Jam Radio. The band’s satellite channel (Sirius, 17; XM, 39) not only mixes concert and studio recordings, but gives its cult-status fan family a chance to hear previously unreleased show tracks (going back to that first gig) and another to commune on fan roundtable show “The All Encompassing Trip.” Live and studio recordings from PJ members’ other current and defunct projects, including Eddie Vedder’s solo work, Temple of the Dog, Mother Love Bone, and Mad Season are gravy. There’s no better way to tune in to Pearl Jam’s origins and evolution…unless you magically have all of this on vinyl.

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9. Soundgarden Issues Telephantasm Retrospective
No one expected a Soundgarden reunion prior to January 1, but most folks knew that a career-spanning best-of box was just a matter of time. On September 28, the latter followed the former, in multiple packages—from simple CD to sly (and savvy) Guitar Hero bonus to limited-pressing vinyl set. The box included all the audio hits, of course, but also some previously unreleased live tracks, 14 music videos, bonus videos, and one (excellent) unearthed song from the Badmotorfinger sessions, “Black Rain.” For those who couldn’t witness Soundgarden’s stage return—and that was pretty much everyone—Telephantasm was a worthy consolation prize.

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8. The Posies Tour Behind a New Record
Twenty-three years after Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow formed the Posies, twelve after the band split, and five following the release of a comeback studio record, Blood/Candy hit the bins. The Auer- and Stringfellow-penned album, deemed “different” by that core duo and many of its listeners, maintained the pop-pep-and-harmony sounds of its predecessors while hearkening back to psych-lite sounds of the ’60s and ’70s. Apparently reinvigorated, the duo (rounded out by bassist Matt Harris and drummer Darius Minwalla on Blood/Candy) played the Croc and Sasquatch in the spring, released the new record, and then toured behind it through the year’s last two months, delighting old fans and converting new ones in the process.

7. Alice in Chains Punctuates Return with Seattle Hat Trick
Everyone who thought Alice in Chains would kick ass without Layne Staley behind the mic raise your hand. Yeah, we were all wrong. The band’s late 2009 studio return, Black Gives Way to Blue>, not only rocked like classic AIC, it rocked liked new AIC. (It wisely sidestepped the potential Staley-void argument, too; new vocalist William DuVall harmonizes with Jerry Cantrell, yes, but with his own high-register wail.) Critics welcomed the record with open arms and ears. The Grammy folks gave it both a 2010 and 2011 Best Hard Rock Performance nod. And the band toured and toured. In February, AIC rewarded hometown fans with a two-night Paramount homestand. In October, the band returned to deliver a blistering KeyArena show. That concert was filmed—in 3D, no less—for (presumably) an upcoming DVD release. That should kick ass, too.

6. Black Happy Reunites for Final Tour
While some bands rode the coattails of Seattle’s pioneering Big Four in the early ’90s (Bush? Candlebox?), others never quite made it, despite having a real Seattle club presence. Black Happy, out of Coeur d’Alene, ID, fell into the latter category. Perhaps the band’s unique mix of metal and brass went over some listeners’ heads. Or maybe it was just bad luck. Regardless, 2010 saw the group’s original eight-member lineup reconcile from their 1996 split, if only for a brief Seattle/Spokane swan song. The shows sold out. The band rocked once more. Fists were shook in the face of fate. A DVD documenting the reunion is in the works.

Pothole on eastbound Aloha at the intersection of 15th Avenue East.

Mike Lindbom offers a significant update to my pothole story of last week (“Why So Many Potholes? Our City Streets are Failing“) in his story on our pothole epidemic in the Seattle Times  this morning.

Because Seattle citizens contacted SDOT a jaw-dropping 1,200 times about potholes in December, the new street maintenance director for Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT), Steve Pratt, is sending out nine Pothole Ranger crews this January, “instead of the usual two to three.” 

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The Times has created an interactive pothole map which is seeing some heavy use. It allows you both to report the potholes in your neighborhood or on your commute, and to view the potholes that others have noted as well. It also keeps track of fixed potholes. 

Lindblom’s story spells out the problem with the funding mechanisms for “generic” street repair–the recent Bridging the Gap levy was dedicated to addressing specific projects on backlog, not for dealing with our whack-a-mole pothole problem–and also makes the point that potholes are dangerous to “drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians.”

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To avoid potholes, drivers often swerve around, crossing the center line into oncoming traffic.

 

 

 

 

This sharrow on Aloha shares half the lane with potholes and patches over the course of three blocks.

“It’s definitely a safety hazard, when you have to maneuver around a pothole into oncoming traffic,” Lindblom’s story quotes a University District resident as saying. “You’re forced to do that a lot now.” It also quotes SDOT’s Pratt: “The priorities of city government in the last 50 years, not enough attention was focused on the street maintenance and preservation programs.”

The last week of new releases of last year went out not with a bang, but a whimper. Here’s to hoping that 2011 brings better movies, because 2010 was downright weak. And lucky for us, all those weak 2010 releases will be released on DVD over the next few months, for you to enjoy their poor quality in the comfort of your home. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the latest releases on DVD, care of our good friends at Scarecrow Video.

The biggest release last week was The American, starring George Clooney as George Clooney, an assassin working one last job, until the tables are turned and he becomes the target. In other words, George Clooney has a bad day. Speaking of bad days, Milla Jovovich has yet another one in the latest (fourth!) edition of the post-apocalyptic Resident Evil enterprise, Resident Evil: Afterlife. Gossip Girl‘s Chace Crawford has a bad day with drugs in Joel Schumacher’s Twelve, and Idris Elba (that’s Stringer Bell to you) has a bad day in a yet another bad movie choice, Legacy.

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With the big releases out of the way, we can take a look at a few of the smaller ones. Legendary is Patricia Clarkson’s stab at The Blind Side, with WWE star John Cena hoping to coach his little brother to a high school wrestling championship, and just maybe bring his family back together. In And Soon the Darkness, a vacation becomes trouble when a girl goes missing in Argentina, leaving her friend to find her. Handsome Harry is Jamey Sheridan as a Vietnam vet forced to face his past when his dying brother in arms Steve Buscemi seeks forgiveness. And documentary Sickert vs. Sargent covers the art world rivalry between late 1800s/early 1900s painters Walter Sickert and John Singer Sargent.

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In TV on DVD, season one of Archer is now available, just in time for season two to debut on FX later this month. Season two of Toni Collette’s multiple personalities Showtime series The United States of Tara is also out now, and you know it wouldn’t be trainwreck TV without Jersey Shore. Season three doesn’t premiere for another couple days, but season two is now available (as is a season one and two box set). And relive the holiday season all over again with Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job‘s Chrimbus special.

And there’s not even any good picks for the grab bag this week, so might I interest you in a young Ellen Page? When Juno was only 16, she was in a Halloween-themed Animal Planet movie, The Cat That Came Back, also known as Mrs. Ashboro’s Cat, also known as Ghost Cat, the title of which pretty much tells you the whole story. Here’s a non-spooky taste: