Opera voting, ICO and more

Here’s more from the looking-ahead file:

—Indianapolis Opera, which has its “Das Rheingold” collaboration with the ISO coming up on the 15th, has just anounced its 2009/2010 season.

It kicks off October 2 with Indianapolis native Angela Brown in her first performance as the lead in Strauss’ “Ariadne Auf Naxos.” It will be something of an old home week as Columbus, Indiana-born Jane Dutton also has a “role debut” as the Composer.

After that comes Puccini’s “La Boheme” in November, with a cast TBA.

The third production will be something new for IO — not necessarily a new production but a new process for picking it. Audiences — and potential audiences — will vote on what they want to see. Voting runs through June 1. The votes of season ticket count as three times that of the rest of us.

Another change: It’s not just traditional operas that are on the short list. While Verdi’s “La Traviata,” Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci,” Gounod’s “Faust,” Bizet’s “Carmen,” Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” and Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” are on the ballot, so are Romberg’s “The Desert Song, ” Leigh’s “Man of La Mancha” and either “Mikado” or “HMS Pinafore” by Gilbert and Sullivan.

Also making the next-to-final cut: Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd.”

–IU Auditorium now has its 2009/2010 lineup posted and, well, it’s a bit of a yawn. Especially in the fall. Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons get things started September 26 (not the only time their music will be heard around here next season — hint, hint). Then it’s a “Wizard of Oz” tour, another second-tier Cirque Dreams show and the Beatles’ show “Rain” that already played Clowes. Gas money will be better spent in the Fall, when the Auditorium hosts the Cleveland Orchestra in January, Bill T. Jones Dance in February and Yo-Yo Ma in March. I’m also curious about the Punch Brothers, coming in April.

–I already let slip that the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra’s upcoming season will include a follow-up to its glorious presentation of Buster Keaton’s “The General” earlier this season. This February, it willl accompany a double feature: the Keaton short “One Week” paired with Harold Lloyd’s masterpiece “Safety Last.”

Also in the 2009/2010 ICO lineup: Organist Heather Hinton in September, a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November with Beethoven’s Ninth, two performances of the complete Hendel’s “Messiah” in December, Ravel’s Piano Concerto in April with Russian pianist Gleb Ivanov, and violinist Lara St. John closing things out in May.

Your thoughts? Anything you have particularly high hopes for? And what will you be voting for in the Indianapolis Opera election?