There are no explosive audience-reaction moments in the Met's revived Manon Lescaut, but it is quietly and cumulatively devastating in a way almost beyond applause. Absolutely recommended.
A post on the piece will follow; performance details may or may not be included (if not, expect yet another post after Friday's performance).
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Valkyrie notes
Lorin Maazel's account of Die Walküre is nothing if not detailed, though from the first measures of Monday's performance one might have guessed that was all it would be. Every footstep, raindrop, surge of breath in Siegmund's stormy pre-curtain flight was independently audible in the prelude -- but not the flight itself, its sweep of urgency and desperation. Would this, then, be one of those trees-hiding-the-forest performances with which (fairly or not) Maazel is associated?
For much of the evening it seemed that it might. As clearly as he drew forth Act I's textures and details, so did Maazel leave its overall thrust murky: what large-scale concept he showed was coolly measured, at odds with the Wälsungs'* hot and spontaneous pathos and therefore ineffective. The moments failed to add up.
[*That is, for non-Wagnerians, Siegmund and Sieglinde -- the children of "Wälse".]
Yet Act II, on this night, brought a new focus. The three key dialogues -- Wotan-Fricka, Wotan-Brünnhilde, and Brünnhilde-Siegmund -- were each wholly of a piece, and increasingly effective as both sound and musical drama. After that, whether by the night's inspiration, increasingly simpatico music, or some other cause, Maazel led a remarkably unified and emotionally communicative account of Act III as one grand whole, and no less clear in texture and details for that. It may have been the best Met conducting of the season, for which Maazel deserved all bravos.
* * *
The cast did their bit. Adrianne Pieczonka is in the lighter, lyric tradition of Sieglindes, quite expressive vocally though without climactic power. She is excellently responsive onstage as well, whether in motion or standstill, though the fact that her acting is more or less school-of-Mattila conjures some (unfairly) unflattering comparisons. Her Siegmund, Clifton Forbis, is sonically an unobjectionable example of a groanentenor, but he does much with this resource, showing a deep-felt dignity that works to great effect in this part. (Domingo has always been too transparently demonstrative.)
The Valkyrie herself, Lisa Gasteen, was announced as suffering a sore throat. This, I hope, explains the very short top with which she worked -- not even trying the high notes in her entrance "Hojotoho" -- but her performance was still, on the whole, a success. Gasteen sings with a firm tone, not dark but effortlessly grounded in the chest, and a natural feeling for the musical line. These provide her great expressive resources for her dialog with Siegmund (the so-called "Todesverkündigung", death announcement) and final encounter with Wotan. She used them to heart-rending effect.
Gasteen and Forbis are on the same vocal-emotional page, and it shows. So are Gasteen and James Morris. The latter's detractors will, I suppose, note his refusal/inability to try blasting over the orchestra (which Maazel never really reigns in, for both good and bad) and near-crooned pianissimos, but in character and phrase he is more engaged and dead-on than ever.
* * *
While premiered in 1870, Wagner's Walküre was composed in the mid-1850s, not long after the premiere of Verdi's La Traviata. Monday's performance, featuring the aurally splendid, passionately-articulated Fricka of Stephanie Blythe, brought this to mind -- for don't both operas turn on a middle-act argument of respectability vs. love, where the former wins not by its own claims but by almost incidentally puncturing the latter's self-delusion?
One does better, I think, seeing the Ring operas separately: human-scale touches like this (and Siegmund's nobility, and the particulars of sibling, marital, and filial pathos) then aren't swamped by the grandiose big-picture mess.
For much of the evening it seemed that it might. As clearly as he drew forth Act I's textures and details, so did Maazel leave its overall thrust murky: what large-scale concept he showed was coolly measured, at odds with the Wälsungs'* hot and spontaneous pathos and therefore ineffective. The moments failed to add up.
[*That is, for non-Wagnerians, Siegmund and Sieglinde -- the children of "Wälse".]
Yet Act II, on this night, brought a new focus. The three key dialogues -- Wotan-Fricka, Wotan-Brünnhilde, and Brünnhilde-Siegmund -- were each wholly of a piece, and increasingly effective as both sound and musical drama. After that, whether by the night's inspiration, increasingly simpatico music, or some other cause, Maazel led a remarkably unified and emotionally communicative account of Act III as one grand whole, and no less clear in texture and details for that. It may have been the best Met conducting of the season, for which Maazel deserved all bravos.
The cast did their bit. Adrianne Pieczonka is in the lighter, lyric tradition of Sieglindes, quite expressive vocally though without climactic power. She is excellently responsive onstage as well, whether in motion or standstill, though the fact that her acting is more or less school-of-Mattila conjures some (unfairly) unflattering comparisons. Her Siegmund, Clifton Forbis, is sonically an unobjectionable example of a groanentenor, but he does much with this resource, showing a deep-felt dignity that works to great effect in this part. (Domingo has always been too transparently demonstrative.)
The Valkyrie herself, Lisa Gasteen, was announced as suffering a sore throat. This, I hope, explains the very short top with which she worked -- not even trying the high notes in her entrance "Hojotoho" -- but her performance was still, on the whole, a success. Gasteen sings with a firm tone, not dark but effortlessly grounded in the chest, and a natural feeling for the musical line. These provide her great expressive resources for her dialog with Siegmund (the so-called "Todesverkündigung", death announcement) and final encounter with Wotan. She used them to heart-rending effect.
Gasteen and Forbis are on the same vocal-emotional page, and it shows. So are Gasteen and James Morris. The latter's detractors will, I suppose, note his refusal/inability to try blasting over the orchestra (which Maazel never really reigns in, for both good and bad) and near-crooned pianissimos, but in character and phrase he is more engaged and dead-on than ever.
While premiered in 1870, Wagner's Walküre was composed in the mid-1850s, not long after the premiere of Verdi's La Traviata. Monday's performance, featuring the aurally splendid, passionately-articulated Fricka of Stephanie Blythe, brought this to mind -- for don't both operas turn on a middle-act argument of respectability vs. love, where the former wins not by its own claims but by almost incidentally puncturing the latter's self-delusion?
One does better, I think, seeing the Ring operas separately: human-scale touches like this (and Siegmund's nobility, and the particulars of sibling, marital, and filial pathos) then aren't swamped by the grandiose big-picture mess.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
In the news
I've wondered how much the Gelb-era uptick in Met attendance has been driven by the low dollar. Yesterday's NY Sun notes that exchange rates have at least raised overall city tourism figures quite a bit.
* * *
I may be the only person in operaland who cares about this, but City Journal's recent puff piece on Abu Dhabi (as urbane and reform-minded as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan might be, his relatives have famously sponsored the worst sort of hate-filled filth) does offer this somewhat-reassuring non-news:
* * *
Huh.
Also, Radvanovsky's singing Lucrezia Borgia there.
UPDATE (10:20PM): Maury notes that Dallas Opera has a two-season announcement up, including a new Jake Heggie version of Moby-Dick. Success in such an adaptation seems wildly improbable to me, but if anyone can pull it off perhaps it's Gene Scheer, whose libretto of An American Tragedy was masterful.
I may be the only person in operaland who cares about this, but City Journal's recent puff piece on Abu Dhabi (as urbane and reform-minded as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan might be, his relatives have famously sponsored the worst sort of hate-filled filth) does offer this somewhat-reassuring non-news:
[Abu Dhabi] has approached New York’s Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center about a partnership, though executives say that no deal is imminent.It also discusses some of the opposition to such name-lending projects.
Huh.
[Turandot, at Domingo's WNO] will be conducted by Keri-Lynn Wilson, wife of the Met's General Manager Peter Gelb, in her company debut.Never heard her perform, myself.
Also, Radvanovsky's singing Lucrezia Borgia there.
UPDATE (10:20PM): Maury notes that Dallas Opera has a two-season announcement up, including a new Jake Heggie version of Moby-Dick. Success in such an adaptation seems wildly improbable to me, but if anyone can pull it off perhaps it's Gene Scheer, whose libretto of An American Tragedy was masterful.
In the beginning
Unlike ACB, the Tonier of the Steve Smiths, and the apparently in-from-London Intermezzo, I wasn't at last Monday's season-opener of Valkyrie. (I have much to say on the 1/14 Wagner performance -- a review will soon follow this post.) Instead I took in the fruit of American Lyric Theater's first "Composer/Librettist Development Program".
Of the organization itself I know little, but while I find their account of opera's history debatable their goals and methods seem worthy. For this project ALT matched four would-be librettists (mostly from the theater world) with five composers, and had each work up a short piece under the guidance of librettist and composer Mark Adamo (who seems to be a friend of the company).
Both Adamo's remarkable debut opera, Little Women, and his ambitious, stimulating, and sensually arresting -- if ultimately unsuccessful -- version of Lysistrata are to his own words, making him the rare composer with the linguistic and theatrical awareness to be successful also as librettist. As such, he's a natural for this kind of program, and in fact seems to have done it before.
* * *
In this case, Adamo asked the five teams to all work on the same scenario. By his account, he's learned to begin work by setting out the gestural-dramatic skeleton of the piece (sort of an intertitle-less silent-movie storyboard -- half-jokingly identified with Busoni's notion of "gestus"), on which he sets both music and text. In this case, the skeleton he gave the participants was derived from the Adam and Eve story in Genesis. Though audience members were not given a copy of this outline, the gist (minus some of the emotional cues, I'm afraid) seemed to be something like this:
* * *
Both the method and the actual scenario show, I think, Adamo's deep and deeply dramatic understanding of opera. There are, of course, other ways to work up a successful piece, but the ground of exhibited and changing relationships onstage is a terrific one on which composer and writer can meet, foregrounding both the fact of dramatic presence (only thinly considered in most concert music) and the deliberate scenic pace and method of opera (very different from spoken drama). The subject, too, is close to the heart of things, enacting the pattern of not-quite-to-be-fulfilled desire that grounds not only much opera but perhaps human culture altogether -- and in the form of the theme's first remembered appearance in Western story.
* * *
Of the librettists, two -- Quincy Long and Emily Charlotte Conbere -- really seemed to seize upon the essentially operatic possibilities of a scenario foregrounding desire, while one -- Deborah Brevoort -- missed the mark entirely with a thinly imagined and disappointingly un-operatic (no desire, thus no honest conflict) bit of political theater. The fourth, Royce Vavrek, did two libretti, each with interesting ideas that seemed not at odds with but a bit orthogonal to the opera-dramatic interest.
Of the textures -- both musical and textual -- I'm afraid I saw and heard rather too little (particularly when the musical settings were not all finished, some setting as little as one scene) to offer interesting commentary, though composer Aleksandra Vrebalov does deserve credit for making something interesting of the least grateful text.
Of the (mostly young and rising) performers, all did well -- particularly on incredibly short notice -- but special kudos goes to soprano Amanda Pabyan, who, in these under-half-hour pieces, gave her two characters natural and unmistakable life.
Of the organization itself I know little, but while I find their account of opera's history debatable their goals and methods seem worthy. For this project ALT matched four would-be librettists (mostly from the theater world) with five composers, and had each work up a short piece under the guidance of librettist and composer Mark Adamo (who seems to be a friend of the company).
Both Adamo's remarkable debut opera, Little Women, and his ambitious, stimulating, and sensually arresting -- if ultimately unsuccessful -- version of Lysistrata are to his own words, making him the rare composer with the linguistic and theatrical awareness to be successful also as librettist. As such, he's a natural for this kind of program, and in fact seems to have done it before.
In this case, Adamo asked the five teams to all work on the same scenario. By his account, he's learned to begin work by setting out the gestural-dramatic skeleton of the piece (sort of an intertitle-less silent-movie storyboard -- half-jokingly identified with Busoni's notion of "gestus"), on which he sets both music and text. In this case, the skeleton he gave the participants was derived from the Adam and Eve story in Genesis. Though audience members were not given a copy of this outline, the gist (minus some of the emotional cues, I'm afraid) seemed to be something like this:
Scene 1 -- Adam is tempted by the apple. Eve comes and they argue. Eve ends up with the apple.What might seem a fairly restrictive outline was in fact quite permissive: though the relationships had more or less to be maintained, the guidelines allowed "Adam", "Eve", the Snake, and even the apple to appear in any guise. One team had the "apple" as a perfume bottle, another a Thomas Hardy poem. (Two did, however, write about actual apples.) Settings varied from a mental hospital (pre-empting, of course, any European production of the piece...) to a surreal edition of Kafka's Prague.
Scene 2 -- Eve pushes the apple on the Snake. The Snake refuses it and tempts Eve. She tastes it, with ecstatic result.
Scene 3 -- Eve tries to tempt Adam with the apple but fails. He rejects her for consuming it and they are not reconciled.
Both the method and the actual scenario show, I think, Adamo's deep and deeply dramatic understanding of opera. There are, of course, other ways to work up a successful piece, but the ground of exhibited and changing relationships onstage is a terrific one on which composer and writer can meet, foregrounding both the fact of dramatic presence (only thinly considered in most concert music) and the deliberate scenic pace and method of opera (very different from spoken drama). The subject, too, is close to the heart of things, enacting the pattern of not-quite-to-be-fulfilled desire that grounds not only much opera but perhaps human culture altogether -- and in the form of the theme's first remembered appearance in Western story.
Of the librettists, two -- Quincy Long and Emily Charlotte Conbere -- really seemed to seize upon the essentially operatic possibilities of a scenario foregrounding desire, while one -- Deborah Brevoort -- missed the mark entirely with a thinly imagined and disappointingly un-operatic (no desire, thus no honest conflict) bit of political theater. The fourth, Royce Vavrek, did two libretti, each with interesting ideas that seemed not at odds with but a bit orthogonal to the opera-dramatic interest.
Of the textures -- both musical and textual -- I'm afraid I saw and heard rather too little (particularly when the musical settings were not all finished, some setting as little as one scene) to offer interesting commentary, though composer Aleksandra Vrebalov does deserve credit for making something interesting of the least grateful text.
Of the (mostly young and rising) performers, all did well -- particularly on incredibly short notice -- but special kudos goes to soprano Amanda Pabyan, who, in these under-half-hour pieces, gave her two characters natural and unmistakable life.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Slightly off-topic notice
One of these seems to pop up more frequently than you might expect, but the New York Sun alerts us that a complete Messiaen organ series is in the offing here over the next months, played by Gail Archer.
Sunday [January 13], 4 p.m. (Church of the Heavenly Rest, 2 E. 90th St. at Fifth Avenue, 212-289-3400).
February 3, 4 p.m. (First Presbyterian Church, 12 W. 12th St. at Fifth Avenue, 212-675-6150).
February 24, 4 p.m. (Rutgers Presbyterian Church, 236 W. 73rd St. at Broadway, 212-877-8227).
March 8, 8 p.m. (St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University, 117th St. at Amsterdam Avenue, 212-854-0480).
April 20, 3 p.m. (Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, 869 Lexington Ave. at 66th Street, 212-744-2080).
May 29, 8 p.m. (Saint Patrick's Cathedral, 460 Madison Ave., between 50th and 51st streets, 212-753-2261).
One look back
Though I'm inclined to look to events particular and present, nothing opera-related in 2007 struck near as deep as the death of Luciano Pavarotti. Yet of course the event, as significant (if weirdly under-marked) as it was, released him into the date-unbound present of history: in the future it will always be some time around the 1970s for him, and the particular year he died may not be much remembered.
In fact, one might speculate, perhaps there's some child lately born whose appearance will be the true operatic event of 2007? But such a thing, of course, was not in my experience of the year.
To be honest, the most memorable Met performance I saw may have been at Carnegie Hall, when violinist Christian Tetzlaff gave a most Beethovenian performance of Beethoven's concerto. (Whether or not it's evident, I loved "classical" concert music long before I loved opera.)
In the house? 2007 was the year I realized how great an opera Jenůfa (well, "Její pastorkyň" if you like) is. I'd seen and heard it before, of course, and in some excellent renditions, but it was not until everything went right for Jiri Bělohlávek and his superlative cast that I discovered that it is not just a very good less-performed opera but one of the cultural landmarks of the last century: not just dramatic and terrible but ultimately triumphant, and throughout as indomitably alive and varicolored as its ever-present river. Many other works have seemed weak echoes of Janacek's masterpiece since. (Oddly enough, about a week after the last of these Met Jenufas I saw Cilea's L'Arlesiana, which actually does tell a similar, if gender-inverted, story... Though it ends in death, not reconciliation, and is so much the more sonically and emotionally monochromatic for it.)
2007 was also the year I was reminded how great Mozart's Figaro is, by a terrific and well-matched cast. But "remind" may not be the right word -- even mention of Figaro can remind my brain, but the joy and high spirits in these performances recalled Mozart to my limbs, heart, and blood.
Oh yes, and I saw maybe the greatest assumption of Lucia ever. But I've bracketed that in my head until March.
In fact, one might speculate, perhaps there's some child lately born whose appearance will be the true operatic event of 2007? But such a thing, of course, was not in my experience of the year.
To be honest, the most memorable Met performance I saw may have been at Carnegie Hall, when violinist Christian Tetzlaff gave a most Beethovenian performance of Beethoven's concerto. (Whether or not it's evident, I loved "classical" concert music long before I loved opera.)
In the house? 2007 was the year I realized how great an opera Jenůfa (well, "Její pastorkyň" if you like) is. I'd seen and heard it before, of course, and in some excellent renditions, but it was not until everything went right for Jiri Bělohlávek and his superlative cast that I discovered that it is not just a very good less-performed opera but one of the cultural landmarks of the last century: not just dramatic and terrible but ultimately triumphant, and throughout as indomitably alive and varicolored as its ever-present river. Many other works have seemed weak echoes of Janacek's masterpiece since. (Oddly enough, about a week after the last of these Met Jenufas I saw Cilea's L'Arlesiana, which actually does tell a similar, if gender-inverted, story... Though it ends in death, not reconciliation, and is so much the more sonically and emotionally monochromatic for it.)
2007 was also the year I was reminded how great Mozart's Figaro is, by a terrific and well-matched cast. But "remind" may not be the right word -- even mention of Figaro can remind my brain, but the joy and high spirits in these performances recalled Mozart to my limbs, heart, and blood.
Oh yes, and I saw maybe the greatest assumption of Lucia ever. But I've bracketed that in my head until March.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Much ado about nothing
Betrand de Billy and Natalie Dessay -- with intermittent help from Ramon Vargas -- tried to make something serious of the Met's current Roméo et Juliette production two years ago, with mixed success. The present revival (as heard last night) aims for nothing at all more than the sound of Gounod's operatic writing, but -- thanks to Paul Nadler, Anna Netrebko, and, above all, great American tenor Matthew Polenzani -- is fairly glorious thereby.
The parts fit the leads. After last season's Puritani disaster, Netrebko is wise to appear in a role for which coloratura and bel canto precision is a sideline (foregrounded only in the famous waltz), not the main event. She is not exactly expressive, but the more dramatically-driven pacing of her pieces lets her deploy the sonic bludgeon of her big ringing voice to best effect.
* * *
As an actress, Netrebko is interesting but not exactly effective. It is amusing to return to Anthony Tommasini's 2002 review of Netrebko's company (though not house) debut in War and Peace, where he wrote:
Yet the real problem is not her physical vocabulary but its deployment. Her performance is almost entirely narcissistic, failing to connect with, adapt to, or often even acknowledge the presence and actions of anyone else onstage. I've noticed this phenomenon before, but in this production it reaches an almost admirable zenith of purity. Perhaps it's the contrast with her co-star, whose physical as well as sonic expression is pure, unforced, and unhindered. Polenzani's almost puppyish eagerness goes totally unregistered on Netrebko's body and actions, even in their love scenes -- a surreal sight. (I wonder if Netrebko's narcissism would have been even more surreally interesting paired with a tenor himself self-regarding -- that is, in this case, Alagna.)
Even odder, perhaps, is what happens between Netrebko's bouts of "silent movie cliché". When she's not trying thereby to grab attention, she is totally blank -- not the standard opera-singer "waiting for my cue" receptivity, but complete, almost uncanny blankness, as if she's not actually present. It's difficult even to see her onstage in these portions; the eye and mind find no purchase thereon. It's as if she's performing in her own highlight film. Perhaps it ensures that her fans only notice and remember her "best bits", but to a non-fan it's just bizarre.
* * *
With such a heroine there was no chance of the story and drama's success, but the sonic success of the night was quite real. Much kudos to Paul Nadler, who shaped the score unobtrusively but with real romantic feeling. And the smaller roles were well done all around, from Charles Taylor's Capulet to Nathan Gunn's Mercutio to the ageless Robert Lloyd's Frère Laurent and Kate Lindsey's again perfectly boyish Stéphano. (The night was something of a showcase for the Met's Lindemann Young Artist program, with graduates Taylor, Gunn, Lindsey, David Won, and of course Polenzani himself.)
But Polenzani was amazing. His singing is so seemingly simple and uncomplicated -- beautiful, open, and direct of phrase and expression -- that there's little I can say about it except "listen". He maintained his high level through the whole evening, with sound never more vibrant and glorious than at the very end, for the climactic tomb scene.
The performance went out on Sirius, and Monday's (with the same cast) will be on both Sirius and a live internet feed, so if you get a chance (live or rebroadcast) to hear Polenzani: Listen.
The parts fit the leads. After last season's Puritani disaster, Netrebko is wise to appear in a role for which coloratura and bel canto precision is a sideline (foregrounded only in the famous waltz), not the main event. She is not exactly expressive, but the more dramatically-driven pacing of her pieces lets her deploy the sonic bludgeon of her big ringing voice to best effect.
As an actress, Netrebko is interesting but not exactly effective. It is amusing to return to Anthony Tommasini's 2002 review of Netrebko's company (though not house) debut in War and Peace, where he wrote:
Though a lovely young woman, she was not well served by Mr. Konchalovsky's direction, which must be responsible for the silent movie clichés that marred her portrayal.In fact, Konchalovsky -- unless he's somehow been directing every one of her roles here since -- got a bad rap. Though they have, mercifully, been toned down in this production, "silent movie clichés" are exactly Netrebko's onstage metier.
Yet the real problem is not her physical vocabulary but its deployment. Her performance is almost entirely narcissistic, failing to connect with, adapt to, or often even acknowledge the presence and actions of anyone else onstage. I've noticed this phenomenon before, but in this production it reaches an almost admirable zenith of purity. Perhaps it's the contrast with her co-star, whose physical as well as sonic expression is pure, unforced, and unhindered. Polenzani's almost puppyish eagerness goes totally unregistered on Netrebko's body and actions, even in their love scenes -- a surreal sight. (I wonder if Netrebko's narcissism would have been even more surreally interesting paired with a tenor himself self-regarding -- that is, in this case, Alagna.)
Even odder, perhaps, is what happens between Netrebko's bouts of "silent movie cliché". When she's not trying thereby to grab attention, she is totally blank -- not the standard opera-singer "waiting for my cue" receptivity, but complete, almost uncanny blankness, as if she's not actually present. It's difficult even to see her onstage in these portions; the eye and mind find no purchase thereon. It's as if she's performing in her own highlight film. Perhaps it ensures that her fans only notice and remember her "best bits", but to a non-fan it's just bizarre.
With such a heroine there was no chance of the story and drama's success, but the sonic success of the night was quite real. Much kudos to Paul Nadler, who shaped the score unobtrusively but with real romantic feeling. And the smaller roles were well done all around, from Charles Taylor's Capulet to Nathan Gunn's Mercutio to the ageless Robert Lloyd's Frère Laurent and Kate Lindsey's again perfectly boyish Stéphano. (The night was something of a showcase for the Met's Lindemann Young Artist program, with graduates Taylor, Gunn, Lindsey, David Won, and of course Polenzani himself.)
But Polenzani was amazing. His singing is so seemingly simple and uncomplicated -- beautiful, open, and direct of phrase and expression -- that there's little I can say about it except "listen". He maintained his high level through the whole evening, with sound never more vibrant and glorious than at the very end, for the climactic tomb scene.
The performance went out on Sirius, and Monday's (with the same cast) will be on both Sirius and a live internet feed, so if you get a chance (live or rebroadcast) to hear Polenzani: Listen.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Merry Christmas to all
I feel odd enough offering critical material as it is, but more so today.
So for those at the family hearth: eat well and be happy. For all readers: may the season's joys find you.
So for those at the family hearth: eat well and be happy. For all readers: may the season's joys find you.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Notes, slightly stale
Thanks, Steve.
* * *
Great moments in subscription management: I not only had a ticket to Matthew Polenzani's recital on December 2, it was my main reason for subscribing to the series (at the worst "Lincoln Center" venue) in the first place. Naturally, I completely forgot and have no opinion to offer. I suppose this means I have to catch one of Polenzani's (Domingo-free) Romeos next week. I'll save Netrebko thoughts until then.
* * *
The year's final Figaro wasn't up to the rest of the run: comic and musical timing seemed, for some reason, slightly out of sync -- making what had been historic merely quite good. Perhaps it was simple performance variation, perhaps fatigue, but reading that it was Bryn Terfel's final Figaro anywhere suggests another explanation -- and has me just glad that I saw it.
Great moments in subscription management: I not only had a ticket to Matthew Polenzani's recital on December 2, it was my main reason for subscribing to the series (at the worst "Lincoln Center" venue) in the first place. Naturally, I completely forgot and have no opinion to offer. I suppose this means I have to catch one of Polenzani's (Domingo-free) Romeos next week. I'll save Netrebko thoughts until then.
The year's final Figaro wasn't up to the rest of the run: comic and musical timing seemed, for some reason, slightly out of sync -- making what had been historic merely quite good. Perhaps it was simple performance variation, perhaps fatigue, but reading that it was Bryn Terfel's final Figaro anywhere suggests another explanation -- and has me just glad that I saw it.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Twenty-five and three
As of this morning, I have been posting to this blog for three years. It has always been something of a solitary, contrarian project, and I thank you readers for bearing with me.
A bigger landmark, at least for me, was revealed by a program I turned up a few months ago: this week marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of my first visit to the opera. It was the Met's Tannhäuser with Tatiana Troyanos as Venus, and though my impression at the time was inconclusive, my current fondness for emotionally responsive, quick-vibratoed singers may have some primal lineage.
* * *
Below is a selection of posts from the last year, which I will also append to the previous years' list. Note that I've omitted most Met reviews, as they are listed separately on the sidebar.
A bigger landmark, at least for me, was revealed by a program I turned up a few months ago: this week marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of my first visit to the opera. It was the Met's Tannhäuser with Tatiana Troyanos as Venus, and though my impression at the time was inconclusive, my current fondness for emotionally responsive, quick-vibratoed singers may have some primal lineage.
Below is a selection of posts from the last year, which I will also append to the previous years' list. Note that I've omitted most Met reviews, as they are listed separately on the sidebar.
Review -- recitals by Kožená and Röschmann*(* posted before last year's roundup, but so close that I had no reason to include it at the time)
On the world premiere of Tan Dun's The First Emperor
On Ramon Vargas in Onegin
On Meistersinger and Simon Boccanegra
On Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Die Ägyptische Helena
On Ruth Ann Swenson
On the "theatricality" of Met movie broadcasts
Review -- Matthias Goerne in recital
On vocal and theatrical values in historic context
On Peter Davis' exit
On a pop fan's discovery of opera
On Wagner's Ring
On Pavarotti's death
Review -- Mary Zimmerman's season-opening Lucia
On Samuel Barber's Vanessa
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Led around
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Kitsch
Perhaps inside the comically awful Stephen Wadsworth production of Iphigenie en Tauride there is a great Robert Wilson production trying to get out. The erasing, and even drowning, of all connection and contrast by a uniform overlay of quasi-dramatic plastique works for Wilson as much as it (unmistakably present here) makes nonsense of Wadsworth. But then, the semi-new Met show (Seattle debuted it earlier this season) is far from the point where the Wilson gestalt would appear and work. It would, for one thing, have to abandon Thomas Lynch's handsomely literal set -- which would be a pity, as this is the best part of the presentation -- and the occasionally goofy but commendable costumes of Martin Pakledinaz. More importantly (and positively), it would require that the three principals -- Iphigenie, Oreste, and Pylade -- not constantly (well, in between randomly striking stock poses of agony) swoon into and paw each other and even the goddess Diana (!). For Wilson's art, like the Greeks', respects and even fetishizes the space the tragic stage opens up between the individuals thereon. And rightly so: not only truth but stage sense is in accord, as such space is the necessary barrier against which the characters' struggle to stay connected and whole finds force. Otherwise, as here, you get kitsch.
Of course, one can do Gluck's dark opera in an un-Greek, un-Wilson, etc. way, as dark melodrama. But this requires not only a production cleaned of all fluffy stock gesture (not just for singers and chorus -- a depressingly large amount of choreographer Daniel Pelzig's contribution falls under this rubric too) but a sureness of dramatic line and response that neither the director nor his leading man (Domingo, as ever, substitutes a stagger and raised arm for engagement on the stage while showing a still-amazing voice) evidence. Only Susan Graham seems prepared to chart such a pared-down, moment-to-moment course, but she is both weighed down by the aforementioned plastique and given little to work with by castmates. (Paul Groves, as he did in the last Domingo vehicle, just seems bemused amid this dramatic mess.)
It's too bad, as debutant conductor Louis Langree (known here for his Mostly Mozart work across the plaza) led a remarkably vivid musical evening.
UPDATE (11:50AM): It occurs to me that my mention of the "erasing [of] connection and contrast by a uniform overlay of quasi-dramatic plastique" isn't exactly plain English. So I offer the words of a correspondent making more or less the same point:
Of course, one can do Gluck's dark opera in an un-Greek, un-Wilson, etc. way, as dark melodrama. But this requires not only a production cleaned of all fluffy stock gesture (not just for singers and chorus -- a depressingly large amount of choreographer Daniel Pelzig's contribution falls under this rubric too) but a sureness of dramatic line and response that neither the director nor his leading man (Domingo, as ever, substitutes a stagger and raised arm for engagement on the stage while showing a still-amazing voice) evidence. Only Susan Graham seems prepared to chart such a pared-down, moment-to-moment course, but she is both weighed down by the aforementioned plastique and given little to work with by castmates. (Paul Groves, as he did in the last Domingo vehicle, just seems bemused amid this dramatic mess.)
It's too bad, as debutant conductor Louis Langree (known here for his Mostly Mozart work across the plaza) led a remarkably vivid musical evening.
UPDATE (11:50AM): It occurs to me that my mention of the "erasing [of] connection and contrast by a uniform overlay of quasi-dramatic plastique" isn't exactly plain English. So I offer the words of a correspondent making more or less the same point:
[The] singing was great, but the action on stage was so high pitched and melodramatic throughout, that it was difficult to follow the narrative arc of the story or get emotionally involved in the characters' problems. Instead of /\ it was all just /
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
And you thought Sirius was big...
I haven't figured out the details, but see for yourself: Met Broadcasts at Rhapsody.
Note that it goes back to the infamous Ponselle Carmen.
Note that it goes back to the infamous Ponselle Carmen.
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