BOX FIVE: David's Opera Blog

2011-10-16T17:11:00.000-07:00

Met ANNA BOLENA

Some local news to catch you up on, but first, the live moviecast of ANNA BOLENA.

Loved it. I emerged newly convinced of the potential for bel canto to convey serious drama. Beverly Sills convinced me of that back in the day, and she was my first and until today only Anna B. I still remember her (in Capobianco's production) giving the guard a big slap at the end of the Big Arrest Scene.

I also retain a vivid aural memory of her "Coppia iniqua," but not, sorry to say, any memory of how she handled it dramatically, other than to say that Beverly never neglected the dramatic side of her bel canto roles.

Anyway, Anna Netrebko nailed it. In the past there has been a spectrum of views on whether she could sing bel canto, with a discernible drift of majority opinion towards approving her as a verismo soprano (and in Russian opera, of course), but not in anything else. But in yesterday's ANNA, the technique-mavens were at least impressed at her progress since her PURITANI a few years ago, and I was just enchanted. Her voice had the richness of Callas at her best, she had trills (real or imitation, I'm not sure, but effective) for "Coppia iniqua," and she had (here we in the movie theaters are privileged) dramatic intensity throughout.

(Another privilege we had: Netrebko doing her "naughty Anna" bit in her pre-curtain interview with Gelb when she turned from him to the camera to add "The Tudors" quietly to her list of preparatory movie-viewing.)

Strong supporting cast throughout. Ildar Adbrazakov is a strong bass-baritone whose Enrico replicated the moody tyrant portrayed by Robert Shaw in A Man for All Seasons. Note to Gelb and other impresarii, tho': Ildar is a treasure, but he's a bass-baritone, not a bass. In roles that really require a bass, make sure you cast Furlanetto (like Silva in the upcoming ERNANI), or Pape.

Since this opera lacks a no-kidding baritone role, like Enrico Ashton in LUCIA, there is no need to distinguish sharply between the baritone and a bass with whom he shares the stage, such as Raimondo. A bass-baritone Enrico VIII is fine if he's a powerful one like Ildar.

(Ildar would be a perfect Ivan Khovansky in KHOVANSHCHINA -- but hey, crazy Met, you've cast him as Dosifei in the long-awaited KH. revival next spring, with undoubted bass Anatoly Kotscherga as Ivan. Pardon me but I think you're crazy. Should totally be the other way around.)

Stephen Costello's Percy -- ah yes, the voice that made me tweet "omg tenor!" when I was listening casually to the premiere over the 'net. What a gift to the lyric tenor world!

Ekaterina Gubanova was a weak link for me. She has a real mezzo voice -- brava for that -- but the role of "Giovanna" Seymour goes high. Gubanova's voice showed itself dramatic indeed, to the point of harshness at times.

Also: while we all have our potted rants against the "modern trend" of casting by looks, the very fact that I and so many others were watching this live performance in a movie theater shows it's a bit late to lock that particular barn-door, so let me just add that, despite her excellent acting, Gubanova was a few crumpets short of the sort of breakfast for which one could imagine Henry ditching Anne Boleyn.

By chance I picked up an OPERA NEWS from a few months ago and saw that Gubanova was Fricka in La Scala's WALKURE last spring. A good review, and I could easily imagine her being brilliant in that role.

In this run of BOLENA, Gubanova has the disadvantage (for which we must spot her some points) of replacing Latvian lovemuffin Elina Garanca, the Met's new Carmen, who was Jane Seymour to Netrebko's Bolena in a production last spring(?) in Vienna.

Garanca was scheduled for the Met's production too, but, well, l'amour est un oiseau rebel, and La Garanca turned up with a bun in the oven at just a time when the baby-bump would have introduced an unhistorical complication into the already-thick story of Anne, Jane, and Henry. Quite frankly, the opening chorus of "the king's eye turns to another" would, in the age of surtitles/Met-titles, have just slain them in the aisles. Congratulations on the new life coming into the world, Elina, and we'll hope to catch your Seymour in the future when maybe we won't "Sey" so much....

A shout-out, please, to my Twitter friend Keith Miller -- @KeithMillerBass -- whose tweets are full of opera-historical quizzes, and whose performance as Lord Rochford, Anne's brother, showed a fine bass-baritone voice and brought an extra dose of gravitas to the stage.

Tamara Mumford nearly stole every scene she was in as Smeton, and in Eduardo Valdes, who played Hervey, the Met has a new character-tenor of the love-to-hate type.

Marco Armiliato impressed me as a conductor who knows and loves bel canto, and who could and did keep the drama going well.

How well does he know it? Well, you couldn't necessarily tell from the camera coverage of the orchestra, but he conducted the overture without opening his score. This comes from a spy in the house. (My mom likes it when I call her that.) After the overture he started using his score.

(I think there is pith in James Levine's talkback to colleagues who rebuked him for relying on the printed score: "Why not? I can read music.")

The production: dark; the spots of color were rare and presumably deliberate. And why not? Henry's, court historically, was dark, not the place of soon-it'll-be-Shakespeare enlightenment we often see in historical dramas made in the Anglophone world . Costume designer Jenny Tiramani (think Monty Python's Ann Elk, but shorter, and actually knowing her stuff) says the surviving clothes and documentary evidence shows early Tudor courtwear was much darker than you often see depicted: lots of black velvet, black satin, and black silk.

And -- living at the whim a moody tyrant -- it was a scary place to exist. I'm so glad McVicar captured this, and I'm so glad he included (tho' the libretto does not require it) the historical fact that Smeton was tortured. You know that line from A Man for all Seasons? -- Norfolk says it first, to More, in confidence, but Cromwell later repeats it back to Norfolk, in irony, demonstrating the omnipotence of the Tudor spy-state: "This isn't Spain -- this is England!"

My point exactly. Tho' Catholic, I love DON CARLO as much as the next guy -- but I'm glad that Italian opera sometimes puts on stage historical moments that show Reformation-oriented royal courts acting in tyrannical ways too.

2011-09-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "Scalia is my biggest buddy at the opera."

2011-08-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

Paul Franke, RIP. A staple of my childhood, and of the Met in that era.

2011-07-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

CORNELL MACNEIL, Verdi baritono supremo (and, in retirement, garage woodworker and machine tool guy), 1922-2011. Opera News's "Reunion" interview from 2007, here.

2011-07-01T11:28:00.001-07:00

San Francisco RING -- post 1

Travel: fun, not exotic

My daughter and I, almost on a whim, jetted west last week to see the SIEGFRIED and GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG of Cycle 2 of San Francisco's 2011 summer RING.

Why not the whole thing? Cordelia, 16, has seen WALKÜRE several times recently, between the Met and the Virginia Opera. We would both have loved to see RHEINGOLD. But taking one thing with another -- tickets (even if only one for Walküre), and hotel nights (we don't have any apartment to borrow in SF) -- it adds up. Even as it was, it was a splurge, but a very worthwhile one.

(Fwiw, Airtran did an excellent job getting us from southeastern Virginia to SF and back for $400 less then the next best offer; and fore a balance of economy and comfort we can recommend the Opal, on Van Ness Ave. between O'Farrell and Geary Streets, home to Mel's Diner, and within walking distance of the War Memorial Opera House. And of the Catholic Cathedral.)

It was her first, and my second, visit to this city. On our day "off," it was cablecars to the max for Cordelia, so we took the California St. line to Powell St. Finding the northbound Powell St. cars were too crowded, we went south to Union Square, then back up the Powell St. line to Fisherman's Wharf, then back to where we had entered the system at California St. and Van Ness Ave.

But you don't want to read out that, you want to read about ...

The American RING

That's what director Francesca Zambello's production has generally been called. (The production was first developed jointly for San Francisco and Washington, except the recession forced the WNO to relinquish its role after premiering the first three operas: one suspects management issues at WNO had as much to do with it as the recession, which, if anything, his Washington less hard than other parts of the country. Perhaps the full Zambello RING will yet be seen at the Kennedy Center.)

Why American RING? Because the particular Regie at work here -- and yes, it's Regie, but what can I say, it's the good kind! -- is the setting of THE RING, with its swords and spears, in 20th century United States. Bad Regie imposes the director's will and ignores and crowd's out the composer's and librettist's. Good Regie tells the composer's-librettist's story in a way that's different from the way they asked for it to be told, but so that it's still the story they told, and no other. Also, bad Regie throws a lot ooh-aah-gosh-deep elements together and glories in the confusion thus created; good Regie is consistent and well thought-out from beginning to end; even things in it that are surprising make sense in context. Chereau's RING was an example of good Regie. So, very much, is Zambello's.

So, American RING. Alberich is at first a Forty-Niner, panhandling for gold in the Rhine. Among the gods, the ineffectual ones -- Donner and Froh -- are preppies modelling Brooks Brothers country club outfits, and Wotan is the one of their ilk with business sense, and hence a Gilded Age tycoon. They will have to deal, however, with those two great big workers, Fasolt and Fafner, entering in their work-overalls aboard a girder lowered from a high story of the newly completed office building, Valhalla.

In Walküre, Hunding is an Appalachian backwoodsman, whose kin ("Sippe") are all too much around (no need to "turn your steps to the west" to find them: "the West" starts here!), as are the trophy mooseheads on his cabin wall. Act II is split into two sets: first, the CEO suite of Wotan Inc., on which Brünnhilde jumps for her first Ho-jo-to-hos; then, a desolate abandoned area of unfinished (or collapsed?) interstates: the perfect place for the destinies of four people to take sudden and unexpected turns and falls.

The Valkyries are paratroopers who drop onto the stage, goggles and all. Posted along rickety stantions surround the Valkyries' Rock are faces of Valhalla's heroes -- except it is said that the faces are those of real Americans fallen in Vietnam, Iraq, etc. Or so it was said when I saw this Walküre in DC in 2007: as mentioned at the start, I did not see it in SF this time. If I am right about the faces, then a question could be raised. Though very moving at one level, one could ask whether appropriating these faces for a dramatic production (unless of course each of the families individually gave consent) could be considered sailing close to a moral line and maybe even a legal one (invasion of privacy, false light). Just saying. Discuss among yourselves. Beyond any doubt, it's a powerful and moving production. Real fire, too: no elf'n'safety ditziness about that!

Enough for now. In my next post I'll start comment on the Siegfried production and performance from Cycle 2.

2011-06-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

GIORGIO TOZZI, 1923-2011

Funeral services for this great Metropolitan Opera and San Franisco Opera bass, and University of Indiana maestro, were held this morning in Bloomington, IN.

Giorgio was a friend of my parents, and I often heard the story about he almost delivered me: he was being interviewed by my Dad for Living Opera when my Mom went into labor with me.

He was in the first opera I ever saw at the Met (Don Basilio, when I was about four). I refused to believe that he and Basilio were the same guy (really, the idea of taking make-pretend to a Metropolitan scale, with identity-obscuring make-up, sort of stretches a 4-yr-old's mind), so the next time he was over at the apartment, he brought with him the red socks that were part of the Basilio costume in the Eugene Berman production, and then I believed him.

Later he invited me and Dad to visit him in his dressing room before, not after, a performance of NOZZE, so I could learn more about the process of becoming a character. By then he was already Figaro and Boris for me, thanks to the Leinsdorf NOZZE and the Metropolitan Opera Record Club NOZZE and BORIS.

I last spoke to him early in 2008. That was barely two months after my Dad's death, and we had a lot to talk to about. He had "almost delivered" me, and here I was, almost 50, letting him bring me solace. Also, I had seen NYCO's revival of VANESSA the previous November, and I wanted to chat about that. He knew Dick Stilwell, who sang his role of the Old Doctor, so we talked about Stilwell's progress from light baritone to bass-baritone, and how the Old Doctor is kind of zwischenfach anyway, Harvuot understudied it and did some performances, etc. etc.

I mentioned that I had collected some his RIGOLETTOs from the '50s, some with Warren, some with Merrill. That set him off reminiscing about how different those two greats were to work with as Sparafucile. Warren was consumed with the character of Rigoletto. Merrill, more easy-going, maintained greater life/work separation, but when that voice came out...! It was Giorgio who, decades earlier, had coined the phrase "a Stradivarius in his throat" to describe how Merrill got his effects with a deficit of formal training.

Another topic of conversation: Nell Rankin was another family friend, and I have a GIOCONDA where she sang Laura to his Alvise (as she did at his Met debut, but this was some years later). In Act III, he really got scary, and it got to me in a way that scene rarely does. I figured out why, I told him: my emotional reaction had been "Uncle Giorgio is being mean to Aunt Nell!!" He laughed heartily, then said: "When you have a colleague that generous, it makes you generous in return!"

Stepping back a bit, here's how I've long seen the Tozzi legacy, which must be seen alongside that of Siepi. A basso cantante can be "round" or "pointy." I don't mean in personal shape: I mean in quality of voice. A "round" basso cantante voice will be more paternal, more marmoreal, more comfortable venturing into bass-baritone rep (as Tozzi successfully did as Hans Sachs). The "pointy" basso cantante will be bouncier, saucier, a much more natural Don Giovanni and Mephistopheles. Obviously that was Siepi. (His Met Gurnemanz was a great success, but not one I would have predicted, and incidentally, Tozzi ventured into King Marke and Rocco around the same time, 1970. A friend points out that Tozzi too sang Gurnemanz -- but at San Francisco, not at the Met.)

The amazing thing about Pinza had been that he combined "round" and "pointy" in one concentrated essence of what a basso cantante should be. By the mid-50s, he has been replaced by two men instead of one: Siepi replacing him
on the "pointy" side, and Tozzi replacing him on the "round" side.

Inevitably, "Mr. Pointy" (apologies to BTVS fans) can excel in many of "Mr. Round"'s roles, more than the other way around. Thus, both Tozzi and Siepi were great as Padre Guardiano (to take the least "pointy" role I can imagine), while Tozzi was never Siepi's equal as Don Giovanni, and indeed, sang the Commendatore opposite Siepi a few times. Yet there are some roles that are clearly better for "Mr. Round." Tozzi sang Arkel at the Met many times, and I don't think Siepi ever did. You'd think Siepi's Sparafucile (surely the ultimate literally "pointy" part, and recorded by Siepi, though rarely if ever done by him at the Met, I think) would blow Tozzi's out of the "fiume" -- but those '50s recordings I mentioned earlier, and the Perlea studio set, refute that assumption.

Of course they both sang Boris: Siepi first (with Tozzi as a glorious Pimen), and Tozzi later (on the MORC recording, on the NBC Opera Theater version, and finally at the Met ca. 1962). They did the role in different ways: Siepi gave us the tormented ruler; Tozzi gave us the tormented *father.* Both were unutterably great.

(Besides the Washington Post obit linked in my headline, here is another, slightly offbeat one from Gramophone. The special pleading for Nicola Zaccaria is intrusive, but then, the sound of axes grinding is almost as much part of opera as the sound of orchestras tuning!)

RIP, "Uncle Giorgo."

2011-04-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

Liveblogging RHEINGOLD b'cast

* Prelude: smattering of applause at about point where set becomes fully visible. Not strictly Wagnerian, but I'm not going to tut-tut at a matinee audience having a good time and showing appreciation for this production -- a novel one criticized by some who criticized Schenck/Schneider-Siemssen for its stodginess, and admired by others, like me, who loved the Schenk prodn like an old teddy bear.

EDITED TO ADD: A friend who possesses the charism of opera-nerd infallibility points out: "The applause greeted the entrance of the Rhinemaidens 'flying' on their wires. It's an excellent effect."

* Eric Owens rules. Can't believe that he drew more snarks than any other cast member in last fall's run. As someone noted, Richard Paul Fink, the #1 Alberich of the Schenck years, who sang last Wednesday's performance, may still be the current allodial owner of the role, from whom all others hold only in fee. (Sorry, I do write a law blog on the side.) But the same observer noted that Owens's approach is more cantante. Well, that's good. Listen closely to Neidlinger, the all-time king of Alberichs. His portrayal, vocal no less than thespianic (I never saw him on stage), is monumentally evil, but he sings every note: his Alberich is almost bel canto. Owens is closer to that tradition than RPF. (Btw I loved RPF's Alberich in the last go-round of the Schenck production, and I have the posts on this blog to prove it.)

* Terfel. He doesn't sound like he did twenty years ago. Well, who does? But, does he sound like he did in last fall's run of RHEINGOLD? Or have this role and the concurrent rehearsals for the more difficult WALKURE Wotan been taking a toll? The RHEINGOLD Wotan is still within the capacity of this amazing voice, and I still like the match-up of Terfel with Owens: bass-baritone-leaning-to-baritone versus bass-baritone-leaning-t0-bass, duelling over the Ring. I'll be interested to see the attacks and defenses on this point....

* Selig as Fasolt, Konig as Fafner. As last fall, a perfect matching of basses to giants. Both are deep basses, but Selig has a touch of gentleness, and Konig has a touch of -- idk, The Revenge of Fu Manchu or something.

* That was a great "Vielleicht -- JA, VIELleicht" by Siegel: just the way Wieland and Bohm told Erwin Wohlfhart to do it in '67 (rehearsal footage from Bayreuth back then has made it onto Youtube -- notice also how Neidlinger here is crazily into the staging but sings an octave down in this rehearsal-room take).

* Arnold Bezuyen has has a rapid and well-deserved rise to fame as Loge, both in Europe (incl. Bayreuth) and in L.A., where Achim Freyer's grinning Mephisto costume for this role fits Arnold's naturally wide mouth. He certainly brings a lot of flair and giggles to the role. Too many giggles, anyone think?

* Owen's "Hab't acht" monologue: totally Neidlinger/Fink class. And Terfel's "Vergeh, frevelndner Gauch!" response -- there's really nothing wrong with our Wotan today.

* Stage mechanism noise: right then -- Alberich turned into a dragon -- was the first time I heard any (listening on WQXR over my laptop). Haven't heard any until now. And if a dragon can't creak, what can?

* Haven't mentioned conductor Fabio Luisi yet (subbing for Levine, who is recovering from back surgery), but the Scenes 3-4 interlude is a good place to start. I like his pacing. His rubati in this interlude are traditional but well-executed. All the way back at the beginning I liked the way he avoided the RING-original-sin of not holding the E-flat pedal longing enough (my hero here is Solti; even Levine sometimes offends on this).

Luisi has e'er now shown himself to be one of those Italian maestros gifted in German rep. The next Sinopoli? (NB My favorite Toscanini recordings, by far, are his Wagner excerpts. He could draw perfect playing from any orchestra in any rep, but, imo, he was above all a Wagner specialist.)

* Owens understated his first "Der Ring?" -- the way people sometimes gasp or whisper their first repetition of unbearable news.

* Well, that note on "Soll an Freude dir frommen mein Fluch" won't go down as Owens's happiest moment. Time to regroup forces for the actual Curse....

*....which he's doing. Sounds effortless again.

* Ok, ok, no need to hold "Knecht" too long if you're scraping the bottom of the voice-barrel. Good support there, Maestro! (A good opera conductor not only keeps the orchestra together but perceives when a singer needs the fire brigade.)

* Eric, you've just finished another performance of one of the most difficult roles in your rep, and it was great until the last few seconds -- which, unforch, are highly exposed. Now go rest, then see your coach. See you on fb!

* The Giants are back: Selig (Fasolt) sentimental, and Koenig (Fafner) bloody mean!

* Stephanie Blythe's Fricka, to me, neither adds much nor detracts anything. Am I missing something? Some of her fans admit as much but blame it on the production. I don't buy that. She just doesn't move well in any production, and has a good-but-not-great voice. I saw her WALKURE Fricka in the previous production -- and she tripped over a piece of the (admittedly very uneven) set. However, she recovered in character -- imperiously waving of support efforts from James Morris, who also avoided breaking character.

* Patricia Bardon (Erda) has a fine contralto voice, but I'd have sworn she got the melody-line slightly wrong in her opening line.

* I can hear some stage machinery noises again. Erda descending? And who's that backstage shouting something?

* AWESOME how Luisi slows things down ominously just before the Giants' fight scene.

* W-wait. Did I just hear some audience laughter? At what -- the body of Fasolt sliding down the plank, Sweeney-Todd-style? Sorry, that's not a laughing moment, I don't care if you are a matinee audience with buses back to Philly waiting for you....

* Call to the Mists: Dwayne Croft is a fine Donner. And his brother Richard was a fine Loge last fall. Is there some law that the Croft brothers can't ever appear in the same performance? (E.g. in PELLEAS....?)

* "Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge": Terfel sounding the best he has all afternoon; his familiar self.

* Entrance of the God: Luisi's pacing -- neither slow nor fast but steady and stately -- excellent!

* Big hand for Owens; he acknowledges "orchestra," meaning probably Luisi, I'm guessing

* Big hand as well for Bezuyen and Terfel

* Now Luisi on stage

* I don't like the Met's gradual abandonment of traditional Met curtain calls in favor of Broadway bows, but that's a separate post. Admittedly, in RHEINGOLD, the only difference is whether the curtain is (Broadway style) or is not (traditional Met style) up during curtain calls.

* "Von Morgen bis Abend" -- so much happens in such a short time in DAS RHEINGOLD: the gold is stolen, the Ring is forged, Valhalla is completed, the Ring is stolen and cursed, Wotan dooms himself and the gods though his momentarily hanging onto it (Erda is flatly wrong if she thinks Wotan can save the gods by getting rid of it -- maybe she's just on a seduction mission: dark temptress 'n' all that); and the gods take possession of Valhalla thinking they're in the catbird's seat when they're actually in the crosshairs.

Playing time? Two and a half hours, give or take. Slightly longer than Act II of DIE WALKURE. Shorter than Prologue + Act I of GOTTERDAMMERUNG.

Yes, later installments of THE RING proceed more spaciously: that's because they focus, much more than does RHEINGOLD, on the human dramas between the characters ("human" even when they involve interactions between gods and men, or passages from divinity to "mere" humanity).

2011-01-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

Listening to Met b'cast TRAVIATA. Thinking of suspending my ban on soprano crushes (mezzos free to apply) due to Poplavskaya; I was carried away by her Elisabetta last month. Right now we've just finished Act I of T., and I want to say You go girl, sounding' great, and don't let anyone pressure you into trying high options you don't feel comfortable with!

2010-10-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

The Better BORIS Bureau -- seal of approval

We interrupt our rolling review of the Lepage RHEINGOLD (see infra) to review today's live telecast of the Met's new production of BORIS GODUNOV, directed by Stephen Wadsworth (taking over on short notice from Peter Stein, who got marooned in Europe this summer either by a rude American consular officer or by his own Euro-'tude -- different interpretations are possible, and all equally unimportant), and starring the one, the only Rene Pape.

What this production replaces

The previous production that premiered in 1974, with austere yet atmospheric sets designed by the formidable Ming Cho Lee, hardly needed replacing. It managed a clean and dry stage look, while taking advantage of things like onion domes, and, in its proper scene, St. Basil's. And no one who saw it will ever forget Boris tumbling down a flight of stairs leading to his throne -- not falling and rolling, but pitching forward like a tree. Each time it happened, the audience was sure the bass had broken his neck. Or perhaps it was the unique athletic ability of Martti Talvela, for whom the production was designed. But then Jerome Hines did it too! And Sam Ramey! (OK, Sam's so small, he could probably walk away from a fall from a tall building, but still....)

Years later I met Prof. Richard T. Gill at a conference. Gill was an economist at Harvard. He was also a bass, and had a substantial career as a second-tier soloist at both the City Opera and the Met. Expecting to talk only about economics at this conference, he was delighted to meet someone who had seen him in almost every operatic role he ever did. At the Met, he told me, they gave him a few performances as Pimen in BORIS, plus the opportunity to cover the title role. As an official cover, he got to do one dress rehearsal as Boris. He was tall and thin, so they got Jerry Hines's costumes out of mothballs for him. It was then that he discovered how every Boris in that production fell downstairs without killing himself: the Tsar's costume for the death scene was heavily padded! Prevents injury, builds confidence. Like rolling in a log, ya know.

A new look

Well: new donors, new star bass -- new production. What we are given by set designer Ferdinand Woegerbauer and costume designer Moidele Bickel, who did their work before save-the-day director Wadsworth took over, is basically period costumes (maybe with designs a bit swirlier than late 16th century boyars actually favored; experts may debate), with a really boss Crown of Monomakh for the Coronation Scene. But why was Marina in black? To match Jesuit Rangoni? More on this anon.

For the sets, Russian atmosphere was somewhat sacrificed to adaptability. Like many opera directors today, Wadsworth abhors a "down" curtain: scene changes take place in full audience view. So, for instance, Pimen's monastery is not seen as such: it's a downstage space, with Boris, enthroned, still visible upstage through some of the scene, and choristers reacting to Pimen's multiple narratives. (As the old John Gutman translation used to say: "I was in Uglich. They sent me there to do a term of penance." Someday I must see Uglich to find out whether it really sucks as hard as this opera makes out.) (Also: Boris's scepter must be as corked as a bat, given how long he holds it aloft in some parts of this production.)

As if in compensation for some loss of vieille Russie atmosphere by comparison to Ming Cho Lee's sets, we get a lot more color. Lee gave us a lot of shades of gray, except for the Polish Act, which was shades of blue; the death scene, which was red, gold, and black; and of course, St. Basil's. Here, color is used vividly throughout. In fact, Wadsworth and Woegerbauer defy the convention Russia-gloomy, Poland-lively. The Polish Act was actually the darkest and most uniform: white-clad nobles, black-clad Marina and Rangoni, dimly-lit Sandomir; variety provided only by "Dimitri"'s red leather jerkin, and -- ahem -- Rangoni's red leather gloves.

The book -- yes, luv, I'm getting to that. Most scenes (perhaps all: Brian Large's expert camera work left that unclear) featured a large book, downstage left. Sometimes it was the Cyrillic-filled chronicle in which Pimen is writing. Other times it was the map of Russia that Fyodor compiled -- and that Marina stood on to accept dazzled obeisance from "Dimitri." Some will say cool; some will say gimmick; I'm sure Martin Bernheimer said (tho' I haven't checked) "Ah, symbolism." At certain points the direction "Now go stand on the book because you're singing something important" seemed a bit obvious; at other times it kind of worked. A wash, over-all.

The Holy Fool

This production is very Russian in that it makes much of the character of the Yurodivi, or Holy Fool (reductively called the Simpleton in earlier Met tradition). He is the first character we see: he is praying in the monastery courtyard even before the crowd arrives. During the prelude, Boris, having escaped his minders, comes out to him, seeking something. The Holy Fool tries to give him a stone of some kind.

Note to directors: Christianity has a rich range of symbols, but stones aren't among them. If you show a representative of prophetic, non-hierarchical holiness trying to give someone a stone (instead of, say, a cross or an icon), no one will know what you mean.

Anyway, Boris gets hustled back into the monastery before he can accept whatever gift it was the Holy Fool meant to give him. Evidently this is not an ambitious Boris orchestrating demonstrations in favor of his own coronation, as Pushkin's play suggests, and playing hard to get, as Shakespeare's Richard III does. He seems conflicted from the get-go.

All this, of course, is directorial invention. The Holy Fool has no lines until Act IV. There, in the shadow of St. Basil's, he refers almost casually to Boris's killing of Tsarevich Dimitri. Holy Fools are innocent, non-manipulative truth-tellers. The staging of the confrontation was the best I've ever seen or heard of: Boris knelt before the Fool. (Whether or not it's good theology for the Fool to refuse to pray for "Tsar Herod" -- "Do not pray for him, says the Mother of God" -- we can discuss some other time. In any case, the Fool in this production does have something to offer Boris: that stone!)

The Holy Fool was played with sweetly maniacal eyes and an even sweeter tenor voice by Andrei Popov.

Boris -- Rene Pape

There aren't enough good things to say about Pape. I've seen Talvela, Hines, and Ramey on stage, and I've heard Pinza, Siepi, Tozzi, London, Christoff, and Ghiaurov on records. Every bass or bass-baritone wants to make Boris his own, and the great ones do, including all those I've just mentioned. (I have special affection for Talvela, Siepi, and Tozzi, the first and last of whom were also awesome as Pimen before they got the big promotion!) (Props also to Anatoly Kotscherga, who solidly anchors the Abbado recording.)

Pape's voice is huge, handsome, dark, and round. To compare with some of my other favorites: Tozzi was almost too paternal, and Talvela almost too barbaric. Pape brings these qualities together. And -- thanks to TV director Brian Large's camera work -- we can see with Pape's first-class acting the Tsar's inner torment: not a scrap of scenery-chewing, just Christian conscience and human anxiety.

He -- Boris -- wanted to do so much good; had done so much good as de facto regent of Russia under the pious wantwit Fyodor I (Pimen's favorite Tsar); seemed to do so much good for the first few years of his reign; but then the fears that he spoke of at his coronation closed in: famine, fires, untimely deaths of which was innocent, and the memory of the one untimely death of which (according to the legendary history accepted as fact in this opera) he was not innocent, that of Tsarevich Dimitri, whose survival would have blocked Boris's way to the throne.

Gergiev's choice of versions, esp. as applied to Act II

Very commendably, this production, includes Act III -- the "Polish Act" -- which means that, pro tanto, Maestro Valery Gergiev is using Mussorgsky's 1874, but with (as is highly traditional) the St. Basil's Cathedral scene from the 1869 version retained. Bravo. But Gergiev also made an unusual choice: for the latter half of Act II -- the scene in the Tsar's Apartments, an act that combines family intimacy, high politics, and horrible conscience-driven hallucinations -- he reverted to the 1869 version; i.e. for Boris's Monologue, the ensuing Boris-Shuisky confrontation, and the hallucination (which, in this version, does not involve the clock chimes, so ixnay the familiar term "Clock Scene").

Good decision?

The minus side: you lose some familiar and excellent music; and you lose the bit where Boris burns Shuisky another one, and Shuisky replies that, really, in Tsar Ivan's time the Shuiskies were not accustomed to being spoken to that way, and Boris replies that, really, if Tsar Ivan were around today he'd roast this particular Shuisky alive and sing a psalm around the campfire while doing it, so shaddup about past Shuiskies and tell me what your spies have told you. And you lose the stroke of genius whereby Boris's hallucination of the child Dimitri is keyed to the chiming and moving figurines on the clock (hence "Clock Scene").

The plus side: the 1869 version actually conveys more information, esp. in Boris's monologue. For example, did you know that Boris's sister Irina (who had been married to Tsar Fyodor I, thus facilitating Boris's rise to prominence as a statesman) died during Boris's reign -- and popular rumor had it that Boris had had her killed? (He didn't, even in legend.) There's also info about the plagues, fires, and famines that you get only in the '69 version of this scene.

Net? For me, 1874 is my story and I'm sticking to it. But I don't disapprove of Gergiev's decision to experiment here.

Shuisky, looking younger than usual, was well sung by tenor Oleg Balashov. This production shows him really double-dealing: in the Polish Act, he turns up at Sandomir, ingratiating himself with Boris's enemies, with Rangoni introducing him around. In the last scene, he's part of the False Dimitri's retinue, while other princes and boyars are getting tortured by the mob for their loyalty to Boris. (Historically, this runt of the clan that once ruled Suzdal and fought beside Grozny, after quasi-reigning for a few years as Vassily IV, finished out his life as a political exile in Poland. LKF.)

As conductor more generally, Gergiev was what he always is: energy, propulsion. A few of his tempi were too quick for my Knappertsbuschian tastes, but the fire was always there, and always white-hot. Mr. Large's camera-work frequently caught singers looking at him -- I mean, more often than soloists usually look at the conductor -- which may suggest that he's a bit mercurial: tempi not set in stone in rehearsal, need to watch constantly, etc. (Nikitin, as Rangoni, was especially doing this.) But this long, leave-nothing out version of BORIS flew by, without too many of those rushed tempi I mentioned. Gergiev has shown that he can truly mangle non-Russian repertory (his OTELLO, anybody? or DON CARLO? or his Maryinsky RING on tour at Covent Garden?), but in Russian rep, he's infallible.

Fyodor and Xenia

Jonathan Makepeace and Jennifer Zetlan, with Wadsworth's help, made much more of the Godunov children than is usually the case. It's a Wadsworth principle that every character, even in a sprawling work like this, has his or her own story, and so Fyodor and Xenia emerge more individuated than usual. Makepeace has a strong boy soprano and acts well. Zetlan -- with a pretty/homely a face of the sort you "don't get tired of," and with a rich range of expression -- managed the feat of looking about ten years old in the Coronation Scene, then aging into teen-hood by Act II. (Six years elapse between these scenes.) Her alternating cheered-up and not-cheered-up moods during the songs and dances with Fyodor and their nanny (Larisa Shevchenko) were delightful.

In a coup that has mysteriously eluded earlier directors afaik, Wadsworth brings Xenia as well as Fyodor onstage for Boris's death. (She enters at the point where he mentions her.)

In some productions -- and this way is valid too -- Boris's death scene is fraught with politics. At the Met in the '60s, Shuisky would put his foot on the first step of the throne, until Fyodor, cradling his father's body, shoots Shuisky one of those looks that sterilizes frogs at forty paces. In the Ming Cho Lee production, loyal courtiers extracted Fyodor from his embrace of Boris and carry him, underarm, up the stairs and set him on the throne.

Here, politics vanishes in this scene. It's a strictly and highly intimate family scene: Boris, Fyodor and Xenia. Even the chorus that half-sings, half-whispers "He's dead" is off stage.

There's a reason for this intimacy. Remember how all scene changes are in full audience view in this production? As soon as the ethereal strains that close out the scene of Boris's death are over, you hear a roar: you think maybe it's a spontaneous ovation. No: it's (the Met chorus now playing) a bloodthirsty revolutionary mob, rushing in to begin the final scene, usually called the Forest of Kromy Scene. Where Pape, Makepeace, and Zetlan vanish to, I couldn't tell you. Possibly they "escape" in the confusion; possibly the Met stage's trap doors are involved. All I can tell you is, they're gone.

Pimen

Can you deal with a wise, elderly Russian monk who is clean-shaven? White-haired, white-clad, but clean-shaven? I sense a failure of research here, or maybe an excessive desire to be different ("EVVVVVerybody puts a long beard on Pimen...").

If you can get past that, you may like saintly Brother Pimen as presented here. He's wise, and diligent, probably very holy, but on one subject, just a little bit off his nut: the murder of Tsarevich Dimitri. He was there, you see: he heard the Tsaritsa's first screams, he saw the people's arrest of the knifeman -- "that Judas, Bityagovsky" (as the Met's surtitles say).

(The libretto says "Yehuda Bityagovsky." I've never been easy in my mind whether this really means "[a guy by the name of] Yehuda Bityagovsky," or "that traitor, Bityagovsky" -- or just possibly, "that Jew, Bityagovsky.")

This Pimen is obsessed with this event. When he turns his chronicling duties over to young Grigori, he hands over his newly-sharpened quill (the camera dwells on Pimen sharpening it), but he takes his ink-tray away with him. Wha...? Is he signalling that Grigory should in fact use sharp tools, rather than ink?

Anyway, the eyes of bass Mikhail Petrenko start to flash when the subject comes up. In the scene of Boris's death, he is less an old man with a story than (all in white) an avenging angel: he even grabs Boris by the collar at the climax of his narrative.

I was delighted with Petrenko's voice. A few years ago I heard him at the Met give a distinctly underwhelming performance as Hunding in DIE WALKURE, which was put to shame by the unforgettable, stage-grabbing Hunding I saw in May of '09 -- Rene Pape! Either Petrenko's voice has greatly improved, or he was just not comfortable in Wagner back then. To equal his Pimen vocally, you'd have to go to Plishka (in the Rostropovich recording, or many a Met b'cast tape), or Tozzi (in a Met b'cast tape from '56), or Talvela (in the Ghiaurov/Karajan recording of the Rimsky-Korsakov version).

Grigori, later "Dimitri"

What do you call this character? The Russian libretto I've accessed on the web calls him "Grigori" in Act I, and in Acts III and IV, самозванец, "pretender." Never "Dimitri," tho' some English libretti call him that. I'll stick with Grigori.

The length and difficulty of this role doubled when Mussorgsky added the Polish Act (in the 1874 revision). It turned the role into the musical equivalent of a romantic tenor lead, except that a) he's still an unscrupulous schemer, and b) he'll never get star billing, because the lead bass will always get that. This means that this role has had trouble attracting tenors equal to its demands. No such problems arose, however, with the role in the hands of Aleksandr Antonenko. Germans have Heldentenors, Italians have (what Americans call) "can beltos"; whatever the Russian equivalent is, he's that. Not especially tender, but solid and brilliant throught this role's wide range.

Marina and Rangoni

Awright, what's going on?

First, I know the Polish Act is often omitted these days. The stated reason is "authenticity": it wasn't part of the "original version." That's pious BS: the real reason is to avoid the cost of hiring a first-rate mezzo-soprano and baritone for these two roles, and of building a set to represent the Palace of Sandomir. So when we get the Polish Act at all as part of BORIS (and I think it's essential: the producers who said the 1869 version needed more dramatic sweep and a serious female lead were right, and Mussorgsky wrote some of his best music for these scenes), I suppose we must be grateful.

That said, is it a given that there must always be hints (of varying degrees and types) of sexual intrigue between Princess Marina and the Jesuit, Fr. Rangoni?

Rangoni was Mussorgky's creation. He's not in the Pushkin play, which features only an unnamed Jesuit with a quick line or two. Fr. Rangoni, SJ, is a product of the Slavophil imagination. The historical Rangoni was a lay nobleman who represented the Vatican at the royal court of Poland-Lithuania. To fulfill the Slavophil nightmare, though, he had to be a priest, and not just any priest, but a Jesuit.

The Jesuits in their first century were in deadly earnest: they accomplished amazing feats of missionary work (think of St. Francis Xavier in Japan), and lots of martyrs. Now, I can't claim that none of them were attracted to, or inspired attraction in, the women of the high society they often moved in. It may have happened. But for a Slavophil -- and this is my point -- you don't need that in order to make Jesuits creepy. They come creepy right out of the box, just because they fervently spread the -- heretical, from a Russian Orthodox "ultra" p.o.v. -- Roman Catholic faith.

But moderns are incapable of seeing religious questions as intrinsically serious. Why should Rangoni be creepy -- as his music, and others' reactions to him, clearly show he is -- just because he'd rather Russians be Catholic and Russians would rather Russians be Orthodox? There must be something else! GOT IT....!

In this production, Ekaterina Semenchuk is one bombshell of a Marina. Put it this way, if Anna Chapman has a rich mezzo voice, that'd be this Marina. That something other than spiritual direction is going on between these two is made clear, though, mercifully, the details are not. (And to think some people think it's weird that some priests will only have spiritual chats with women in a traditional, non-face-to-face, through-the-grille confessional.) What's less clear is who the instigator is or was. It could very well be Marina. In this production, she rejoiceth in her seductive power the way that horse in Job paweth in the valley.

As Rangoni, the Jesuit who (in this production) gives up the girl for the greater good, the craggily handsome Evgeny Nikitin is a Father What-a-Waste. (All Catholic girls know what that is.) In older days at the Met, Rangoni was usually Morley Meredith, who was, not to put too fine a point on it, Boris Karloff with a dry bass-baritone voice. How nice to see a Rangoni who doesn't crack mirrors as he passes.

Jesuits were supposed to be comfortable in high society, and in that regard, Wadsworth gets it right: Nikitin's Rangoni chats with Grigori across living room furniture, legs crossed, at ease -- all that's missing is a cigarette (which Pape was enjoying backstage, but that's a separate post). And what's he doing, at least as Wadsworth sees it? Setting up this worthless vagabond-ex-monk with the Best Girl in Poland, all for the greater glory of God. And smiling while he does it. Maybe his whispered prayer to St. Ignatius isn't pointless or hypocritical after all!

Oh and -- costume. The Jesuits these days remain badly in need of some counter-reformation, and I think if they could swan about the way Nikitin's Rangoni does -- clericals decked out with black knickers, a black leather knee-length pinch-waist coat, and crimson gloves -- I think that could happen. Trent Punk.

Singing -- oh yes, Nikitin did that too. See, when he first came to the Met, it was as Fasolt in DAS RHEINGOLD -- a bass part. But baritone is his Fach -- lately I even heard of him doing as high-lying a role as the Herald in LOHENGRIN. Mussorgsky marked Rangoni as "bass" in the score, but, at least at the Met, since the '30s, it's been baritone territory. Nikitin may not be ready, or suited, for Verdi baritone parts, but the baritone voice he's settled into is more mellifluous than that of, say, Sergei Leiferkus (an excellent Rangoni in his time) or Nikolai Putilin. Onegin and Igor should be in his future.

Smaller parts

With Pape, Semenchuk, Petrenko, Antonenko, Balashov, and Nikitin in the major roles, this performance could have gotten away with a few weak performances down-ticket -- but there were none. Veteran bass Vladimir Ognovenko (a Boris back home) showed the right buffo style as Varlaam. Nikolai Gassiev, who's been doing character-tenor roles in Petersburg since Rasputin was a cadet, was a mischievous and eye-catching Missail. Young Alexei Markov showed a baritone voice of Hvorostovskian potential as Shchelkalov, Secretary of the Duma (virtually a star role). Valerian Ruminski and Gennady Bezzubenkov provided two mean and bassy police officers (and hey guys, great whip sound-effects in the first scene -- uh, those were sound effects, right?). Olga Savova was an Innkeeper right out of Gogol.

Mikhail Svetlov excelled as Mitiukha, the one character above all who, for me, exemplifies the "here comes everybody" aspect of this opera: Mussorgsky didn't leave out any element of Russian society, not even the designated peasant "smart guy," the plebeian whom the other plebeians instinctively ask questions of. That's Mitiukha. In English village life, this is what would be called a "Lord High Everything Else."

Only problem is, with all these superb Russian comprimarii, there was little room for the Met's own artisti di casa. Two of these did in fact get cast: Andrew Oakden and Mark Schowalter as the adventurous Jesuits in the last scene, Lavitsky and Chernikovsky. I'm afraid I was at a loss to figure out what Wadsworth meant to have happen to them: they narrowly escape being hanged thanks to the timely arrival of Grigori, all decked out as the conquering "Dimitri." Then they're about to follow him, but they look at the various dead guys all around -- and sort of sink down too. You might expect them to pray for the dead -- but a quick, silent Liebestod? No comprendo -- but all is resolved, if sadly, in the final, mournful prophecy of the Holy Fool, which closes out the opera.

2010-10-09T17:10:00.000-07:00

DAS RHEINGOLD review, part one: the road to this production

The music-dramatic spectacular of Wagner's RING needs re-staging from time to time, sometimes even re-thinking. But during the Postwar, not to say since the days of Adolph Appia, this has in fact been happening. Are re-think ideas endless?

European Personenregie is a dead-end: even if a encasing Wotan's head in a birdcage somehow does tell us something, it's more likely to be something the director learned in Europe's endless grad-school culture than anything Richard Wagner meant to narrate.

The "neo-Bayreuth" style of Wieland Wagner was beautiful in its austerity, but its quarter-century reign on the Green Hill (longer elsewhere) was a long inning indeed, and in any case, it had two flaws: it underplayed the role of color in Wagnerian staging (or do I just think so b/c those productions were mostly photographed in b&w? I think they were photographed that way b/c they were that way); and they depended on a generation of singers so great in both their vocalism and their dramatic sense that their like cannot be depended on.

Wieland Wagner defended that lack of literal-looking trees in his RING sets with the remark, "Why do I need a tree when I have Astrid Varnay?" Meaning, not that this great (American!) soprano was a tree, but that her vocal and dramatic presence made sets kind of beside the point. But is there a new Varnay today? Enough of them to supply the (growing!) demand for RING productions? Frak that! -- even Bayreuth is now employing Linda Watson; an estimable lady (I've seen her Brunnhilde at the Met), but not a Varnay, or a Flagstad, or a Moedl, or a Nilsson.

What else? Well, there's the type of Konzeptproduktion that doesn't deserve to be dismissed as "Eurotrash"; productions that impose an interpretation, but do so with consistency and evident intelligence, and work with the text and music, not against them or in apparent ignorance of them. Ultimate example: Chereau. Archetypal term of praise from reluctant admirers (like me): "It works." Yes it did -- but how many such ideas are out there, w/o tipping over into Eurotrash? And, even if they were abundant, do we really want every RING to come with some director's Konzept? Can't we have some "pure" Wagner somewhere, some time?

The Met thought so. After a 1967-1982 experiment with a neo-Bayreuth style (the complete cycle was last given in 1975), James Levine realized that "conservatism" had become radical, and took to the barricades. Everyone said you could never again have literal spears, shields, and sets that represent the forests and mountains of mythical ancient Germany. Levine said, why the hell not? Who sez?

No need to change set designers: the clever and versatile Gunther Schneider-Siemssen, who had designed the broken-ring world-disc, abstract buildings, and sky-swirls for the 1967 "Karajan" production, was re-hired to work with director Otto Schenck on a panoply of ultra-realistic sets, such as might have been seen in Wagner's day, but enhanced by modern stage technology.

The result was right out of New York opera-world master-plots: fans loved it, critics hated it, it drew generations of new Wagnerian singers to the Met, and it put paying butts in seats, wall to wall, for a quarter-century. And that's not counting earnings from the DVD and (not identical) CD releases.

But 20-25 years is about the average life-span for any RING production at the Met. Ask me, I'd have kept the Schenck version indefinitely. But I can't honestly complain it got stiffed, lifespan-wise. And besides, it is on DVD.

But -- what to do next? As my survey above was meant to suggest, the best options are all either just as "done already" as ultra-realism, or else they're simply bad. (I admit I haven't seen the LA Opera's hyper-modern production, which I've already ragged on a bit in this essay; but, to judge from their ticket sales, hardly any one else has either, and that should tell you something. In the age of the internet, people can find multiple reviews and see both still pictures and video clips, and decide whether they really want to see a stage full of laser beams and Wotan with a birdcage on his head, or not. Evidently, most don't.)

(The idea behind LA RING director Achim Freyer's wire-encasement of Wotan's head may be -- just guessing here -- to show the audience, who would never otherwise have guessed, that Wotan is imprisoned by the choices he has made. Oooooooooo, deep, man. "Ah, symbolism," as Martin Bernheimer might say.)

But if we don't want old and we don't want bad, what is there? Well, there has not yet been "fusionism" in Wagnerian staging: that is, anchoring certain aspects of a production firmly in tradition and the composer's narrative -- costumes and props, say -- but fusing that traditionalism with a non-representational (and to that extent, non-traditional) set, which will dispense with representationalism not for the hell of it, but in order to achieve scenic effects in a new way, a way made familiar by theater phenomena such as Hal Prince (how "representational," really, are his classic productions of SWEENEY or PHANTOM?) and Cirque du Soleil.

Only one man for that job -- a man with experience in both CdS and opera -- by name, Robert Lepage. And by 2005, Peter Gelb was talking to him about taking charge of a new RING production at the Met.

And now, RHEINGOLD is here. For my money (and I think I've shown my traddy cards clearly enough) it is a triumph. It's a long way from a traddy production: e.g. the gods assemble, not on a set that looks like the grassy mountain-top called for in the score, but in front of a row of vertical slats that pivot, turn, and re-form to change scenes or to make necessary adjustments within a scene. These slats are highly reflective, and both light and images (e.g. bubbles coming from the mouths of the Rhinemaidens, fire around Loge's feet) are projected on them constantly.

But notice -- the slats move around to tell Wagner's story, not some new one invented by the director. And what's projected on them are elements directly or indirectly from Wagner's libretto (after all, Scene One does take place "in the River Rhine -- in it," as Anna Russell pointed out, and Loge is the god of fire). Revolutionary means to conservative/preservative ends. Or, if you prefer (as I do) to can the political metaphors: a kickass new way to tell a familiar story (or to tell as afresh to those not familiar with it).

In the previous production, Schenck and Schneider-Siemssen gave us at the finale of their RHEINGOLD a beautiful Rainbow Bridge leading to a visible Valhalla. But it was done entirely with light-tricks, so no opera-singers-portraying-gods could actually "cross" it and "enter" Valhalla.

What does Lepage give us? An aurora-borealis of color in the sky, representing the rainbow; a laser-light "bridge" hiding an escalalator that enables the "gods" actually to rise slowly up the steep "bridge" behind the lasers; then the slat that had been raked to make all this visible horizontalizes, so that the "gods" can continue their walk (sans escalator) into Valhalla. The slat then verticalizes behind them, solemnly shutting Valhalla (Loge, by choice, remains outside); lights projected on the slats show Valhalla to be built of black alabaster with much white marbling (the Giants use quality materials).

Frakkn' amazing.

2010-09-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

Met RHEINGOLD round-up

Heidi Whaleson in the WSJ: "a high-tech extravaganza oddly married to an old-fashioned stand-and-sing aesthetic." To me, that's basically praise.

Stage-machinery malfunction at very end meant gods had to shuffle off to Buffalo instead of entering Valhalla. But hey, the history of RING productions is a history of prop malfunctions. See my Dad's book, "Prima Donnas & Other Wild Beasts," for the section on anvils that split *before* Siegfried strikes them. You deal with it.

Philly says "flawed," which tells you a lot about Philly.

My longtime friend Martin Bernheimer (writing for The Financial Times) is the world's greatest opera critic, and perhaps the last of the truly learned ones. But he's mighty hard to please in RING productions. He railed endlessly against the Met's previous, ultra-realistic one, but does he like this new, more abstract one? Ha! Oh, Martin: Neo-Bayreuth has been done, Chereau has been done, you didn't like Schenck (tho' I did), and the less said about European "Regie," the less said the better. This is something really new yet really committed to telling Wagner's story, not the director's.

Claire Prentice in The Daily Telegraph: "a triumph...Lepage treated the audience to a mesmerising display of virtual magic...Images projected on to the set evoke the depths of the Rhine, the mountaintops of the gods and the underground realm of the Nibelungen....Wearing costumes inspired by early productionsthe singers move around a stage bathed in infrared light. Computers pick up their movements and envelop them in projected pictures that move with their voices and the score. Wherever the god Loge goes, a flaming aura follows...."

Oo! Oo! A quick video about the production, narrated by director Lepage! (Ignore the opening: it's Baroque, but don't fix it.)

2010-09-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

First reaction I've heard from tonight's premiere of RHEINGOLD (and therefore of the entire Lepage RING): "Es lebt Richard Wagner!" Sounds encouraging, no?

2010-09-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

Berg, who was so much more than just Schoenberg! Plus Schreker, and more! Alex Ross writes about a festival at Bard this past summer:

Berg, who was born in Vienna in 1885, is classified in most music histories as an epigone of Arnold Schoenberg. Although Berg followed Schoenberg in abandoning conventional tonal harmony and, later, in adopting twelve-tone composition, his works reverberate with echoes of Wagner, Strauss, and, especially, Mahler. If Schoenberg always seemed to be marching in a straight line, Berg moved in majestic loops. In that spirit, the “Berg and His World” festival presented a dizzying mélange of early twentieth-century styles: the late-Romantic outpourings of Mahler, the gilt-edged impressionism of Schreker, the Brucknerian bombast of Franz Schmidt, the brittle sonorities of Paul Hindemith...

2010-06-24T18:43:00.000-07:00

Today on the 'Net (actually, on a networking site called Who-Hub) I encountered the following interview question: Do you think video games, chat rooms, etc. have a dangerous addictive effect on teenagers?

Here's my answer:

No. -- Well, maybe than can, but I think the word "addiction" has become drastically overused. There are some things that some people like to do a lot, while other people aren't that into them. Nothing wrong with that -- until the latter start to label the former "addicted" and start to medicalize their situation.

Do many teenagers today spend too much time with videogames and other online diversions, displacing both human interaction and other forms of education? Yes, maybe they do. When I was a teenager, I spent long hours under my headphones listening to various forms of classical music, mainly Wagnerian opera. Did I spend too much time with that, displacing both human interaction and other forms of education? Yes, maybe. Do I care? No.

And any educational specialists who came around theorizing that my Wagnerian opera-listening might have a dangerous addictive effect on me would have gotten Wotan's spear right through their interfering little hides.

You know what? I think the tendency to label other people's cultural passions as "dangerously addictive" has a dangerously addictive effect on educational theorists, psychologists, Euro-parliamentarians, and other types we could use less of. I think we should do something about it.

2010-06-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

Pianist Stephen Hough blogs in London's Daily Telegraph about the Welsh National Opera's production of MEISTERSINGER. Most interesting! (And yt has a comment)

2010-06-08T16:39:00.000-07:00

Giuseppe Taddei, RIP

A baritone as remarkable for his versatility as for his longevity on the stage. Not many singers succeed, at much the same periods in their careers, in relatively light baritone roles like Marcello, and in roles usually thought of as more in the bass-baritone line, such as Mozart's Figaro, and also Leporello, which is sufficiently bass territory to have been in Kipnis's repertory (though, yes, also in Evans's and Terfel's). Taddei performed and recorded all these roles -- and also the uber-dramatic roles of the Italian rep, such as Rigoletto and Scarpia (the latter famously recorded under Karajan with Price and diStefano.)

The New York Times's obit concentrated on the longevity angle, since the Met -- due to Bing's famous ham hands with singers' egos -- failed to secure his services until he was 69! (And what was Jimmy -- who usually handles singers so much better -- thinking of when he offered this titan a role like Fra Melitone as a Met debut role? I guess he was thinking cameo; but even at 69 Taddei was not yet old enough to be doing cameos!)

2010-05-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

Currently listening to RING on endless-loop basis, as needed, to get the grading of exams done. Just finished Bohm '67 Bayreuth cycle. Even as late as that, Josef Greindl blew away the competition as Hagen, and Windgassen had breath for the entire Act III narrative.

As for Bohm -- well, I'm from the Kna-Goodall school, but Bohm shows one that exciting need not mean slow.

2010-05-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

Simon Heffer (Daily Telegraph, London) reviews The Faber Pocket Guide to Wagner, by Michael Tanner

2010-04-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

AIDA today

I read on a priest's blog today that Holy Saturday is in a sense a day of "silence." I've always been a bit Fail on that part of the Triduum: worst of all two years ago when I spent that afternoon at the Multiplex watching the live HD transmission of TRISTAN -- and got a nice late-Lenten headache for it, thanks to the dizzy-making direction that day, with all its shifting "boxes." Enough about that.

Today I'm at home, but the AIDA broadcast is on the radio in the library (while the Holy Father's Easter Vigil Mass in on the telly in the living room).

We're at O Patria Mia right now, and I must say Hui He is quite a find and potentially quite a treasure. Where is she from, both nationally and in terms of the opera-professional ladder? The guardians of the memory of Milanov and Tebaldi who post of the great listserv Opera-L have been cautious in their praise, but look: we so often have chatter -- oops, there went the high C, and I've got to say, I've gotten better ones at the A&P -- but let me finish the thought: in general, we have so often had to chatter about what in iron age of voices we live in compared to the golden age of our youths or (in my case, I assure you) childhood, that when an Aida comes along who is at least worthy of serious comparison with the Greats, we should cheer, encourage, maybe do the "Dilbert victory jig." (As well as suggest some coaching for that high C.)

Zajick is amazing. Too bad there's only one serious Italian-style dramatic mezzo in the entire frikkn' world right now. Makes putting on AIDA kinda difficult, knamean? (D'Intino? Maybe. Borodina is past it now. Ganassi? Has she really moved successfully beyond the Berganza repertory?)

I like Licitra's voice, but it tends to flatten at the top. And by "flatten" I don't mean go flat in terms of pitch: I mean that it sounds like it's pressing against an upper limit, as if you were trying to serve jello to the neighbors upstairs directly through the ceiling. A shame, b/c he's got a lot going for him in the heart of his range. And it's nice to hear a Radames who is a tad more lyrical than a standard "can belto" -- as just now, when he pulled back to a mezza voce on "Fuggire!" Cool!

The lower-voiced guys aren't on the same level. Carlo Guelfi is effective dramatically, but the great baritone voice you can here in his recorded TABARRO didn't last long. Carlo Colombara's Ramfis does not suggest a bass who does first-string roles as well, tho' I know he does. Stefan Kocak as the King makes me feel that if I practice my scales in the shower a little longer, who knows.... "Dunque tu sei -- Sua padre" wasn't exactly like the days when Luben Vichey or Louis Sgarro would hand off to Leonard Warren or George London, was it?

Marco Armiliato shows again that he is a great Verdian. The orchestra and chorus sound great; Marco punctuates the possibly-too-familiar score with a few rubati, and the ensembles are omg grand.

2010-03-24T19:50:00.000-07:00

Blanche Thebom, RIP

Now I'm going to say right here that my favorite mezzo of that era was Nell Rankin. But Rankin and Thebom's overlap of repertory, though substantial, was not complete, and anyway, they brought different virtues to their roles. Today, sadly, is Blanche's day (Nell died four years ago, before I began this blog), so, RIP Thebom.

2010-03-22T18:40:00.001-07:00

Wolfgang Wagner, RIP

2010-03-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

ATTILA broadcast: get Leone'd!

While I can't claim to know this early Verdi gem like the back of my hand, I've had a tendre for it since I saw it at NYCO back -- how long ago? Well, I remember Sam Ramey did a thrilling job in the title role, and, though memory may be playing tricks on me, I believe some of the younger members of the historical Attila's entourage were in attendance, though of course they would have been getting on in years by then and required special attention by the ushers.

How delightful to discover, then, that Sam Ramey is still appearing in ATTILA, though this time not in the title role, but in the striking cameo role of Pope Leo the Great.

Now as fans of this opera know, Verdi did not call this character Pope Leo the Great. The scene in which Leo does the ol' "You! Shall! Not! Pass!" number on Attila was far too operatic for Verdi, great man of the theater that he was, to leave out; yet Verdi was also an arms-crossed, lips-pursed, that's-not-funny anti-clerical, and as such, reluctant to give a Pope credit for saving Rome from the Hun. So Pope Leo appears in the official dramatis personae as "Leone, an old man."

Yeah, see, so Attila the Hun is terrified by a nightmare in which "an old man" bars his way into Rome, and later, "Leone, an old man" does in fact appear and bar his way into Rome, using -- spooooooky! -- the very words Attila heard in his dream!

Whatev'. It's a great scene. And commentators Juntwait and Siff, most graciously, referred to Leone as "the bishop of Rome." That'll do: as St. Thomas More puts it, "No, 'Bishop of Rome' if you like -- it doesn't alter his authority."

Given that Ramey can't quite sing the title role any more, then how delightful to find him "promoted" to Leone! Of course in operatic terms it's not a promotion: it's a prelude to retirement. I'm borrowing the "promotion" trope from that great Calaf (in Puccini's TURANDOT, as if you didn't know) of the '20s, Giovanni Martinelli, who came out of retirement at the San Francisco Opera to sing another small-but-important role, roughly corresponding to Calaf as Leone does to Attila: the Emperor Altoum. Afterward he said: "For years I was the Unknown Prince [Calaf]. Then San Francisco promoted me to Emperor. Now I wish to abdicate."

But to judge from his performance, Ramey has some time left before he has to "abdicate." What's different about his voice today, compared to his voice when he took the title role in this opera? A great big wobble -- a sign of age, or, some would say, a fault of technique (though if a queue is forming to accuse Ramey of faults of technique, include me out). Aside from that, his great and long-familiar voice was clearly there in Leone's oracular lines. (He also sang a ruddy good Timur, in TURANDOT, last fall. So I figure that as Pope he can't abdicate, and as exiled Tartar king he already has. But I digress.)

The guy who did sing Attila was Ildar Abdrazakov. Magnificent. I was going to say that he's a Slavic bass as much at home in Italian repertory as Christoff or Ghiaurov ever was -- but I think Abdrazakov is from Kazakhstan, and might not appreciate being called Slavic. Well I hope he'll appreciate being called an Oriental Siepi, which I'll gladly call him. Interesting, though -- in some parts of this role, especially its higher range (and Verdi was pretty merciless to his leading bassos in this regard), Abdr, er, Adbr, er -- f. this, let's call him Ildar -- Ildar sounded very much like a young Ramey. Maybe he was trying to; I don't know. (In an intermission interview he mentioned asking Ramey for advice, and the generous old colleague and former Hun said, you've got it fine, just do what you're doing.)

In other cast news, I liked Violeta Urmana's Odabella, but I still say she's a mezzo. She got all the notes, but so can many mezzos. The best part of her voice is the middle and lower range, and it's not like the world is overflowing with dramatic mezzos. Ever since the Bartoli phenom, lyric and coloratura mezzos have been a dime dozen, if the exquisite diDonato and her fans will forgive my saying so. It's dramatic mezzos that we need, and we end up fach'ed when they decamp for the soprano repertory. Plus, those who do so usually shorten their careers. We shall see.

Ramon Vargas used to have a sweet lyric tenor voice. The role of Foresto in this opera is not lyrical, and today Vargas did not sound sweet. Sometimes a bel canto tenor can sing "can belto," but this was "can't belto," at least in the higher and tougher passages of the role. Something of his old self returned in the lyrical passages.

Now, this new Ezio, Giovanni Meoni -- where'd he come from? who discovered him? Quite a find! When I first tuned in (on the car radio, I must admit -- later I listened on the home stereo) I thought I was hearing a tenore-baritonale. No, he's a baritone, but on the light-toned side. As I listened further, I found myself more and more reminded of a young Merrill. Oh please, let this one be a keeper, not another flash in the pan!

Much, much credit to Maestro Riccardo Muti. I've long been a fan of this Snape-in-the-pit, with his baton-wand. (Look at pictures of him from five or ten years back, when his black hair, parted in the middle, was longer, and you'll see what I mean). It was his recording of the Verdi Requiem that taught me to love that piece passionately. He excels in Wagner too (check out the YouTube clip of the end of Act I of WALKURE at LaScala, with Domingo and W. Meier, Muti conducting), but he's the Wizard of Verdi. Early Verdi is at risk of turning oom-pa-pa in ordinary hands; with Muti, not a chance: passinate and grand from start to finish.

I can't comment on the austere production or the Prada costumes, but the Met's new ATTILA is a musical triumph.

2010-01-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

Scalia and Zerbinetta.

2009-12-25T21:01:00.000-08:00

I see that Bonaldo Giaiotti has a Christmas birthday. Happy birthday (yesterday, actually, at this point) to this fine (and, in his prime, underrated) basso, now 77! I saw him often as Sparafucile, Ramfis, Alvise -- and of course, his voice defined Timur for a generation.

Here he is singing "Ella giammai g'amo" (how is Ella, anyway? Merry Christmas to her) at the Arena di Verona in 1985. Not as warm and grand as Tozzi, not as omg-cantante as Siepi, but, one could argue, more sheer bassiness than those super-greats who outshone him. Ad multos annos!

2009-12-22T17:59:00.000-08:00

- La Muse, si vous le permettez, sortira d'un tonneau.

- Si je le permets? Volontiers, mademoiselle, pourvu que vous ne rentrez plus dedans, mais restez ici!

2009-12-19T14:28:00.000-08:00

Met HOFFMANN: Muse at 11 !

Well, I have a new opera lovemuffin: Kate Lindsey, the mezzo-soprano who plays the Muse and Nicklausse in the current production. (I said new, not only: I still love you too, Anna!)

And therein lies a point: this is the most Muse-centric HOFFMANN I've ever seen. Afaik, productions since the '70s have been stressing Nicklausse's dual identify as Hoffmann's male best friend and his female Muse. As "gender-bending" has become more popular, along with increasingly erudite reconstructions of Offenbach's original score and dramaturgy, this trend has only continued.

(The problem of conflicting "original versions" of this opera, and their contestable preferability to the more familiar "corrupt" version that made this opera a world-wide hit, is well discussed in this review from 21 years ago.)

Without endorsing "gender-bending" as such, I approve. Nicklausse was always more than just the one who "du ben sens emporta le prix," though he's at least that. There's a reason he's there in every story with his "good sense." He doesn't just want Hoffmann to stay out of trouble, as a good "best friend" character. He -- or rather she, the loving and jealous Muse of Poetry -- wants Hoffmann for herself. Even in the Cluytens recording on EMI, made before many of the current trends, the Muse announced (speaking) to Hoffmann: "L'homme n'est plus: renais poete! Hoffmann, appartiens-moi!"

The difference today is that the Muse is not an elderly French actress (as in the Cluytens recording), but a rather attractive Kate Lindsey, who looks good in Nicklausse's Dietrich-esque suit and top-hat -- and even better in the Muse's white shift!

In Bartlett Sher's production for the Met, the Muse is after Hoffmann with a vengeance. Her "sortira d'un tonneau " scene in the Prologue is not spoken (there is no spoken dialogue in this production) but sung, to an aria-tune I was not familiar with (is this an Oeser "discovery"? Authenticity in dispute?) She's got her work cut out for her: at curtain-rise, Hoffmann and Stella are making out on a table at Master Luther's tavern. Sensing Hoffmann's heart isn't in it, Stella (played by Netrebko, doubling Antonia), slinks out to get ready for her role in DON GIOVANNI at the opera house next door -- but not before bestowing a challenging mock-kiss on the Muse. Girl, we're fighting this one out! And the Muse as good as says so!

This leads to this production's most unusual feature: virtual collusion between Nicklausse/Muse and the Villains. Some will say, more than virtual. I don't think we need to go that far. But, at a minimum, the Villains take Nicklause into their confidence in a way I've never seen before, or could have imagined. Nicklausse helps Coppelius sell Hoffmann the glasses (Levine here uses a trio that I think is Oeser; anyway he doesn't use the aria "J'ai des yeux"). Nicklausse ushers Dr. Miracle into Crespel's living room, and lends his/her wrist to Dr. Miracle for the taking of the absent Antonia's pulse. Dr. Miracle's "Morte!" was half-whispered aside to Nicklausse. In the Venice Act, "Scintille diamant" (yes, we got the complete and exclusive traditional Guiraud/Choudens Venice Act: no poison, no "Tourne miroir," no "L'amour lui dit la belle" -- the dream of a traditionalist, like me!) began as sort of "OK, now here's the plan" speech to Nicklausse.

So the question then becomes -- wtf? Does Nicklausse join the Evil Genius in wanting Hoffmann to suffer and wanting to destroy the Three Heroines? Well, first, remember that there is the gravest doubt that the Three Heroines, unlike Stella, are real, as opposed to being pure creations of Hoffmann's imagination. In the Prologue, Nicklausse significantly asks: "Que parles-tu de trois maitresses?" And Hoffmann replies with words that strongly suggest stuffing a pipe-stem in Nicklausse's mouth to shut him up: "Fume!" ("Smoke" Or, "Here, have a pipe.") He follows this up by assuring Nicklausse that he will understand only when the stories are told, and his own role as the one who "carried off the prize for good sense" becomes clear. The Muse's only rival in "real life," if that term has any purchase in this opera, is Stella.

Second, according to the ensemble that ends the opera in the Met's version (another Oeser-ism?), the poet is made great through love. But implicitly, it is not as a lover that he is to be great, but as a poet. Hoffmann's travails in the three tales are his artistic boot camp. Nicklausse, in this view, becomes his artistic drill instructor -- adversative, but for constructive purposes -- even if the Evil Genius remains an Evil Genius. In Sher's view, a certain alignment of intent arises between the Villains and Nicklausse/Muse, but not an alignment of motive. Both want to ix-nay Hoffmann's romance of the moment -- the Villains, to destroy him; the Muse, to build him up and win him over.

(Sher refocuses attention away from the Villains by costuming the patient Alan Held substantially the same in each of his four roles. I've seen productions in which each Villain was costumed gloriously differently: generally I prefer this, but Sher's alternative view is valid.)

Singers: I loved Joseph Calleja's Hoffmann. There are experts who don't, finding an unpleasant vibrato in his voice. I don't: I hear a voice that is lyrical enough to convey Hoffmann's tenderness and vulnerability, yet with sufficient stamina to get through the role. I think it is the sheer length of the part that takes it out of the reach of some lyric tenors. An excellent Hoffmann was served up to us at the Virginia Opera about a year ago by Dan Snyder -- but Dan is a budding Heldentenor. John Alexander was a leading Hoffmann at the Met in the '60s -- but John was really a juegendliche Heldentenor, discovered as such by the City Opera (Stolzing, Bacchus), and by James Levine in a concert LOHENGRIN, but never by the Met. Long story short: Hoffmann is a tough role, and to get through it with a consistent sweet voice is a feat. Calleja pulled it off with grace.

Kate Lindsey -- who, as I said, must now put up with my crushing on her -- was clearly the #2 star and the #1 diva of the performance: when has Nicklausse ever achieved that? At curtain calls, it was she, not any of the Three Heroines, who brought Maestro Levine onstrage for his bow. And that was with Netrebko on stage and eligible for this privilege -- gewalt! Lindsey has a clean and lithe lyric mezzo voice, and a face that says "handsome" more than "gorgeous" in a, you know, Netrebko-esque way. She also showed, like Calleja, great vocal stamina, as the version performed here includes several Nicklausse/Muse arias (Oeser's, I suspect) that one doesn't usually hear: the sung version of the Muse's self-introduction aria, a Nicklausse aria making fun of Olympia early in Act I, the "violin aria" in Act II, and the "love makes art" ensembe at the end of the Epilogue.

To help make time for these, and perhaps to spare Calleja some effort, Hoffmann's "O vivre deux" in Act I was dropped -- and was not missed. Point is, Nicklausse/Muse in this version is a role of near-Wagnerian length, and Miss Lindsey shone from first to last.

While Calleja has largely been spared invidious comparisons to Rolando Villazon, whom he replaced, Alan Held, in the role of the Four Villains, has been made to suffer by comparison to Rene Pape, whom he replaced. (Quick: has it ever happened before that one bass-baritone with a 4-letter first and last name replaced another one with a 4-letter first and last name in the same production? -- I have no idea.)

Held need not worry. Perhaps Pape, with his bassier voice and well-known dramatic flair, would have been even better, but Held is a pro in this trying tour-de-force, and held his own (ha ha ha) vocally and dramatically. Those who remark that his performance fell short of the breath-taking bad-assery of the greatest "Four Villains-es" (London, Evans, Treigle, Bacquier) should remember that this production dials down the Villains' importance a little, making him share attention with Nicklausse/the Muse. Blame that on director Bartlett Sher, if you must, but not on Held.

The Three Heroines: After La Netrebko decided not to attempt the unnecessary tour de force of doing all of them, we ended up with three specialists: Kathleen Kim as Olympia, Netrebko as Antonia (and, in flapper gear, as Stella), and Ekaterina Gubanova as Giulietta.

Miss Kim, all four foot two of her, give or take, has an ample, supple, and precise coloratura vice; she coordinated it well with mechanical moves, which at one point included turning so as to knock Hoffmann down. Netrebko is in good vocal form, and she conveyed the agony of Antonia's choice -- love and domesticity, or singing, career, and public acclaim -- very movingly.

Gubanova showed an acceptable mezzo voice, not much more; she was burdened by a costume and hairdo that made the Venetian courtesan decidedly the least alluring of the production's heroines, including the Muse (when in female attire) and the doll! This was the only costume Fail of the production: having moved the entire action into the early 20th century, in pursuit of the Kafka side of Hoffmann's fiction, why revert to the ROSENKAVALIER-ish 18th century for the Venice Act? More flappers -- that's what we needed! And a less crowded stage altogether: shouldn't the stage clear for "Scintille diamant" and the ensuing Dappertutto-Giulietta and Hoffmann-Giulietta duets? And fill up again when Schlemil returns? Aren't his words "Venez, messieurs, venez" a cue for the chorus and extras to reenter, which assumes they've been gone?

The smaller roles featured numerous outstanding performances. (Hat-tip to Michael Scarola for providing me with the full cast -- the Met website does not, and I've mislaid the relevant issue of Opera News.)

Mark Schowalter, looking like Dr. Evil, was a strong Spalanzani. Alan Oke portrayed the Four Servants with a completely different look in each part, and delivered Franz's aria with great charm. Michael Todd Simpson's youthful, long-haired Schlemil looked like Russell Brands, which is an off-beat way to present Schlemil to say the least (remember when this role was taken by the cavernous, Karloff-esque Morley Meredith, a former Four Villains?), but Simpson, doubling as the student Herman in the Prologue, sang well. Dean Peterson doubled Luther and Crespel respectably, and Rodell Rosel, who will soon sing Valzacchi in ROSENKAVALIER, showed some character-acting potential as Nathanael.

Wendy White was, perhaps inevitably, Antonia's mother -- not the "voice of," as the character actually entered and roamed the stage during the "Cher enfant" trio, decked out as an opera singer of the previous generation -- not even scary. A bit of failure of directorial imagination here: no painting (it was withdrawn at the last minute, according to set designer Michael Yeargan in an interview during the telecast), nor a statue, as in Lillian Groag's brilliant production for the Viriginia Opera.

Levine and the orchestra kept tension at the max. Offenbach is hardly Berg or Messiaen, but that only makes this opera easy to fake -- not easy to play. Offenbach meant this as his "no kidding" opera, and he was well served in this today.

Despite a few flaws and debatable interpretations, this brilliantly-sung HOFFMANN presents a credible and thought-provoking way to re-think this eminently re-interpretable story. And one gets to see Kate Lindsey!

2009-10-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Wish I'd been there -- I hear Lise Lindstrom just finished a spectacular surprise Met debut as Turandot! "Sounds like a Turandot to me," says one observer. "At the curtain call," says another, "she was jumping up and down, hugging and kissing Mr. Giordani. She knew, and she did hit it out of the park." And broke the tension, too, sounds like.

Welcome, Lise!

2009-10-14T11:16:00.000-07:00

2009 NEA Opera Honorees. A special Box Five shout-out to Julius Rudel and Frank Corsaro!

2009-09-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

Met's Bondy TOSCA: Be careful what you wish for, Martin!

I'm going to see it "at the movies" on Oct. 10, so I'll comment then. For now, I'll just note that the dichotomy "traditional/innovative" does not map squarely onto the dicthotomy "rock/suck," or vice-versa.

2009-08-31T21:45:00.001-07:00

Gustav Neidlinger in Beethoven's 9th under Klemperer -- LOL! (His part starts at 6:30.)

2009-08-11T07:32:00.000-07:00

Sorry if that last post left a despairing taste in the mouths of those dropping by here. I certainly did have an end-of-era feeling when I heard that news and wrote the post, but my wife reminds me that I most likely will not be following anyone into the dark night just yet, and in case, it's not my belief that a dark night is what necessarily awaits any of us, so let's move on.

Since the Met RING last May I've seen SIEGFRIED and TURANDOT at the Washington National Opera. Should give you a quick rundown on those soon.

I've also spent three weeks in Strasbourg, with a side-weekend in Paris, and a spot of farhrening auf der Autobahn as well. No opera, though, alas: I was there to teach law (my day-job).

I thought about dashing to Munich, but what I most wanted to see their was Jonas Kaufmann as LOHENGRIN, but that was sold out, and the production, from what I hear, weakens my reticence about using the term "eurotrash." (No production should be condemned sight unseen -- I've learned that -- but even the German critics and public thought director Richard Jones had some 'splaining to do.)

We did see something we very much wanted to see -- not in an opera house, but on one: Apollo's Lyre, atop the Opera Garnier in Paris. This statue plays a major role in one chapter in Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, the scene that corresponds to the final scene of Act I of Andrew Lloyd Webber's show (the most faithful adaptation of the nover ever done, btw). My daughter was very, very pleased!

2009-07-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sandra Warfield, RIP

Farewell to another hinge of my childhood, since I grew up with the Metropolitan Opera Record Club Record series in which Sandra was frequently found in important secondary roles.

Perhaps her voice was not big or durable enough for a star career, but it was a smooth and attractive upper-contralto sound -- as attractive, in a maternal sort of way, as the famous photo of her that MORC and RCA always used, the one where she's looking back over her shoulder....

When I was in my senior year at Yale (and a classmate of Jimmy's and Sandra's daughter Ahna, class of 1980 -- like you, Richard Slade!), they both came to campus. Jimmy gave a master class, and Sandra gave a song recital at Sprage Hall. She still sounded lovely, and I got a chance to talk to her backstage and tell her how much she -- and that photograph! -- had meant to me as I learned about opera. That generation is dying out....

Sandra… bontà! Sandra… dolcezza!
Ah, camminiamo insieme un'altra volta

così, con la tua mano nella mia mano.
Dove vai ben so.
Ed io ti seguirò per posare a te vicino
nella notte che non ha mattino.

2009-05-10T13:04:00.001-07:00

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

Loge's fire and the Rhine's waters ended the world and the Schenck/Schneider-Siemssen RING last night in fine style.

Linda Watson's wobble was gone. Instead, she simply shone as Brünnhilde. Is she Flagstad? No, but she's a keeper, if she keeps on like this. Likewise Jon Fredric West, who showed not a trace of the too-common diminution of voice in the Act III narrative, and who even sang with some soft sadness -- within the limits of his instrument, which tends towards the fortissimo-only setting -- in the death scene.

Margaret Jane Wray, from whom your reporter saw an effective Ortrud three years ago, was radiant as Gutrune. Great things coming here. Our Gunther was Iain Peterson, who showed an impressive baritone voice, while his bio shows confusion as to whether he's a baritone or a bass. Pick baritone and stick with it, I'd say. Fwiw, in an effort to strengthen the weak character of the Gibichung chieftain, he did the DFD bellow on "greife dich immer," leading to a well-staged fight with Hagen -- Sir John Tomlinson, practically perfect in every way.

Richard Paul Fink made the most of this opera's short but important Alberich scene -- and once again did his little curtain-call dance as he took his solo bow at the end of the Act II. Another audience favorite. Has anyone noticed that in this production, Alberich's cape, already seen in RHEINGOLD, has grown to regal proportions in GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG? Bravo, Mr. Langenfass!

Norns: the First doubled the Erda of earlier evenings, as is traditional, and had an acceptable exponent in Wendy White. Numbers Two and Three did not, however, double Waltraute and Gutrune, respectively. The Second Norn was sung respectably by Elizabeth Bishop, and the first evening's Freia, Wendy Bryn Harmer, had a true star turn as the Third Norn. Later, Yvonne Naef worked her now-familiar magic as Waltraute, setting aside Fricka's hauteur for the Valkyrie's despondent humility, but with the same plangent mezzo sound.

Last Monday's Rhinemaidens -- Lisette Oropesa, Kate Lindsey, and Tamara Mumford -- returned, popping up downstage with a pert ta-daaa gesture and familiar fine voices: a fitting light opening for the act the ends the world.

A few advantages of seeing this spectacular production from the Family Circle: though you miss the Rainbow Bridge in RHEINGOLD, you see the River Rhine at certain points in GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG where I'm sure you can't see it from "better" seats; e.g., off to the right in Act II, and off to the left and upstage in Act III Scene I (except for the little downstage estuary in which the Rhinemaidens cavort).

Günther Schneider-Siemssen took a bow with Levine. [EDITED TO ADD: But see comments infra. Seems I was wrong about who was taking that bow, but I stand by the remarks that now follow.] He deserves to: not only for this production's set designs -- though that would be enough -- but also: how many designers have done back-to-back RINGs, at the Met or anywhere? Yes, GSS was the set designer of the previous RING as well, the so-called "Karajan RING." He is diversely talented. Since 1967, when the Karajan WALKURE premiered at the Met, no other designer has done a RING opera at the Met (except for visitors from outer space like the Kirov in '07). That's 42 years, and counting until the proposed opening of the LePage production in 2012....

Will the LePage production be the good kind of modern production, as opposed to, you know, the sucky kind? Will there even be a LePage production after all, or will this one live again? Will it be stored and be seen in the future? Singe, Schwester, dir werf ich's zu: weisst du, wie das wird?

2009-05-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

SIEGFRIED

Jon Fredric West gets through this killer role with his voice and energy intact, reliable volume, some attempts at lyricism, decent if not melting sound, comic touches that never cross the line to the inappropriate, and an obvious sense of enjoying what he's doing. Can a Siegfried today do better?

He's a burly guy. A snarky reference to World Wrestling Entertainment was overheard by your reporter at intermission. Well, maybe Siegfried is a big guy, d'you ever think of that?

West is "in it" at every moment, e.g. reacting constantly to Mime, and even (I've never seen this before) looking over his shoulder to see where that bass-baritonal laughter is coming from when he's just killed Mime. And that reminds me, Richard Paul Fink made the most of the SIEGFRIED Alberich -- there's a lot of it to make, though only in one act -- and he proved an audience favorite.

Linda Watson still has a wobble. Well, WALKÜRE was just two nights earlier! But she delivered a lyrical "Ewig war ich" with an on-pitch an un-forced "leuchtender Spross."

James Morris was the other great audience favorite, and he and Levine did their "two Jimmies" thing again at final curtain calls. Robert Brubaker excelled as Mime, Wendy White gave a good mezzo-but-alas-not-contralto rendition of Erda, and the Unseens -- Tomlinson as Fafner and Lisette Oropesa as the Forest Bird -- were superb. Now curtain calls for the latter two, though.

Production note: Sitting were we are -- Family Circle, scrape-the-ceiling territory -- has its disadvantages. Couldn't see the Rainbow Bridge, for example. (!!) However, we had a great view of Fafner the Dragon, seen in this production as Jabba the Hutt's country cousin. From where we sat, his eyes blinked and his mouth moved, as his lines required. The speaker from which Sir John's awesome vocal portrayal emerged was placed right at the mouth. Bravo.

2009-05-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

Curtain call question

Since the Met preserves the venerable tradition of curtain calls act-by-act in front of the curtain -- instead of the lame Broadway style where everyone comes out lamely under a lamely raised curtain and bows lamely on the lamely illuminated lame final set -- a question sometimes come up with special acuteness w/r/t Act II of SIEGFRIED (it could come up with B'way style curtain calls too -- did I mention that these are lame? -- but the Met style highlights it): should singers of unseen characters take bow?

My answer is yes: the soprano who sings for Forest Bird and the bass who sings Fafner the Dragon have legitimately sung important roles. As long as they're willing to put on something better than rehearsal clothes for the purpose, they should take a bow.

The consensus answer, however, has been no. I have never seen a Forest Bird or a SIEGFRIED Fafner get a curtain call (tho' I assume it's different in those productions, like Chereau's, where the Dragon turns back into his rightful form as a giant after Siegfried skewers him).

Some say: no costume, no bow. I say that's silly -- but if you insist, OK, let the soprano carry out some feathers and a beak with her, and maybe the bass can drag the giant-crab contraption after him on a leash. Seriously, though, why (tomorrow night) can't Lisette Oropesa and Sir John Tomlinson take bows in presentable non-costume clothing?

I ask because -- and here's the point -- Sir John wants to, and means to.

I could tell you how I know this, but then I'd have to kill you. Or not, but I'd just as soon you worried about it.

2009-05-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

WALKÜRE

Well, Placido started, but they took him out for a pinch-tenor in the middle of the first.

Before Act I, the Footlights of Doom went up, and a guy with a mike appeared, but the announcement was that Mr. Domingo, though feeling ill, intended to sing the performance "like the professional that he is."

As his Siegmund stumbled into Hunding's hut, he sounded winded -- and why not? verisimilitude! -- and with the familiar Domingo sound, just a tiny bit less of it. As Act I moved on, it became clear that he was conserving resources: singing near the footlights whenever possible, and introducing mezza voce into long stretches of the narrative.

Would he make it through "Vaelse Vaelse"? Yes, with good voice, though not very long held. And he continued through the soliloquy. But by the end of it he was, in his own estimation (we in the audience might have been more forgiving, but a pro knows when he's had it) matching vocal condition to lyrics: "Da bleicht die Bluete, das Licht verlicht...."

With that he slipped off into the wings stage left (stage left? audience's left, I mean). To get a glass of water from a thoughtful stagehand, many of us thought. Adrianne Pieczonka, the evening's studendous Sieglinde, who presumably had been briefed on contingencies, slipped out of Hunding's bedroom and asked "Schlaefst du, Gast?" of an empty stage. "Wer schleicht daher?" came from a brand-new Siegmund, who schleiched out from where Mr. Domingo had schleiched away, in costume and ready to go.

It was -- Gary Lehman, substitute Heldentenor extraordinaire, hero of last year's snakebitten run of TRISTAN! He finished the act with aplomb ("'Course he did, where d'you think Siegfried came from, har har har." Shaddup!! -- I shouldn't write these things late at night....) At Act I curtain calls, Rene Pape (Hunding) applauded Lehman directly. But it was in Act II that Lehman really hit his stride vocally, showing a baritonale Heldentenor that I'd like to hear more of, preferably in the starting lineup.

James Morris, as he did last night, sounded splendid, if no longer young. He now takes the Farewell very, very lyrically. Levine of course accommodates him in this expertly, but, if recall aright, so too did Lorin Maazel in last year's performance. If that's what it takes to get Morris through a Wotan these days, I'm for it, because he still sounds great, and has added depth in the years -- decades, it now is -- that he has done this role. At final curtain calls, he and Levine took a special one together, suggesting a special partnership of "the Jimmies" in THE RING.

Linda Watson's Brunnhilde: those who think a wide vibrato is no vice will say she sounds like Gwyneth Jones; those who think it is will say, dude, she's got a wobble. I say she's not the second coming of Dame Gwyneth, still less of Nilsson; but she got through this difficult role with as much voice as when she started it -- in fact her last line, "dem freislichen Felsen zu nahn," was delivered with lovely lyrical control -- and her initial ho-jo-to-hos were mostly on pitch, which these days is saying something.

I've now seen Watson's WALKURE Brunnhilde twice, tonight at the Met and two years ago at the Washington National Opera; on both occasions she was outshone by her Sieglinde, vocally and visually (Anja Kampe in Washington, Adrienne Pieczonka tonight). But since I don't recommend engaging bad Sieglindes as a way to make your Brunnhildes look better, I therefore do recommend keeping Linda Watson on the roster.

Yvonne Naef rules: Christa Ludwig lives! And what a difference a great Hunding like Rene Pape makes!

Since I'm known to love this production, let me quickly register two minor critiques:

(1) Despite years of minor restagings, they have always had Fricka try to reach out, literally, to Wotan at the end of their confrontation scene. Uh uh. Wrong. Buzzer. Gong. Any possibility of communication between these two other than arm's-length-legal has withered a long time ago: the scene is meaningless without that presumption. That's why Fricka is so successful in standing on her (impeccable) legal rights.

(2) While rich use of color is generally one of this production's virtues, as it should be in a production of THE RING, I've never understood why so many of Rolf Langenfass's costume designs are so gray that certain characters -- notably Wotan, tonight -- become almost invisible at times. In keeping with the production's naturalism, the ground is earth-tone gray. Anyone dressed in that color is generally detectable only when moving, or when under a particularly kind follow-spot. Fortunately, and in contrast to the neo-Bayreuth style, Schenck and his successor-stagers keep the characters moving a lot.

2009-05-05T13:49:00.001-07:00

In the current RING, Sir John Tomlinson is singing Fafner. That is, a Knight is playing a Giant and a Dragon. How did their unions ever agree to that?

2009-05-04T20:59:00.001-07:00

RHEINGOLD

James Morris is no youngster -- but you might think otherwise from his junger Wotan tonight. It was good to have back Yvonne Naef as Fricka (will the Met offer her the Italian roles that she'd also like to do here?), and Charles Taylor (a good Herald in LOHENGRIN three years ago) suggested Heldenbariton potential with his dark Donner.

But both musically and dramatically the evening belonged to Richard Paul Fink, as Alberich. He unleashes a titanic sound that is bassy with full baritone range, acts at every moment (I loved his "Oh stuff it" gesture at the Rhinemaidens when they're starting to tell him of the power of the Gold), and, in the Neidlinger-Kelemen tradition of "bel canto" Alberichs, he sings every note: not a hint of growl or Sprechgesang (though he certainly has the evil laugh thing going for him when he wants it).

When Fink got to the dramatic pause at the "crest" of the Curse -- right after "des Ringes Herr als des Ringes Knecht" -- there wasn't a cough, there wasn't even an intake of breath in the whole house.

Fink got the second biggest hand at curtain calls, after Morris.

Giants: Rene Pape and Sir John Tomlinson. If you can beat that, you can build Valhalla. Pape's lyricism put across Fasolt's underlying tenderness. Sir John has no problem putting across thugs (has anyone ever reviewed him w/o using the word "craggy"?), but it's more than that. E.g., it was chilling the way he looked from the pile of gold to Wotan's hand during the passage in Scene Four where Fasolt is wavering about accepting the deal. I understood this moment as never before: Fafner cares nothing for Freia except as a bargaining chip: he wants the gold. For him, recidivism on Fasolt's part serves no useful purpose. Then he sees It -- on Wotan's hand. Suddenly, Fasolt's backsliding is very useful indeed: it's the way to bargain for the new Precious that Fafner has only just discovered.

Kim Begley turned in a professional-caliber Loge, singing and acting very well though not outdoing Siegfried Jerusalem in the DVDs. At curtain-close, you'll remember, Jerusalem folded his arms at us and looked bemused; Begley made a what-u-gonna-do gesture. Both fit this production's concept of the end of RHEINGOLD, which gives viewers a stunning Valhalla and Rainbow Bridge, but at the last second closes in on Loge, his skepticism, and (presumably) his incendiary intentions.

I've heard critiques of Wendy White's Erda, stepping in for Jill Grove in the second cycle and this one. But what's not to like? She's not technically a contralto, but her mezzo sound is darker than Naef's, which itself is dark enough for Fricka.

Levine and the orchestra were as always: Wagner on the grand scale, with exquisite attention to detail, and (so far as I could tell) flawless execution of the Vorabend's many difficult and painfully exposed solo instrumental parts.

2009-05-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog, if there are any, may have wondered why I haven't blogged up any of the Met's RING broadcasts. Two reasons:

1. I have had a busy spring with my professional and non-operatic social life, and it has actually been very difficult for me to catch those broadcasts.

2. I am on my way to NY, today, with my opera-loving, James-Morris-fan teenage daughter, to see the final cycle. W00t! My goal is to blog up brief reviews, performance by performance, if I can persuade my mom to let me handle my youngest brother, viz., her new I-Mac.

(The SIEGFRIED review, in any case, will have to wait a bit, since right after it I have to dash back to Virginia Beach for our law school's Commissioning, a very important event for the students and for me. Naturally I will fly back up the same day, for GOTTERDAMMERUNG the following night.)

Big drama: cancellations? Is Ben Heppner waiting in the wings w/o public explanation? Will anyone slip on the scenery? Etc. I really hope not. Last year I saw Stephanie Blythe, as the WALKURE Fricka, trip on her hem, and though she and Morris handled it brilliantly -- they never broke character -- I'd rather see THE RING straight (p. the e.).

2009-04-28T16:04:00.000-07:00

1965 Bayreuth RHEINGOLD rehearsal scenes, showing (after a few unexplained seconds of Silja doing Senta's aria):

*Wieland showing Theo Adam and William Olvis (Froh) the blocking for just after Erda's exit

*Windgassen going over Loge's narrative with a repetiteur

*Wieland coaching Erwin Wohlfhart on Mime's "vielleicht, ja vielleicht" moment

*a wild-eyed Gus Neidlinger, as Alberich, "marking" (an octave down) the "Habt achts" as he blocks out his Scene 3 threats against Wotan. (Gosh, Neidlinger looks like he was fun to work with, and I hear he was. Keep in mind that at this rehearsal he was well into his second decade as Bayreuth's house Alberich. And he's still having fun!)

*Böhm conducting the Rainbow Bridge music and giving verbal instructions to the orchestra as Olvis (unseen) sings Froh's "Zur Burg führt die Brücke" gorgeously (why did this guy have a short career?)

*Wieland barking orders about the "Apparat" for the Rainbow Bridge

2009-03-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

OK, a little update here.

Virginia Opera did a TROVATORE last fall with an outstanding tenor and baritone: respectively, Gustavo Lopez-Manzitti and Nmon Ford. (Latter's first name is pronounced "ENmon.")

Manzitti is a true spinto tenor; he had done an excellent Turiddu and Canio for us in Virginia the previous season. Tall, too; not bad-looking, and a passable actor. In a word, da bomb.

Ford was our Kurwenal in the (Virginia premiere of!) TRISTAN about seven years ago. Best I ever saw -- wonderful acting, too: you sensed his joy when Tristan awoke -- but I wondered whether he had a Verdi style. Well, in the years since that TRISTAN, he's developed one. He has to work at it -- his relief after his gorgeously sung Il balen was palpable -- but gorgeous it was. Throw in the gangsta look, and you had one helluva a Verdi villain. (Is DiLuna a villain anyway? My wife always says Leonora is a loser with no sense of who's the right guy to pick....)

2009-01-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

NY Post's "Page Six" lets fly at Gelb. Placido for General Manager?

2009-01-08T20:34:00.000-08:00

An interesting discussion here about concert pitch, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the (more recent) CD re-release of the Solti RHEINGOLD

2008-10-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

PEARL FISHERS in Washington

An unpretentious production that tells this improbably but touching tale -- a Ceylonese Phantom of the Opera, my daughter pointed out to me -- with good singing and colorful if not overly imaginative sets and costumes. What's not to like? Especially since, to my great delight (though to the groans of Urtexters, I'm sure), conductor Giuseppe Grazioli opted for the crowd-pleasing return of the great "Oui c'est elle" melody at the end of the Nadir-Zurga duet, rather than the lame "Amitié sainte" ending the was (they say) Bizet's "original intent."

Nora Amsellem as Leila, Charles Castronovo as Nadir, and Trevor Scheunemann as Zurga all gave satisfaction. Scheunemann is the journeyman of the group, and did not even attempt the high note at "Et son chant qui plane sur nos têtes" -- in fact that whole passage was taken down -- but he has a pleasant light baritone voice. So do forty gazillion other young American singers, which might be his main problem right now.

Castronovo managed Nadir's stratospheric tessitura not quite like Gedda or Kraus, but who can demand that? He didn't go into ridiculous falsetto either. Amsellem was in good voice and very feisty (though I could have done without her mock-Indian head motion during her curtain call).

Keep an eye on Denis Sedov, the young Russian bass who sang the thankless role of Nourabad. He had impressive heft, volume, and dark tone.

2008-05-19T16:24:00.000-07:00

Are you grading exams and reading Supreme Court opinions? No? Then you'll have time to watch Lego TOSCA!

2008-05-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

Check it out: a 1919 NY Times review of L'AMORE DEI TRE RE. Can't agree with his dissing of FRANCESCA, but on everything else -- good piece.

2008-05-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

I didn't know until this past weekend's Commencement ceremony (or Common Cement, as the electric traffic sign always manages to put it) that at the Ed School that's part of my university we had an MA student named Amneris Lopez Boyd!

2008-05-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well boil my borscht. Pimen's narrative of the murder of Dimitri is in the 1869 version of BORIS but not the 1872 version. Guess Mussorgsky deleted it to "make room" for the Polish Act, but the later performance tradition -- correctly -- deemed it essential (as is the Polish Act) and put it back.

One of many things you learn from listening to Gergiev's side-by-side recording of the 1869 and 1872 versions.

2008-04-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

SATYAGRAHA

Converted? I don't know if I'd say that. But I'll say this.

I rarely turn off classical radio just because I can't stand what I'm hearing. In fact, I never do so -- except once. It was years ago, and the piece under transmission was, of course, SATYAGRAHA; specifically, the beginning of Act II (the "ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha"s).

Listening to it yesterday, I found the opening of Act I very beautiful. Not operatic, really; more like a cantata. But beautiful. More demanding as the act went on; but hey, I like Strauss and Berg: I can do "demanding."

When Act II and the "ha ha ha"s came around, I found they sounded very different from how I remembered them when I Scarpia'ed them off my radio all those years ago. From back then, I remember it as a very industrial sound. Yesterday, it was lyrical and tonal. Fault of memory? Difference of interpretation? (A very bad car radio?)

Anyway, yesterday's broadcast was a pleasant surprise.

2008-04-12T12:37:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm enjoying THE GAMBLER right now; I didn't blog the broadcasts of BOHEME b/c I didn't feel like listening to it (that's a see opera for me, you know?), nor that of PETER GRIMES b/c I don't yet know it well enough and I had a lot work for my day job.

Anyway, I did go down to the multiplex and March 23 to see TRISTAN. That was only partly that I love TRISTAN, tho' I certainly do. It was also because of the amazing run of incidents that plagued this year's TRISTAN run at the Met: if anyone else upchucked or broke their butt, and I had a chance to see it live, well, I'd feel pretty foolish if I let a sawbuck and a drive to the mall had stand between me and seeing that.

As it happened, the broadcast performance was incident-free, and a fine performance. Full comments to follow.

2008-03-11T19:42:00.000-07:00

Why I didn't blog LUCIA: I was away. Not just on the road, but in the Matrix.

Now, were you at the opening TRISTAN? If so, feel free to comment, but from my vantage point (not having been there or heard it), I'm going to side with the apparent majority who think the booing of John MacMaster was bang out of line.

The dissenters say he was so goshawful that artistic justice demanded booing, just like they do at La Scala and Palermo. The majority says he wasn't that goshawful: he was singing his first Tristan at the Met, on short notice, with no rehearsal.

I would add that for better or worse -- mostly for better -- the Met is not La Scala or Palermo, and anyway, Wagner is not Italian opera, with its "school" conventions that can be easily applied by an audience full of gifted-amateur critics.

Mr. MacMaster, take heart. You saved the show, and most Met-goers are grateful to you for it.

2008-03-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

Applause after Iago's Credo?

Credo in unendliche Melodie
I've had one insider answer (hi, Mom!) as to why Guelfi didn't get applause for the Credo last Saturday: Bychkov is not among those conductors who believe in interrupting the flow of drama for applause.

Oi veh -- cue the chin-stroking and the musicological jargon. It's a big debate.

The Italian tradition favors applause after big numbers. The bel canto composers (including early Verdi) clearly expected it, and even the Verismists left room for it. But OTELLO represents Verdi's longest stride in a Wagnerian direction. And Wagner clearly does not favor interstitial applause -- unless it's Wagner himself doing it, as he is said to have once done at a dress rehearsal for PARSIFAL. (Then there are those moments in Wagner when you know there's not supposed to be set-piece applause -- b/c it's Wagner, you know -- but you cheat and sneak it in anyway, like right after a rousing rendition of Ortrud's curse!)

Following Iago's Credo, Verdi neither forces the conductor to stop for applause, nor forces him to move on. Much like (Mom reminds me) Mascagni after Vo lo sapete.

Now, I'm a big Wagnerian opera-as-drama type. So you're guessing my view would be: plow on, and be damned to the singers' egos and fans. Well, you'd be wrong: I say stop and give a baritone a break. He's playing a disgusting character with a lot of tough singing, and this is his only chance for applause, b/c you certainly can't wedge any in after the Brindisi or Era la notte. At least for Met purposes, I'm sufficiently wedded to the House's italianate traditions to take that position.

But Bychkov apparently thinks differently, and these days, that may just be part of the cost of getting a conductor who makes the sparks fly. Fausto Cleva always stopped for applause, and his name is circumstantially linked with innumerable great memories. But face it, do music magazines do Cleva retrospectives? Do record companies issue The Cleva Recordings, Vols. I - XX? You see what I mean. I repeat: Bychkov made the orchestra sound greater than great, and conducted the most orchestrally moving OTELLO I've ever heard. (Maybe I should go back to the Karajan for a comparison, but I know Barbirolli's performance, and he's no slouch.)

Support your local baritone
Besides, the audience has to take some responsibility too. How much do they want to applaud their baritone? I noticed they had no trouble forcing Bychslap to sit down and let them cheer for Renee after Salce/Ave Maria. As one who has (in smaller houses) personally initiated "hands" that would not otherwise have happened, I say: break in with applause for your baritone too, if you like him! Don't be such a damn Saturday-matinee, drove-up-from-Philly kind of crowd that you only clap for the soprano!

Next debate -- NOT!! -- should Iago laugh evilly at the end of the Credo? Correct answer: no. Acceptable alternative answer: yes, if he gets no applause, and if he waves a chainsaw at the conductor.

2008-03-02T17:08:00.001-08:00

OTELLO was as I predicted, only better. Judging from my car radio (the only opportunity I had to hear it), Botha presented a very unusual interpretation by being so lyrical, and showed great athleticism by doing it so well. Perhaps it's what Bergonzi would have done, if Bergonzi could have done it at all.

True, the repetition of the point about Verdi and the pianississimi in Otello's part grew grating after a while. After one has read it in Botha's Opera News interview, and then heard it a gazillion times in the broadcast patter, one has gotten the point. But the proof is in the performance -- can he really do it, and if he can, how does it come off an interpretation of Otello? My answers: yes; and, a very valid one.

In another Opera News article, Toscanini was quoted as saying that the pianississimi in the OTELLO score shouldn't be taken at face value (recalling what he heard Verdi himself say when he, Toscanini, was playing cello in the world premiere). But for a loud Otello, we have both commercial and private recordings of DelMonaco and (my favorite) McCracken. Botha's was a new approach, and lovely.

Guelfi was much better than I expected. There's a wobble there at times, and no, he doesn't quite sound like he did in that old TRITTICO. But on radio it came off as a good strong Verdi-villain voice: confident up top, and bassy in the low range. Why no applause for the Credo? No longer part of Met performance practice, or did the house audience not think he deserved it?

Fleming ruled. But so, above all, did Bychkov. I know the Met orchestra is the world's greatest, but I've rarely heard them like this! Magnificent playing, and perfect dramatic timing. The opening and Si pel ciel nearly peeled the vinyl off my front seat.

2008-03-01T08:32:00.000-08:00

I won't be quasi-live-blogging the OTELLO b'cast today the way I did CARMEN last week, b/c I'll be on the road, but I'll give my impressions afterwards.

What I'm expecting is that Botha will observe the piani and pianissimi in the score, will be criticized for it, but will sound beautiful nonetheless, if not exactly del-Monaco-italianate. Fleming will be great. Guelfi will get the job done, and with dramatic flair, but those who remember his awesome recorded Michele will wonder what became of that guy.

As for Semyon Bychslap, I hear good things about him, but have not yet heard him conduct....

2008-02-28T19:59:00.000-08:00

Well that was fast. The '57 Bayreuth RING under Knappertsbusch became available at Berkshire Record Outlet about a week ago -- opera by opera, not as a unit. Then --blink twice, and all except SIEGFRIED are gone.

That year's Siegfried was Bernd Aldenhoff. Hmmm.

Most in demand, I guess, was the WALKURE -- Nilsson's last Sieglinde before her promotion to Brunnhilde. and her only one at Bayreuth. (Varnay was Kna's Brunnhilde.)

2008-02-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

CARMEN b'cast thoughts, 3

Nancy Fabiola Herrera is your basic central-casting Fiery Gypsy, good voice, nothing remarkable. (But how does a singing-actress bring something to Carmen that hasn't been done a bazillion times?)

Marcelo Alvarez is giving us a much more lyrical Don Jose than usual. His Flower Song had passages sung mezza voce that we're used to hearing "can belto." I thought it was lovely.

Lucio Gallo is a gifted basso buffo, but not an Escamillo. (The Met has made some strange Escamillo choices in recent years. Sergei Leiferkus?)

Two thumbs up for Krassimira Stoyanova's Micaela.

2008-02-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

CARMEN b'cast thoughts, 2

The Quiz -- a quiz hosted by opera characters? It just might work, as a once-in-a-while gag, provided the character was impersonated by someone widely known for playing that role. The question tossed out to the public at the outset would be, who is this person "really."

EDITED TO ADD: Wait a minute. No, it would be a terrible idea. What was I thinking of?

2008-02-23T10:44:00.000-08:00

CARMEN b'cast thoughts, 1

a. What's wrong with Borodina? This is not the first Carmen she's missed this season.

b. Good to hear this new comprimario baritone, Stephen Gaertner, singing Morales. He's scheduled for Melot later this season. I like a baritone Melot (check out Bernd Weikl in the Karajan recording!), and young Gaertner sounds like he's got just the right sound.

2008-02-22T12:25:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday, Rolando Villazon! (And get better, whatever keeps going with you.)

2008-02-21T20:44:00.000-08:00

INAUGURAL POST

"Welcome, opera lovers in the United States and Canada....!"

I had to start that way, because that's the way Milton Cross, and later Peter Allen, used to begin the Saturday afternoon broadcasts. Those words came right after "TEXaco presents -- the-uh-uh Metropolitan Opera!" Of course that was back when Texaco did present the Metropolitan Opera (you haven't bought gas from Texaco or Chevron since they stopped, have you?). And it was back when we had distinguished, knowledgeable, and manly announcers, instead of -- well let's not start a bitchslapfest down that alley on our very first day, shall we?

Anyway I've just been listening to Act II of SIEGFRIED in the Barenboim set. While B's prelude to Act I didn't have his trademark solemnity, his prelude to Act II did.

Other things going on in my life right now (besides federal preemption of state common-law tort actions, but that's for the other blog) is that I'm majorly ramping up my knowledge of the Janacek operas. Since Mackerras recorded the major ones with Elisabeth Soderstrom, and since Soderstrom had one of the great voices of all time, and since she was also a great friend of my mother's ("Aunt Bibeth" was what I called her), this is a pleasant undertaking. Aunt Bibeth said Emilia Marty/Elina Makropoulos was her favorite role, and I don't doubt it.