Buzz from the hive
In La Cieca’s inbox this AM:
“I work at the Met and am so pleased to see clarified the entire Erika Sunnegardh mystery. It had actually never occurred to me that the Godfather Himself was behind this, but it makes perfect horrible sense. We (the worker bees) cannot WAIT for him to be history (lower-case ‘h’), but have ambiguous feelings about the future as we belatedly rocket into the 20th Century.”
Different tastes (and desires) is what makes this old planet go around!!
Ah yes, the fire curtain. When that thing came down, you knew you had been to a life changing performance!
AND the fire curtain would start to come down and people would moan in disappointment, so the fire curtain would stop, halfway down, and there would be at least one more series of bows.
Saw that at an “Elektra.” The whole point of “Elektra” is that it is so short (especially when the two cuts are taken) that you can fully expect 20 minutes of bows afterwards, and everyone still gets out early.
What are the two cuts in Elektra again? I’ve never seen a cut performance.
What are the two cuts in Elektra again? I’ve never seen a cut performance.
how about the end of the glorious lyric opera david daniels orfeo, where DURING THE FINAL CHORUS leaving patrons said “see you next season” at the top of their lungs … stay and applaud. besides the fact that so many memorable and notable things can happen during a curtain call … in that orfeo, daniels got the conductor, which was very diva of him. who could forget hanna schwarz falling at her klytamnestra bow in new york? PS: where is SHE now? still singing?
my favorite ovations: after price’s final met “o patria mia” … after birgit’s salome final scene at the bing gala … callas “ah non giunge” …
and … from my own artistic life … i was performing a “boy-girl-boy” medley in a brill building review … we did “go away little girl,” which was great … when it segued into “where the boys are” the queens in the audience just about lost it with the recognition applause on the second word … made me feel like barbra for a brief moment.
and ps: i get a kick out of aretha’s nessun dorma, too. did anyone see her on martha a few weeks ago? she sang “you make me feel like a number one hussy” and then intoned “i’ve got a terrible cold” in her pseudo-cadenza before the final words.
Hanna Schwarz was the old Countess in Queen of Spades last summer at SFO. She was wonderful.
“What are the two cuts in Elektra again? I’ve never seen a cut performance.”
I think one of them is at the end of the Klytamnestra scene, where Elektra has a very wordy drawnout description of how she wants to hunt down her mother and kill her. I think it’s usually cut to about a third (or less) of its full length. (I think just after Elektra sing/screams “Ich! Ich! Ich! ..” is where it’s cut the full version goes on for several tiresome minutes.
I don’t know where the other cut is.
I think the “cut” scene also contains a few full-Throttled ” high Cs that the soprano just would rather not sing!