Soon and later
UPDATE: Gregory Kunde is now listed on the Met’s site for the prima of Puritani.
La Cieca hears that Eric Cutler did not sing the dress rehearsal of Puritani (anyone there to confirm/deny?) and, though his name’s still on the Met’s site, he won’t go on for the prima Wednesday. Thoughts?
And the tittle-tattle about (of all things) the 2012 Met season continues to filter in. The latest: the Donizetti “Tudor cycle” shared amongst Angela Gheorghiu (Anna Bolena), Anna Netrebko (Maria Stuarda) and Renee Fleming (Roberto Devereux [??!!]). All that, plus new productions of Guilliame Tell and Rienzi. Or, on the other hand, Earth may collide with a giant comet, so hold off on locking in the dates quite yet.
Mrs. Claggart:
With respect to Tommasini, I would like to take issue with you on one point: the fact that Tommasini is or has been a professional musician does not, alone, signify that his writing about music should be entitled to any deference.
Not all professional musicians have a solid, broad-based education. Not all professional musicians have good judgment. Not all professional musicians have taste.
I agree with your statement that Tommasini is probably not the finest reviewer of opera performances. However, he is also not particularly good in writing about orchestras, or conductors, or violinists, or cellists, or string quartets, or even PIANISTS.
More seriously in my estimation, he is not good in writing about and judging musical compositions, new or old. This latter is his most important duty, I believe–he should guide his readership to an appreciation of compositions outside the mainstream repertory, whether these compositions are brand-new or whether these compositions fell through the cracks at some point in time in the past. Tommasini does not or cannot do this.
When I read Tommasini, I never get the impression that I am dealing with an educated person. I never get the impression that I am dealing with someone with a wide range of interests, widely-read, thoughtful, with highly-developed tastes, with a keen intellectual curiosity and with a penetrating mind.
To the contrary, many times Tommasini writes things that are simply dumb–and there is no better word to describe some of his statements and opinions.
Tommasini is also occasionally prone to advance a personal agenda. His incessant and aggressive lobbying on behalf of conductors Kent Nagano and David Robertson and Robert Spano, going back years and years, is a prime example of this.
However, that said, I do not believe that Tommasini is any better or any worse than any of his critical brethren in New York, Peter G. Davis being the exception.
Further, I always read Tommasini, if for no other reason than to get a few early-morning laughs.
For instance, I will never forget the morning that I learned that Carl Nielsen was Dutch!
What a wonderful way to start the day!
Thank you, Drew 80. I was just reacting to the nasty dismissals of Tomma as an ‘idiot’ etc. He’s not.
He may be a lousy reviewer; I only read music reviewers occasionally and think most of them are jokes, but while many are jokes as people and stupid, Tomma is neither.
I can’t get too upset over Puritani. I did see the dress with an old pal. We met when we snuck into Bayreuth early in our lives the same day. We were both caught and ‘imprisioned’ by the Bayreuth Gestapo but had a high old time being nasty to them, and snuck in the next day successfully. Sadly, I was to have professional relationships with the horror who ran the Gestapo in later life, and I hope she is dying in agony this second.
My pal was very upset by the performance. I wondered if the conductor could read music, since ensemble was horrible and I swear the winds had different ‘books’ from the rest of the orchestra, they were wrong all the time. I would have liked to ask the librarian where the parts came from. In any case they were never corrected.
Since nobody seemed to know what they were doing and the tenor seemed near death, act one was a wash. But what matter, it is only Puritani.
Act two opened with grisly horror from chorus, conductor and bass. Nebs entered. There was a thrill in the house. Since I am not a lesbian I don’t care. She did her trick and had good tone, mostly. I just didn’t care. Horrific final duo.
Act three brought Kunde and while I didn’t hear the prima, it seemed like he might be OK based on the dress. I thought Nebs sang without expression but loud. Many cuts, all stupid.
But I will say, there was the horrible Pirata with Renee who I used to love as a person and performer, the horrible Dessay Sonambula (love her too), during witch my life passed in front of me (and when you’ve had my life that is a fate worse than death), and then that acid queen Gruberhof in Munich screaming through not one but two Normas — has she ever met a pitch she can’t bend below the note? And the whooping and swooping and hollering– grotesque.
So in the context of this world, Nebs wasn’t THAT bad!!!!!!!
However this music doesn’t mean anything to me (sorry and no one has to agree). I do remember Joan and Nicolai in Philly, thrilling beyond belief. And Joan and Nicolai in Sonam — almost made that three hours seem worth while. And Devia with Kunde no less, stunning in Puritani (more stunning with Merritt and on CD with Mateuzzi)– aside from Cerquetti when I was very young, I’ve never seen a great Norma, though Jumbo Jane was an experience, Joan had her moments and Caballe carried some of it off well.
Just an old cooter in her anecdotage.
mrsjohnclaggart@hotmail.com
Mrs. Claggart:
Neither “I Puritani” nor Anna Netrebko have much importance for me, either, in the grand scheme of things. There are much more important things to worry about in life.
I am like you–the whole bel canto repertory does not do much for me. It is just about my least favorite area of musical exploration.
A couple of months ago, I heard a performance of “La Donna Del Lago” here in Minneapolis, and I enjoyed it–but I would have much preferred an afternoon with Alexandra Del Lago.
I agree with you, however, that Rossini WAS a genius of the highest order, and I WOULD like to see and hear “Tancredi” in a stage performance. I have the Naxos recording, and I believe that “Tancredi” is a worthy, and perhaps even a noble, work.
However, Donizetti and Bellini had distinctly lower levels of talent than Rossini, and those composers, Bellini especially, require performers of genius to bring their works to life.
I don’t think that Anna Netrebko is a performer of genius (and Patrick Summers is definitely not one!).
Why does the Met engage him? To save money on conductor fees?
I think most of us would agree with mrsjohnclaggart and drew80 that “I Puritani” is not a cause of any great importance in itself. The whole bel canto repertoire (from which indeed Rossini has to be set aside) would not, perhaps, stand specially high in any ranking of operatic genres by cultural importance (if we ever wanted to carry out such an exercise).
But “Puritani” and bel canto standards of performance are near enough to the core muscial and artistic values of opera that they fully adequately represent them when issues of integrity, honesty and value are at stake. The whole Netrebko business is just that – buisiness. And the degree to which its methods are compatible with or actively hostile to, necessary standards and traditions of performance, and transmission of the intellectual, emotional and spiritual meaning of works of art through performance. Does the non-musical promotion of Netrebko irritate, or is it an assault on music in general and deathly dangerous to it?
Is PR and marketing for a mass audience of non-experts a necessary but harmless evil, or a threat? It is not a new quesion, though a lot newer and less easily defined than most of the debates in opera; and it is one that seems to be gaining importance and becoming sharper by the minute.
It is interesting that Netrebko was the stimulus to an extraordinarily perceptive article by the music critic of the London “Financial Times” Andrew Clark in Feb 2005. Is opening line was: “She looks glamorous, sexy. The dress reeks of haute couture, the pose is alluring. But this is not the latest face of consumer culture: it’s Anna Netrebko, starlet of classical music.”
But within a few paragraphs of what becomes a sustained argument, he says: “Behind the Netrebko phenomenon lies a pressing dilemma. How can classical music reach a wider audience without compromising its depth and integrity?” and goes on to examine PR and marketing in several areas of classical music in many settings and cities.
He looks at several singers and intrumental soloists whose careers greatly resemble Netrebko’s, and at promotion of new works (and the way some esatablished figures like the ghastly Simon Rattle, connive with the PR machine). He mentions several performers whose names appear often on these pages, including Renee Fleming.
Towards the end, Clark becomes explicit: “I’m a music critic: I can’t help but see PR as one of the curses of modern culture. I constantly find myself reading promotional articles about artists I do not rate. Most have been planted by PR people on an all-too-compliant press, which has given up the role of discriminating between good and bad in favour of what is handed to it on a plate… PR buys attention and masks mediocrity. It advances the interests of many artists I and other critics regard as inferior, allowing them to appeal over the heads of cognoscenti to a less discerning public. Worst of all, it promotes young artists ahead of their time, encouraging them to think they are better than they are. Most have a great technique but tend to be highly imitative.”
But he can only conclude by re-stating the tension. Because we all benefit from the GENERAL success of classical music, in economic terms, in competition with other entertainment for adherants and prestige, and in terms of the massive diversity of recorded and performed music that rides on thne back of the media-driven tiger:
“A necessary evil? The American culture of hard sell sits uncomfortably with music’s wordless purity – but with no PR, classical music’s voice in the modern world would be muted. PR is a symbol of the tension between musical tradition and contemporary culture, between art-for-art’s-sake idealism and the competitive pressures of 21st century life. We cannot simply wish away PR. But unless it raises itself above youth and sex and the superficial, we will end up with artists of lesser quality, more geared to presentation than truthful engagement with music. That could fatally damage the very thing classical PR aims to promote.”
In cas eanyone wanted to read the whole of the Netrebko-related article by Andrew Clark in the FT, it is here:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fc7152ea-771b-11d9-b897-00000e2511c8.html