You are dead, you know
In yet another dazzling example of counter-intuitive programming, the New York City Opera has decided to exhume their quarter-century old ticky-tacky Hal Prince staging of that overexposed snoozefest Candide to replace their scuttled new production of Ragtime. (Gee, how long is it since we last heard Candide here in New York? It must be twenty minutes at least.) If La Cieca didn't know better, she'd think Paul Kellogg was trying to bring the company crashing down (a sort of sound-enhanced Götterdämmerung) before that meanie Mortier can get his hands on it...
POSTED at
3:24 PM
33 Comments:
Why do they even bother?
Why do they even bother?
After hearing "Glitter and Be Gay" for the umpteenth time at an opera competition earlier this month, may I reiterate -- "It's NOT a f***ing opera!" Thank you in advance for allowing my rant.
Paul-
It is, however, an Operetta. And, in my opinion, a fine one (if done right.)
Off-topic: The MET audition finals concert is this Sunday, and it does not appear that Sirius will be airing it. Is there another website that will be streaming it? Help!
Yeah, but Ragtime is a loathsome, manipulative mess. Was I the only one who couldn't even find 4 performances I wanted to see at NYCO next seaon? I really want to see the Mark Morris, but at this point, I'm taking my chances on single tickets. And BTW, is it too much to want Lucia and Fille de Regiment on the same subscription at the Met next year? I admit I'm a bel canto junkie, and I could be persuaded to shell out for a bel canto series -- which they could offer with Norma, Ernani, etc. But I refuse to take my medicine and suffer through Philip Glass, who I think is a no-talent charlatan. I'm seriously figuring I'll do better paying the subscription price to a ticket broker for the two performances I really want to see than suffering through a lot of overstuffed productions I don't really care about (like I did with Idomeneo this season).
....or you could do a ticket exchage?
I love RAGTIME. It's one of the most powerful musicals ever writen. That's all I have to say.
Baritenor,
Later in the Spring / Summer the Met usually offers trio subscriptions, i.e., a package of only three operas. And later, but before the box office opens, they offer "make your own" subscriptions where you have to buy a minimum of five or six performances, but you pick the works and the dates. That's what I've been doing the last few seasons.
You can also try to contact a current subscriber or patron to buy tickets for you. Single ticket sales are already open to them.
Also, don't forget to check the schedules at Carnegie Hall and the Philarmonic. You may find a recital or a concert opera to fit into your trip to the Big Apple.
As for the NYCO, my feeling is that if I want to hear amplified music, I'd rather buy a CD.
Good luck and enjoy !!
Baritenor, I just saw your posting elsewhere about having purchased some defective CD sets. The thing to do is to return them immediately to the store where you bought them. Of course, you kept the sales receipt, right? If you're no longer in town, call them or e-mail them telling them what happened and that the package is being returned to them for exchange. I've never had a problem with this.
Then again, I've never purchased an incomplete set like you have.
Hint: it's a good idea to open the CDs and checking them soon after buying them and definitely before leaving town.
Again good luck.
I'm listening to Chenier as I was posting to Baritenor - second act duo. Heppner cracked on the final note, didn't he? Urmana kept on going. This poor guy just doesn't seem to be able to pull it all together consistently.
it's even worse live...his voice has become so small and ugly.
Il Tenore-
Wow. That was like a year ago. I bought a copy of Davis' second TROYENS, the one with Heppner, from Acadamy records while I was in New York, and the set had two act fives and no act one (in other words, disks 2, 3, 4 and 4). I never returned it, just went to the library, rented the recording, and burned the first disk. Simple as that. But I will be in New York next week, and I'll be sure to inspect before i buy next time.
Oh, and it wasn't me who was complaining about the subscriptions, I think it was Boringwhitegirl. I live on the other side of the contry, I do not suscribe to the Met. I do, however, suscribe to Sirius, which is the next best thing.
Boringwhitegirl: getting a subscription to the MET is really the best deal. You basically get one opera for free and you can exchange -- instantly -- to any other opera that you want. Single tickets are the highest-priced. Go for it!
I'm glad somebody else found Heppner poor. I am sick of the preposterous hype over this man. Yes, fifteen years ago it was a very good, decent sized voice but it's gone. He was terrified of high notes all night, you could see it, he tensed up and did a placement check before every one and STILL cracked. Also his timbre is now worn and lacking the resonance it once had. Finally as a stylist in this rep he is preposterous, no accenti or intenzione. But frankly, the first Aneas with great Lorraine was another walking on egg shells performance, and his Tristan was largely uninflected, though he had more sound at his dispossal. He was a awful otello too -- and yet on Opera-L there are these people who think -- not that he's OK -- but that he's GREAT.
I could live without Urmana and Delavan in this material too. She was a terrific Ariadne but normally she is dull as baby pee, and less surprising. That she and Heppner both count, don't overhold notes, and never sob are not advantages in this rep. I also think her voice has shrunk since I first heard her as Azucena at La Scala and three Verdi requiems (mezzo) in various places.
Delavan is just ordinary and yells.
I think a Mauro, Cruz-Romo, Richard Fredericks cast would get you closer to Chenier. Until the idiots who cast at the Met (all Brits) are fired or forced to come up with better people Chenier and Gioconda should be retired. I vote for firing that idiot "Who is Astrid Varnay and what roles did she sing?" Jonathan Friend.
Well the NYCO schedule is classic Kellogg...let's not forget the rickety old Hal Prince production of Don Giovanni that they are doing again next season. Kellogg & Co. tried a new production of it a few seasons back that was so hideous that they went back to the old production the following season.
God, I can't wait for Kellogg to leave. But as for nothing to see next season? The Agrippina redo should be good. I want to see Ruth Ann in it. She's not one of my favorite singers, but the role suits her vocally. And I love, love, love Vanessa. I haven't seen that since Washington Opera well over a decade ago. The Cendrillon, King Arthur I haven't seen since my days in Washington DC either. And the Falstaff really is one of their better productions.
BTW not all of the productions there are "accoustically enhanced".
I love Vanessa too. I used to be less big on it, but after hearing the recording with Brewer and Graham several times, it's really grown on me. I should check out the recording with the original cast--Steber and Elias rule.
And now with Flanigan and Elias (smaller role, but eh)? Should be very, very good.
I saw Kiri Te Kanawa as an amazing Vanessa in LA just before she retired. She was rather upstaged by Elias and the mezzo playing Erika, Lucy Schaufer (why isn't she singing at the Met?)
Re: Heppner. When I first heard him - SFO's 1993 "Meistersinger" - he was glorious. I know he's had health issues but I've never completely bought that as an excuse for his singing, even less now that he's still cracking in "Chenier." When he sang one of Chenier's big arias at Grant Park in 2001, he was cracking on all the high notes.
A few years earlier, at Ravinia, I also began to question its size. He, Denyse Graves and Sir Thomas Allen were singing Act II of "Samson et Dalila." On paper, one might have thought the British baritone to possess the smaller instrument. Wrong!!! Thanks to flawless technique matched with pristine diction, Sir Thomas' voice carried better than others' - and, yes, I was in the pavilion.
The sad thing is, I used to be such a fan of Candide, but good Lord it's been done to death. And Ragtime is overheated Lloyd Webberish dreck.
If we want Bernstein, why not Trouble in Tahiti? Or if we must bring Broadway to Lincoln Center, why not the most brilliant neglected masterpiece in Broadway history, something that has every right to be called an opera and hasn't been performed in new York since its original cast ... The Golden Apple?
Baritenor- Lucy Schaufer does sing at the Met. She was the Page in Salome in 2004 for a few performances.
Sugermezzo-
You're right. I forgot. But that's a pretty small role, and I'd love to hear her Cherubino grace a broadcast or two.
Is there a way to know ahead of time, i.e., before buying tickets, which performances at the NYCO are sonically enhanced?
Il tenore -
Unfortunately there is no way of knowing. So many variables affect the decisons there to amplify. Primarily of course being the smallness of a lot of the voices of the pretty young things singing there. But sometimes the sets won't allow for amplification. They had wanted to amplify the The Abduction from the Seraglio production a few seasons back, but couldn't work out the dynamics because the moving panels helped to project the voices out into the house and made the sound "too artificial". But about 60% of the time the singers are amplified.
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I thought that Heppner was tremendous as Enee. Yes, he cracked on the climactic high note in the last act on a few nights. But he sang that role as well as it can be sung. I agree that his Chenier is not a huge success though I quite like his Improviso.
Okay - this discussion had been opened once before on this forum last year - Candide IS an opera. Period. Bernstein wanted more than anything in his life to be known as a serious composer - moreso than as a pianist and a conductor. Operetta could begin to describe it's genre, but Candide requires real live opera singers in virtually all the roles who also have an ability to act. It needs acting singers, rather than singing actors, I believe. It all boils down to which VERSION of Candide is to be presented. The original 56 IS musical theartre...what it evolved into by Bernsteins own desires and revisions in 89 was an OPERA. What Hal Prince did was ridiculous and unnecessary and it's a shame that they are reviving such a piecey production. Why can't people just stick to what the man revised in 89 and leave it be??
Anyway, can someone PLEASE explain to me what the problem is against Mortier? I don't know ANYTHING about him except that I was informed that he was very complimentary about me over a performance I gave in recent weeks. But why is he constantly being referred to here as 'dreaded' and 'monster' and a whole muchness of negative adjectives?? What has he done that is so awful???
Explain, please!
I am in agreement with Il tenore..superba. I have seen several productions at the Opera de Paris over the past few seasons, and while I didn't "love" everything I saw, most of the singers were well cast AND MOST IMPORTANTLY - you could see that the productions in general well conceived though maybe not well received. Forming opinions without experiencing Mr. Mortier does a great disservice to him. I remember a lot of clucking about Mr. Gelb before he actually took control of the Met.
I constantly read postings on this and other blogs lamenting "tired-old" productions and "lack-luster" seasons. We certainly wouldn't expect a Volpe or Bing to helm City Opera would we? I don't see what all the brouhaha is about.
City Opera is about INNOVATION and ALTERNATIVES to the Met. Mr. Mortier is an intellectual impresario who was hired to push the envelope. The problem with City Opera is that for too long it has been run in the vacuum of Mr. Kellog's ego and disregard for the wishes and taste (and apparently the board's taste)of his audience. Too many ill-conceived productions done by mediocre directors or composers who are doing more harm to the furture of contemporary opera than good.
The man hasn't had a hit "new" production since the Lucia 4 seasons back - and that was due to the soprano, Jennifer Welch-Babbidge's amazingly searing performance while 7 months pregnant. The physical production itself was awful.
What was once a vibrant hotbed of Baroque/Bel Canto revival activity has devolved into a schlocky mess. For every Wadsworth or Miller there has been just season after season loaded with productions by the likes of Mark Lamos who almost destroyed Lauren Flanigan's career there in what I think was the worst thing I have ever seen on anybody's opera stage anywhere, anytime - Roberto Devereux.
And people think that Mortier could do worse?
I think the problem that NYCO has is that people think of it as an "alternative" to the Met. It shouldn't be. It's another opera house. It doesn't have to be lesser, or alt/funk, but it SHOULD produce operas that aren't generally done at the Met. It's a smaller house (although still pretty big), and it should take more care on smaller productions. Their problems happen when they spend less money slapping together pieces of junk trying to make them look big and impressive. In this regard they simply cannot compete with the Met. If they spent more time with their young singers making great music and were mostly concerned with putting great art and moving performances on the stage, they would garner more respect from audiences. They need better directors, they need more music rehearsals, and they need to devote more to their greatest resource - the young singers that come through their doors that want to move people and want to make great art, and haven't yet learned to be afraid to take risks. I personally know many singers who LEARNED to be afraid to take risks BECAUSE of their time working at NYCO. If that doesn't change, NYCO is doomed.
Sugarmezzo -
That's excactly why the Board has decided to go with a GM like Mortier. 'Art' is relative, but I think foremost that Mr. Mortier is going to bring 'Art' (albeit his take on it) back to NYCO.
Well, I hope that's what he's going to do!! I have zero opinion about Mortier, as I know nothing about him. I just hope they don't go for razzle-dazzle, but rather for raising the artistic standards. We can all hope.
I thought the production of Semele ('60s w/JFK and Marilyn)at NYCO was fantastic; didn't see Elisir (diner) but heard it was stupid.
So, I saw Chenier yesterday at the Met. I really didn't think any of the leads were fantastic - loved the Incredibile, Roucher and Bersi though. :) The complete lack of sexual tension or in fact any physicality at all kind of annoyed me, especially between Gerard and Maddalena.
I didn't notice Heppner cracking, but that could be because I was watching Armiliato conducting during the love scenes. He's cute.
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