Apotheosis
(a-p?th’?-?’s?s) n.
pl. a·poth·e·o·ses (-s?z’)
- Exaltation to divine rank or stature; deification.
- Elevation to a preeminent or transcendent position; glorification: Many observers have tried to attribute Warhol’s current apotheosis to the subversive power of artistic vision” (Michiko Kakutani)
- An exalted or glorified example: Their leader was the apotheosis of courage.
- Tony Tommasini reviews Death in Venice twice.
NYCOQ: Except for me, because I am nice.
And what categories would our Lois Awards encompass?
Most weight loss in order to keep the contract.
Least sexy tenor in a leading role.
Worst performance within the fach.
Worst decision to sing out of the fach.
Best overacting during a curtain call. (The special Scotto Award)
Most banal Margaret Juntwait
comment.
Worst attempt at a high note.
Best scooping toward a high note.
Most measures cut from the score.
Widest vibrato.
Sloppiest trill.
Best PR stunt.
Rysanekfreak: That’s a fine start!
I saw the ENO “Death in Venice” at the weekend, and found it a superb production, with outstanding singing. Bostridge is in a class of his own, and of all pieces this ones shows off his qualities. He’s never been able to act very well (he was awful in Ades’s “The Tempest” as Caliban) but of all productions this one asks just the right things of him. I thought the conducting was good but not up to the level of the production or singing – the climax of the “dream” battle between Apollo and Dionysis just wasn’t there: less a battle than a conversation. Less an abyss than a trench.
For anyone who would like to hear an ENO performance, BBC Radio 3 is broadcasting it complete on Saturday 30th June at 6.30 pm UK time (1.30 pm in New York), and of course the Radio 3 online stream can be listened to and recorded. I think it is worth it, even without the wonderful sets, costumes and dancing.
There is a very interesting article in a recent edition of the “Guardian” (UK) about the way, today, people are so paranoid about appearing to endorse paedophilia that it has become hard to see the essentially sexual elements of the opera, and relate them to its non-sexual ideas and philosophical propositions — all of them in the music, of course. What does this “love” for a “boy” mean in the world of musical beauty and disintegration (tonal and a-tonal, with its strange and familiar sound worlds)? Why does passion have this effect (on artists, on men, on those who lose touch with their sense of themselves)? Can we control these passions, and if so, at what cost?
The article is here:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/classics/story/0,,2093395,00.html
Great suggestion about including opera in the Tonys. (The Olivier Awards have an opera category.) What have they got to lose? Some years they have to scrape the barrel to find four musicals to nominate.
I was surprised to find Bostridge praised for his English diction. I saw him in “Diary of One Who Vanished” and got one word in four, even in a small venue. And his Lieder recitals are as much fun as a lecture on Swedish architecture. But “Death in Venice” is a masterpiece and should be done in NY more often. I think Richard Margison would be a fine Aschenbach.