Macbetty
"When the Met last offered Verdi's Macbeth a quarter century ago, the New York Times slammed Sir Peter Hall's staging as 'the worst new production to struggle onto the Metropolitan Opera's stage in modern history' and the opening night audience greeted the curtain calls with some of the loudest boos in the theater's history. On October 22, the company neatly avoided a reprise of this notorious fiasco when they offered a bland take on the opera unlikely to rouse much strong feeling at all. "Our Own JJ reviews Macbeth in Gay City News.
POSTED at
9:50 AM
25 Comments:
Excellent, intelligent and a well written review that no "main" press music critic can match.
Great review, and one which I wholeheartedly concur with. Although it should be noted that the singing improved considerably in subsequent peformances, with both Lucic and Guleghina sounding more secure.
Is Guleghina past her prime or was she always as hit-or-miss as this?
The Oct 22 issue of The New Yorker has a long article on Peter Gelb.
I quote: "After being appointed general manager, Gelb invited Battle to a party at his home, and suggested that she might return to the Met. Battle declined the suggestion. 'She told me that for ten years, every time she walked down Broadway, she crossed to the other side of the street rather than set foot on Lincoln Center property,' he says."
I heard that Battle was invited to do Pamina, she took a look at the Taymor production and said no.
Hey, we both used the word "diagetic" in describing this production--Which twin has the Toni?!
Once again, we have an opera review posted (or linked in this case) on the site that is miles ahead of the efforts of mainstream media. Thank you.
Re: "She told me that for ten years, every time she walked down Broadway, she crossed to the other side of the street rather than set foot on Lincoln Center property,' he says.""
that's impossible, given that she sang numerous times at Avery Fisher thereafter.
JJ,
I forgot to mention that now you're the perfect canditate to replace Anne Miguette at New York Times!
Anony: "Se non e vero e ben trovato."
Okay, i've heard for years how awful the Peter Hall staging of Macbetto was. But the question is 'why?' Leaving aside casting problems, what was so terrible about it? I did a quick google search and couldn't find anything very informative.
Are there images (or better yet, video) anywhere?
Hey, I just quoted from the magazine.
mf: There are photos of the Hall Macbeth from Opera News here and here.
Here are a few excerpts from Manuela Hoelterhoff's review:
...the witches sail though the nighttime sky on brooms attached to wires. The audience chuckled as one hag seemed to plummet behind a cliff. In a later scene, the creatures hold stuffed cats as they welcome their leader, Hecate, who arrives on stage wearing absolutely nothing but a little cloth patch beneath her stomach. This was greeted with boos, laughter and some rustling as people searched bags and laps for opera glasses.
In pre-performance interviews, Mr. Hall said he wanted to present the opera as it would have been staged in Verdi's day .... But a quaint, old-fashioned approach doesn't work for "Macbeth" because of the dominating phantasmagoria. Macbeth spends a good deal of time persecuted by the ghosts of his guilty conscience. A few scrims and projections could have evoked his horrible visions in a manner satisfying to modern audiences. At the Met the ghosts were either real people who emerged from trap doors or cartoon-like bug-eyed faces that popped out of the witches' cauldron. This was entertaining, but hardly in the spirit of the opera.
.... The Met, alas, gave us the ballet, thus slowing the opera's pace and adding more appalling humor to the evening's events, as a troupe of tutu-attired ballerinas from the shores of Swan Lake fluttered about the stage, clucking over Macbeth, who'd fortunately fainted before their arrival.
Sherrill Milnes [was] unbecomingly garbed in cumbersome outfits and carrying a sword that could have trimmed a barley field....
... Lady Macbeth - in this production [is] a mad muppet with a bow in her hair. Given Ms. Scotto's short stature, that actually worked very well. She sang her first aria, rolling her eyes, writhing on the floor with her gown halfway up her legs.
Cieca thanks for the links (had no idea anything like that existed, can you give me a link to a higher place in the protocal? I can't work it out on my own).
The black and white photos selected don't make it _look_ like a total clusterfuck in terms of sets and costumes (though the tutued ballerinas look stupid and out of place). But I'd assume that ON would choose the most conservative photos possible and after a Marguerita in Mefistofele getting electrecuted in a hair-dryer with buffalo horns everybody's standards are ... different than in the early 80's.
Anyway, guessing from the review, I assume it was the details of staging that made it so awful or the horrible anti-chemistry that sometimes happens when talented people interact in an implosion of fail.
For the sake of the historical record, the Met did not inflict dancers in [i]tutus[/i] on a production of [i]Macbeth[/i], unless they ditched them before I saw it and and before the linked ON photos were taken. Though the conventional "ballerina-length" gowns were bizarre enough, using tutus (which I'm astonished La Hoelterhoff would have remembered as being used) would have been about as hysterical as employing them in [i]West Side Story[/].
Dirk: I would disagree. The dancers are wearing the romantic tutu or waltz-length tulle skirt, as introduced by Taglioni in La Sylphide (1832). Very likely the dancers in the first Paris Macbeth would have worn something similar.
Strange productions of MacBetto: way back in the 70s PBS showed a Covent Garden production of That Opera (with Patricia Johnson as Lady) in which the designer conceived it as some kind of Pict and Scot-Orson Welles-style barbarian era thing in which evveryone wore heavy fur outfits with spikes sticking out of the robes. Can't say how good the singing was, but you could not tear your eyes away from the spiked costumes.
Well, Cieca, I willingly sit at your feet, and docily. But checking my dictionary, I see that tutu produces this:
_________________________________________
Etymology:
French, from (baby talk) tutu backside
Date:
1913
: a short projecting skirt worn by a ballerina
__________________________________________
If Messrs Merriam and Webster are correct about the date, the term was not even in use in Verdi's day, and the tiny little ruffles that stick out are not the graceful thigh-length Romantic affairs that you refer to.
But I promise to be submissive to whatever you shall decree.
Loyally,
DirkVA, who has not worn one in *ages*, but remembers a day ...
While we are on the topic of dancing--has there ever been a video released on a PBS show from the 70s which was done maybe at the Hollywood Bowl on the history of dancing, with a troop showing an eon of styles. The main reason to watch it was that it was narrated by Aggie DeMille, who sat at the side of the stage and read her witty comments? Actually the show got very good reviews.
Dirk,
A general usage dictionary is not necessarily going to register the ins and outs of specialist jargon (nor should it).
Though I agree that general usage refers primarily (only?) to the short stiff variety, I'd say the wiki page is probably closer to specialist usage.
(my usage meant 'in a stereotyped traditional' look for a ballerina)
I'd like to second (or third, or fourth) those who say this review is better than any in the mainstream.
Sadly, there's no direction mention of the sexual desirability of any the singers ('voluptuous stage presence' is close but not close enough and I sadly have no idea if any of the cast is 'strapping' or not).
I was there at the 1982 *prima* and there were indeed tutus that had been disappearaed by the next time I saw the show, 2 years later.
Manuela forgot to mention that the nearly nude Hecate had an electric light on her head like a coal miner...
I finally saw the new production in its final fall outing tonight. I'll spare you my reactions to the performance in favor of something far better:
The last time I saw this opera at the Met, the Lady was Martina Arroyo. Imagine my delight as that soprano herself passed by my Row-F aisle seat on her way to her front-row seat. Without thinking, I softy said, "Miss Arroyo."
She turned with the sweetest possible smile and said, "Yes?"
"I saw you in this role here."
"My dear, that was SO long ago, you couldn't possibly have been old enough."
"It's a happy memory," quoth I.
It was 1973, but I was certainly out of diapers.
M.A. must really take care of herself. I never saw her look better than she does now.
Just saw tonight's performance (Sat Nov 3) and have to agree with many of La C's points; Guleghina simply doesn't have the vocal chops or presence required for this role. Some ghastly cracked notes and a missed entrance tonight; singing was all around the beat. She has sparingly added some chest tones here and there, but the result sounds flatulent rather than dramatic. She slipped and fell while climbing around on the chairs in her exit and limped through her curtain call, waving lovingly at the tepid applause, milking it for all it was worth. Even her strong suit (the loud shit) didn't thrill me, and "La luce langue" which should stop the show barely got noticed by the audience. What a boring Lady.
Lucic was fine. He seems intelligent, if not a spectacular voice. Pittas easily got the most applause tonight; Act 4/i with the chorus was by far the strongest scene of the evening.
Don't understand Tommasini lapping Jimmy's piehole...he seemed bored, not into it. Playing was all superb, but there just wasn't much spark or imagination behind it all. Moments where the orchestra clearly is the psychological undercurrent seemed completely glossed over.
Production was ridiculous, and boring as hell. Why can't directors trust that Verdi and Co. KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING and that the music actually carries much of the show? There seems to be some fear that if they don't busy it up with flamenco dancing (wtf was that?!) and hopping around on chairs, that no stage action looks like bad direction. That said, the special effects with the spirits were rather cool. Seemed to be a couple stage mishaps though: chandeliers were in place during the witches scene on the heath and retracted at one point, and the giant wreath at the end got caught on the back wall of the set and started to teeter backwards. Glad it didn't fall during the curtain call, it would have taken everyone out.
I was also at last night's performance and found myself agreeing with JJ's review, as well as with Isepo's comments above. The whole evening was just bland and boring. None of Lady M's arias managed to fire up the audience, and the flamenco stuff was plain embarrassing. It was like the matadors had wandered in from Flora's party. The male singers were unobjectionable, but the overwhelming ovation for Pittas seemed disproportionate. I have a soft spot for this opera, but it sounded very much like second-rate Verdi on this occasion.
I saw the Peter Hall Macbeth about a month after its premiere, and many of the excesses that had caused laughter at the premiere had already been cut -- no stuffed cats or tutus, and even from the balcony it was obvious that Hecate wore a body stocking.
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