Ecco il Sidestep
The saga of the peripatetic New York City Opera continues. According to a story in today's New York Times (another Saturday newsdump! Well, at least someone has figured out how the media works here in the city!) Anyway, according to this NYT story, Gérard Mortier is kicking around a few ideas for keeping the NYCO brand from vanishing from the public consciousness during the company's "hiatus" awaiting the reconstruction of the New York State Theater (and, not so incidentally, the official beginning of his regime in the fall of 2009). The company is looking at "probably" four productions in various venues, including "possibly" Carnegie Hall, the Beacon Theater and "other Lincoln Center halls." Oh, and don't rule out the Apollo Theater or the Hammerstein Ballroom, either. (To tell the truth, at this point La Cieca wouldn't be surprised if she heard "Yankee Stadium" or "Splash.")Well, let's table the venue discussion for a moment and move on to repertoire. Just what sort of operas might we expect in this transitional year? Of course, nothing's set in stone yet. Well, maybe that's an understatement. It appears, in fact, that nothing's even scribbled on a Post-it at the moment. In the Times interview, Mortier coyly suggests Mefistofele "because of its association with the house in performances by the bass Samuel Ramey."
Or, on the other hand, what about Rienzi -- assuming, of course, that one could count on "finding strong enough singers." Hey, what about a children's opera for the holidays, that might work, and, just to mix things up a bit, "a major American opera." But here's something you put in the bank: the repertory "must be great things," says Mortier.
Susan L. Baker, City Opera’s chairwoman reassures us that there will be some kind of announcement about next season in January. Or, failing that, February. Count on it.
Labels: a wandering minstrel I, mortier, nyco
POSTED at
3:01 AM
36 Comments:
are they implying mr. ramey will be singing the title role?!!!
and is this renovation going to do anything for say, the singers who have to deal with that horrid, sound dampening stage?
lol cieca, splash could perhaps be a suitable venue for platee...i'm sure the infamous "showers" could be put to good use.
Isn't Vilar still under house arrest in his apartment? Maybe they can do it there? From the House of the Dead
For the Apollo Theatre venue I suggest an all-white version of Porgy and Bess.
For Carnegie Hall, an all Muslim version of the Verdi Requiem.
Even though we are to table venue discussions, I think the last act of Le Nozze di Figaro in Damrosch Park would be charming. It would also be an opportunity for opera singers to prove that not only can they sing over large orchestras, they can also sing over police sirens and traffic. What a coup that would be.
May I add that all of these ideas are perfectly in line with Monsieur Mortier's avant-garde tendencies, so they will set the tone for his tenure.
How about an all male version of Midsummer Night's Dream, starring Teddy tahu Rhodes, Simon Keenleyside, And Stephen Costello, staged in the Rambles of Central Park. Why, we cold all join in as extras! But, girls, I get Teddy first!
Sam Ramey??? Doesn't anybody remember that the Mephiso craze began with Norman Treigle's tights or am I the only fey alte kakker left in NYC?
As for the vague repertoire comments ("Um, ugh, well, um"), these don't bode well for the Mortier Millenium. Sounds like he hasn't a clue. I think his first official act needs to be some pink slips in the PR Dept.
P.S. Reri K.M.G.: I just adore that "Bess You Are My Woman Now" number.
Nothing written and stoned? That gives me an idea! Along the lines of Candide and Little Night Music and Show Boat and other NYCO triumphs, how about -- Tommy! Lauren Flanigan as the Mother, or maybe the Acid Queen, Mortier himself as Uncle Ernie, and in the title role -- Barry Banks! (Okay, maybe Stephen McPherson.)
The venue would hardly matter ... but there have been so many empty nights on the schedule at the Gelb Met that an idea occurs to me ... come to think of it, that IS where I first saw Tommy performed, by the Who as a matter of fact.
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Stella (Stellllaaaaa!!!!) -
Yes, that Mefistofele will always be the Norman Treigle Mefistofele for me, too! And if they could resurrect him, I'd certainly be for it. But face it: Sam Ramey did make his rep on the role, whereas Norm merely capped his.
Ruin...Disaster...Shame. Oh I'm sorry the Rake isn't until 2009. This just gets sadder and sadder. I will admit that when I first heard the announcement of Mortier's appointment I was ecstatic. Well he certainly changed that. Is there anyone in the P.R. department at NYCO? I think at this point Mr. Mortier & Ms. Baker need to hire an outside P.R. firm. They are clueless. The Apollo? Come on. If you can't get them to Lincoln Center, what in the hell makes you think they'll go up to Harlem. Even George C. Wolfe couldn't get people to go up there. I think they should just pack it up till the 2009-2010 season. Throwing together a slap-dash season of half-baked productions is not the way to introduce yourself to the New York opera going public. And what did I say about NYC Ballet. We all knew that ANY renovation was never going to affect their season.
My suggestion is an all 17th & 18th century mini season. The Ulysees they did a few seasons back was excellent. The Rinaldo, Ariodante or the Orlando would make for a nice return before he discards all of the old productions. The baroque productions would make a perfect contrast to the all 20th century program for the forthcoming season. Since there is a plethora counter tenors out there casting would not be a problem. Mr. Mortier would do well to bring back the sopranos the house has been neglecting overe the past few seasons (Burton, Saffer et al). But then I seem to care too much about what happens to one of the major houses (and yes it is still a major house) in this country.
What a fucking disaster!!
What I can't figure out is this: yet another NYCO announcement timed for the Saturday Times, which NOBODY reads. Either Mortier & Baker are complete PR morons or they are purposely hoping to hide this "news" so no one will notice how inept they are.
I'll say it again, Mortier is the best thing that ever happened to the MET and Gelb.
I'd love to have someone explain to me why this is such a disaster. It's a common practice for Haven't most major theaters undergone a rebuild? European theaters to go through a rebuilding every decade or so- the Germans refer to it as a sanierung, although it is much grander in it's concept than merely refreshening the theater. In the handful of times I've seen this done, it involved a limited number of productions in other venues and a considerable number of concert performances. Munich, Covent Garden, Kennedy Center did it (although they did a disastrous seaon at Constitution Hall, although the disaster was caused more by managerial incompetence than the hall), Berlin (Staastsoper) has been demanding one for some time and many middle size theaters have as well. The only part of this that seems questionable is the last-minute nature of how it seems to being planned and executed, and that they don't have the public subsidies behind them, which makes this quite risky. The questionable competence here seems to be the advice that Mortier seems to be getting in the feasbility of doing it here at this time, not the general concept.
It has never been clear to me, when they announce that the first full season will include Einstein, Rake, Makropolous, Pelleas, and Death in Venice, whether they're somehow under the impression that they are introducing these works to the New York public. Could they actually be unaware that four of them are - or have been - in the Met's own repertory, and that even Einstein was originally done AT the Met?
Yeah, serlingkay--like the NYCO could ever compete with the Met. That's like casting Matthew Brodeick in the movie of Torch Song Trilogy as a "Model"....dream on baby!
The renovation is not the problem. The consensus FOREVER has been that the acoustics in the house are atrocicious. Allowing the P.R. to spin out of control when a new regime is coming in IS the disaster. The transition at the Met was seamless, but the Met has Gelb - THE KING OF P.R. Americans are wary of change and honestly anything that smacks of Euro-radicalism so Mortier was suspect to begin with. Not to handle this properly is the disaster. American theaters are not state funded so closing means revenue lost - which leads people to believe that if an institution which was in a precarious postition artisticalls/financially/whatever may not recover from what seemed like a hasty decision to scrap a season. Mr. Mortier probably thought that the board of the NYC Ballet would rollover and fall prey to his Gallic charms like the board of NYCO obviously has. They spent 5 years basically telling the ballet that they no longer wanted to be a part of their house. Did Mr. Mortier believe that that sort of acrimony was going to engender any sort of concern from the ballet on their behalf? He was a fool to believe that they would give up one performance date to help NYCO out. The fallout from the Kellogg demise and the poorly handled transition also adds to the arts gossip - and what do we love most? Gossip & schadenfreude.
Post Met Vocal Program. Listen now!
stream at
http://whrb.org
WHRB at the Opera
http://whrb.org/programs.php?section=opera
. Saturday afternoons
. Saturday evenings
. Sunday nights
. January 2008 orgies
. May 2008 orgies
http://whrb.org/orgies.php
What I have been told by a good friend who deals with NYCO-- she's in artistic management-- is that Mortier was perfectly happy to have City Opera be completely dark for the whole season, rather than have to present any productions from the current NYCO repertory---none of which are I guess up to his Eurotrash standards. He also apparently thought it would add anticipation for his first season, 2009-10. And his lap-dog, Susan Baker, was going to go along with it, until cooler heads explained that you cannot do that to all the subscribers. Now they are scrambling to rent Carnegie Hall for a couple of days to present some concert operas. I'm sure Eve Queler is just thrilled... ABSOLUTELY CLUELESS...
In response to OBAYSCH:
In all the examples you cited, contingency plans were made--sometimes years in advance-- to perform in other other venues while renovations took place. You can't just close down for a year and leave your employees out of work and subscribers majorly pissed off!!
i thought Einstein was first presented at BAM, not the MET?????
Sterlingkay: I have to say this again. Mortier is not the GM for City Opera for 2008-09. He didn't program (or rather not program the season; that's the fault of the NYCO board who didn't come up with an interim director season.
The planning Mortier is doing for 08-09 is essentially charity work on his part. He has to try to devise a season that should have been in the advanced planning stages before he was even offered the job for the following season.
For heaven's sake, let Mortier produce a season of his own before you damn him for somebody else's stupidity. Or is that asking too much from someone so blinded by prejudice?
I did have the experience of seeing 3-4 productions every summer during the Mortier years at Salzburg, as well as being in residence at the festival for 3 of the Karajan years, and I must say that I find the knee-jerk reaction that calls Mortier Eurotrash is a bit exaggerated. He is a producer, not a director, and for everytruly shocking production that came out, there were 4 mainstream productions, or at least what passes for mainstream in a modern European theater. And his Paris sojourn has not been considered a fiasco either.
He does a decent mix of repertoire, has some very interesting ideas and in general is several steps above the niveau that Paul Kellog's incredibly lame tenure has shown. There was never any question among most opera producers in Europe that Mortier was the right person to shake up the Salzburg Festival, which for all of the talk of the Met and Milan represents for many critics (I mean in general, not merely journalists) the highest production standards in the world. Physically it was certainly the case.
The early days of Mortier also had exceptionally high conducting standards, if you excuse the one unavoidable one (I can assure you that the Met has presented any number who are just as bad as Monsieur Ponytail).
His negative reputation comes from the stinkbombs he likes to throw into the papers, which makes him no different than a long tradition in France, most notably Boulez recently. But have those of you who are pissing and moaning about his coming really have enough background to judge his achievement? And aren't many of you the same ones who complain incessantly about how bad NYCO is? Just who would you have given the job to? It's not so easy as one thinks- witness Pam Rosenberg, who I heard one GD of a major European theater call the finest casting director on the planet, something that one never would have guessed from what went on the stage under her direction.
The real failure of City Opera, and this goes back to Chris Keene, who had more interest in productions that interested him rather than the singers, was the failure to build up an ensemble who could be depended upon year after year to raise the artistic profile of the house. There was some talented artists, to be sure, but much of the casting looked like Glimmerglass or St. Louis, which implies that he didn't know how to find better for a more important house. So much of the yearly casting looked like last minute attempts to cram in whoever they could get to fill the multi-role contracts, without much sense to whether an artist could actually sing all of those roles.
My main fear for the house is a simple one- that opening season would be impossibly difficult for a festival with the resources of Salzburg or Bayreuth to mount in a half-adequete manner, and I'm baffled to see how they are going to do it here, with such limited financial resources. And the idea of rebuilding the pit and putting the orchestra outside of it is a lovely idea- when you have the Vienna Philharmonic as your pit orchestra. So, the question is not Mr. Mortier's ambition or vision, but whether the theater can actually handle on a day to day technically this extraordinary challenge when they restart.
As someone who has been inside NYCO, I can say that one of the smartest things they could do would be to migrate out to BAM for a weekend and lure in the Economist-reading, interracially fabulous, black-clad hipsters that drop their iPhones and run when Bill Christie or Joyce di Donato is doing a baroque opera.
Said it once, I'll say it encore, they need to begin luring in the younger crowds. Their marketing (which, to be fair, has shifted with the shifts in staff over there) while I was there was more re-active than pro-active, and while they were pushing Big Deal like it was no tomorrow, they need to approach their target audience on its home turf. And most of that target audience? Has crossed the river. Get them excited and then get them to hop on the 2 in 2009 and visit the company on ITS home turf.
A really fun Handel would do well there, or an import of the Glass Orphee from Glimmerglass (which I thought was spectacular, especially with La Worra). And they could easily get a sell out with a one night or two night only (since we know how tight the schedule is at BAM).
Mortier has the right idea--New York City Opera is just that: the opera of New York City. Make Lincoln Center the home base, but make the rounds of the city (just like most New Yorkers are doing with the gentrification in Brooklyn/Queens). It could be one of the best things to happen to the company.
Do Dialogues of the Carmelites in St. Patrick's freaking Cathedral.
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oliviagiovetti
have you been inside the NYCO in the biblical sense? If so, please do tell.
Obaysch made me think, which considering I'm recovering from viral meningitis is a rather painful thing at the moment, but I agree with him. I hadn't thought about this too much before because when I think of NYCO, I always think of Sills. She elevated their stature immeasurably, but she took it from a nice little Amato-ish troup to a very nice regional company. She herself became something much greater. When you think about the company names now, Lauren Flanigan jumps out but even she's not a star on the same plane as Deborah Voight or Renee Fleming. I've decided to take a wait and see attitude toward NYCO and see what happens. There is a distinct possibility that what he's doing is shear genius and burn away the dross while opening up new opportunities. It strikes as a disaster because it is just so damned unexpected. and stars are born sometimes when asked to rise above themselves for a challenge like Einstein.
Lucky Pierre said...
i thought Einstein was first presented at BAM, not the MET?????
It had its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House in Nov. 1976.
(Look it up in nytimes.com)
Obaysch & La Cieca have very valid points. The 4 productions I have seen in Paris under Mortier reign I enjoyed immensely. I think that the distress is just the handling of the interim season. The more this is discussed the more the blame needs to be laid at the feet of Ms. Baker and the board and the outgoing regime. Did anyone notice that the Metro section yesterday had a great puff piece about the make-up artist for Hansel und Gretel. Again the Met knows it's shit.
As person who seen about 60-80 perecent of the productions at NYCO for the past 12 years, and who knows a number of the singers performing there personally, my distress comes from my concern for a company that I sincerely like and have a personal interest in. Enough clucking and naysaying. We should wish Mr. Mortier all of God's help (Lord knows he needs it at this point)and speedy end to the renovation process so that Mr. Mortier can show us his stuff in 2009.
I'm so relieved that a couple of people, including our Doyenne, have finally injected reason into this disastrously loopy thread.
But we continue to get sentences like
"Mr. Mortier probably thought that the board of the NYC Ballet would rollover and fall prey to his Gallic charms like the board of NYCO obviously has."
Every word of that sentence is either demonstrably false or unskillful supposition. Reading Mortier's mind seems to be an addiction for too many. And, while I hate to keep harping on it, the insistent attribution of his sins to his supposedly being French illustrates beyond dispute the unconcern for facts of these people.
Dirk -
The "gallic charms" was my statement and I do know that Mr. Mortier didn't realize the renovation quagmire that he walked into and again the blame IS NOT his. He is dealing with the remnants of the previous regime which I have stated in the past. I do not wish to disparage Mr. Mortier and I could not imagine walking into a more chaotic situation. BUT he needs to hire his own American P.R. firm to handle his image so that he is not dragged down into the renovation/half season debacle that happening right now. I thought that he would have been more savvy.
Ouch..well LA CIECA certainly put me in my place. I can't help but think it's a bit holier than thou/pot calling the kettle black, however. She claims I am prejudiced against Mortier and that we should all reserve judgement. I dare say, however, that LA CIECA seldom shies away from predicting gloom & doom with regard to those SHE does not care for, e.g. Fleming and Gheourgiu. Maybe she would claim that she has seen enough of their previous work to be able to bash performances in advance. Well, I have seen enough of Mortier's garbage at Salzburg and Paris to know what NYCO is in for.
Dirkva--
GALLIC can refer to someone from Belgium as well as France..look it up
Mortier, if one is to believe the many biographical listings is in fact Flemish, born in Ghent, with Flemish as his first language. He is of course fluent in French, but it would be more appropriate to have referred to his "Flemish" charms, as Gallic refers to French speaking regions, which would exclude Northeast Belgium, if I'm not mistaken. No need to be snotty, Mr. Kay, gallic does not refer to Flemish speaking Belgium, a fact of which I can assure you they would very forcefuly remind you, as they did the recent Miss Belgium who was booed for not speaking Flemish. If you're going to point out someone else's ignorance, a more than Wikepedia level knowledge of Central European Geography wouldn't hurt you before you decide to bitchslap them.
Oy.
I just think it would be great if there was a company somewhere, anywhere, NYC would be nice, that actually gave a thought to their singers, and not just the big stars.
Wouldn't it be great if a company like NYCO had a season of auditions, and BASED UPON THOSE AUDITIONS decided what to do the following season in the house? Like, say a Zerbinetta walked in that knocked their socks off - FIND A WAY to mount an Ariadne. Take the singers you have and build a season around the best they have to offer.
The Met does this, but only with big stars. I think it would be fantastic to have a company take into consideration the special gifts of young singers they have coming to them and present them in a special way.
But I'm probably totally naive and this idea is probably totally impossible. Oh well. NYCO is doomed. DOOMED. Except, it's probably perpetually doomed - 75 years from now, when New York is under water, and New New York is in New Jersey somewhere, we will be having EXACTLY the same discussion about how the Met knows how to promote itself but can't seem to hire top-notch singers, and how NYCO can't get it's act together.
And we will all still be old queens, kept alive by organs grown in rats, and Renay will be even thinner and look 10 years younger.
To those who seem to think that NYCO began with Miss Sills and as Sanford said she transformed it into a decent opera company, that simply is not true. In its finest days in the 1960s/70s the company was very successfully directed by Julius Rudel with administration by Mr White. After Sills (a true viper at times), undercut Rudel and got him kicked out so she could take over and thus avoid demonstrating she could not sing Gilda at the Met (for which she was contracted), the path has been more or less down hill. It is hard to dispute that. Now, I take nothing from Sills as a performer; she was a great pro and her Manon and Cleopatra were landmarks. But NYCO had a great great life BEFORE
Beverly, and I hope one day, after the seemingly inept Mrs Baker, it will have a great life again. At the moment NYCO is the only opera company I know that issues a press release to state they have no news.
I mean, can it get any more inept than it is right now? I hope not!
MrMyster
Obaysch: You have to cut Sterlingkay a little slack here; after all he still hasn't figured out that Mortier isn't a stage director.
MEOOOW ladies...I will take resposibility for the Gallic phrase. I did not realize that Mr. Mortier was Flemish. I was referring to the Paris by way of Belgium thing.
Sugar -
I loved the "thinner and 10 years younger" Renaaaay statement.
NYCOQ-
The comment was in response to Mr. Kay's "correction" of what consituted Gallic in the geographical sense, not your original comment, which could have just have easily been "European" instead. No offense was meant- to you, at least.
MEANWHILE....
My beloved NYCO(which , I fear IS doomed, even while I held out some excited anticipation for Mortier,at first...)DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A CAST LISTED FOR THIS SPRING'S "CANDIDE"(which was a rather sorry substitute for the announced "Ragtime")
OY, VEY!
"have you been inside the NYCO in the biblical sense? If so, please do tell."
A lady never divulges...
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