Winter storms
"The presence of the voiceless Rosalind Plowright in the supporting role of Gertrude demonstrates the folly of the Met's notoriously Britcentric artistic administration. Surely there are dozens of equally over-the-hill American mezzos who could have shrieked the role just as atonally."
Our own JJ reviews the Met's productions of Hansel and Gretel, Die Walküre and Un ballo in maschera in Gay City News. JJ's previous scribblings in the queer rag be found in the archives for 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.
Our own JJ reviews the Met's productions of Hansel and Gretel, Die Walküre and Un ballo in maschera in Gay City News. JJ's previous scribblings in the queer rag be found in the archives for 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004.
POSTED at
6:28 PM
26 Comments:
A company the size of the Met shouldn't have to import secondary singers at all. I'd make an exception for some of the trickier French character tenor roles and maybe a few others, but if the biggest opera company in the world can't or won't field a Gertrude or Marcellina from their regular roster it's pretty sad.
I'm still trying to figure out how Anne Murray, Marie McLaughlin and Rosiland Plowright are an improvement on Wendy White or Jane Bunnell (or even Kathryn Day, Barbara Dever or Victoria Livengood) would have achieved in the roles they were cast for this season. Sad to say over the last decade or two the company seems to have abandoned the concept of real secondary house singers, especially on the female end. The Lindeman program is stuffing the roster with budding Barbarinas and Stefanos but is pretty lacking when it comes to filling the more mature secondary roles for women. 30 years ago the Met could have cast Gertrude and three covers from their plan artists without blinking. And anybody who claims that an aging Plowright was a better Gertrude than Jean Kraft was during the prime years of the last production (and just think in the late seventies she was just the best of half a dozen pretty damn good comprimaria mezzos with some vocal weight on their roster - all of whom were capabable of pulling off an acceptable Herodias or Ulrica in a pinch), or that Anne Murray was an improvement over either White or Bunnell in the current production of Nozze is off their rocker.
Not to speak ill of the recently dead but I have to blame Ingpen for initiating the slide. It was under her reign that the Met began importing singers for roles (foreign and otherwise) that had always been cast from the regular roster in the past, and it's gotten progressively worse ever since.
Nothing will change until Gelb finally gets up the balls to get rid of Billinghurst and Friend -- two hacks who should have been gone long ago. They've been around far too long.
As for the roster ... who is this Adam Klein? I tuned into the Sirius Hansel last week and missed the announcements and when the witch started to sing I thought to myself "what the hell happened to Philip Langridge's voice?" He sound 100 years old.
Then Junkwitch came on and said "Adam Klein as the witch." Who the hell is this mediocrity?
By the way, I thought Marie McLaughlin was splendid in this season's revival of Nozze.
gelb approves of everything. no one has any power except him Gelb has final say. Sorry the buck stops firmly in his lap.
Well, Marie McLaughlin, always an imaginative artist, still has a lot of voice, which Ann (sic) Murray and Roz Plowright do not-- still less did Mr. Robin Leggate, making a worse-late-than-never debut as Basilio.\
Friends of Friend!
How often do American singers get hired for such roles in British houses? Answer: virtually never.
You're right that American singers are rarely hired for such roles in major British opera houses. But that's mainly because we've only got one- two if you count Glyndebourne.
How's this for a come back Queen:
NY's revenge for Ros Plowright:
http://www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk/book/Iolanthe.php
The buck may stop with Mr. Gelb but first the buck must go through Billinghurst and Friend. There are many young American (especially) singers who never get past those two to make it to Gelb.
One I can think of in particular is bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen. He sings major roles all over the place including Covent Garden where he is the Figaro of choice. What has he sung at the MET? Angelotti. That's all the two old crones have offered him. It's appalling.
Get the hook already.
kyle is not major. no matter how many opera houes in europe drool. both the second chairs arealways asking for people and getting shot down.
Gelb is the reason for this so sorry, it rest on him.
When I heard of Plowright singing Gertrude, I tought: great! I love the romantic idea to get past diva in supporting role and I think it's winner toward ticket selling. Having heard the performance, its seemed finally more appropriate to cast her as the Duchess of Crackentorp. And to rethink about it, there were in fact a lot of missed opportunity with used-to-be-casting: the voiceless Principessa of Suliotis in Freni's Trittico, the "sprechgesanging" Rysanek as Clytemnestra are few exemple. We all cherish memory of some past glory (and I doubt Plowright really was one, so fast was the disintegration of her once lush voice)and I certainly do love to have once again the occasion to bravo them but sometimes, all the métier and aura doesn't make up for rusty larynx.
I saw Maria Zifchak as the Witch and the Mother in St. Louis and she was sensational in both parts. As I watched our two British imports, I was wishing it could have been Maria, who is already a member of the Met.
Regarding the definition of major: If someone is getting work in major houses on a regular basis, they are, by definition, good enough to be called such. We can quibble about their talent, but they're booked, they make money - and if you've ever tried making a living in this business, that's more than good enough.
Gelb has to learn that, sometimes, a Tuesday night at the Met in February is a Tuesday night at the Met in February. It is what it is. You can't have "stars" (quotation marks his) every night, because frankly, and we all know this, there aren't enough "stars" to go around.
But there are enough "major" (see definition above) singers out there who once did, and should still be, singing at the Met. Reliable, quality artists who have, can, and still can sell tickets while preserving and enhancing the artistic reputation of the company. Whether nestled in a subscription series with other star-laden casts, or last-minute $20 rush tickets (the magic tonic for the Met box office numbers looking so sweet), they still have value.
The Met is an enviable brand because it can create its own reality. If they say something is great, it is because they say it is. Opera fans may get all in a lather over their keyboards debating whether it really is great or not, but the average ticket-buyer will go along. And the business model Gelb has built with his marketing machine is focused squarely on the average ticket-buyer - not you and I. He's mass-marketing the brand to increase the audience, not targeting it to the entrenched base. And so an average night at the Met for grizzled fans could be a transformative experience for someone else because they went to THE MET.
There is an interesting sidebar to all of this that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else: the casting decisions since Gelb has taken over control have had a major impact on the business as a whole. Former Met singers are now making the regional rounds more often, pushing greater talent out to the provinces. You're seeing bigger names turning up in smaller places. The ramifications for this are huge - from the impact on regional fees to the development of new, young talent, and beyond. The ink spilled while Gelb has been crossing names off of old Met rosters runs everywhere.
This could be considered a good sign for the health of the business in general, but there is a good chance that this will eventually come at the expense of the Met. There is no question that the quality of the cover singer roster is not as good since the cover 8/sing 2 incentive has been scrapped. The comprimario roster is not as strong as it was. Because of the sheer number of peformances he is responsible for, Gelb should start paying attention to the depth and quality of his inventory, not just the window dressing. It's not all about Anna.
Speaking of under-appreciated American artists, does anyone know why Nadine Secunde was never contracted to sing at the Met?
Here's another American artist who graduated from the Met (whom I LOVE!): Mignon Dunn.
Plowright didn't even make her Met debut until 2003, a single Kostelnicka in a largely-second cast performance of JENUFA. The real question is why this once great, now utterly spent artist wasn't engaged in her heyday, back in the eighties and early nineties, when she was a soprano.
Nadine Secunde is the first Brunnhilde cover for Gasteen & Hale
(70?) covers Morris
gasteen should be covering secunde.....
also "inquiring mind", the MET tends to only hire people once they have sung a role successfully in virtually every other house in the world 10 times. then, and only then are they ready to make their "long-awaited" MET debuts and are usually voiceless. In the case of someone like plowright, who had a pretty short vocal prime anyways, she had really no chance.
Let's just say that I found Plowright a definite comedown from the last Gertrude I saw at the Met in its previous run of Hansel & Gretel: Stephanie Blythe. Even then(2001)it struck me as "luxury casting."
Ketelson is certainly not yet a "star" and he may or may not be "major" but he was the ONLY first-class voice in the recent Don G. disaster in Los Angeles (starring the snarling, growling barking - anything but singing - Erwin Schrott)
Indeed, Stephanie Blythe is luxury casting, but it's the kind of luxury casting one should expect from the Met. It is, after all, "the Met." If you're not going to have a "star" in a role (Does anyone outside of the UK consider Rosalind Plowright a "star", at least currently), then get a good singer from the US talent pool, especially if he/she is already employed by the house. And if there is no good singer available, then at least get someone decent, no matter what their nationality. There is no excuse to import such bad singing.
Hi Mark
I am totally unaware of who Billingshurt is. I would love to know.
Also, someone mentioned Maria Zifchak. Is she the woman who sang Suzuki last season? If so, I loved her!!
And lastly, I hate to be mean but I never liked Plowwright even in the 80s when she was singing big roles. It is more her eyes than her voice. To me she acts like Norma Desmond in every role. She is scary. I am sorry to be so frank.
Kyle Ketelsen has been a big success at Covent Garden and there is the rub - the ROH is HALF the size of the Met. Plowright was a nervy but vocally more than acceptable Fricka in the recent RO Ring but I can well believe Stephanie Blythe - an outstanding singer by any standards and not even yet in her primes - was vocally more suited to the Met. The thing is you can't blame the British singers for taking these jobs, you have to blame the administrators who engage them. McLaughlin may not be the singer she was, but she is a world-class presence on stage and has sung Marcellina at the Salzburg festival. Jane Bunnell may well sing the role well, but she doesn't have McLaughlim's star quality. A bit of perspective please!!!
Ketelsen has been a big success everywhere he's sung including LOC in which he will be singing 3 major roles in the next 3 seasons and the Civic Opera House is just as big with worst acoustics than the MET.
Ketelsen has a huge voice. The MET's inability to recognize this is scandalous.
And I never said he was "major." I said he sings "major" roles all over the place -- in houses of every size -- except for the MET.
Re: anonymous. If you could type English I might be able to understand what you are trying to say.
Billinghurst runs the Artistic department at the MET. Friend is number two. Athough if truth be told they are both "number 2" if you know what I Mean.
I saw Rosalind Plowright's debut as Kostelnicka at the Met - both she and the British Steva, Richard Berkeley-Steele did very, very well. Her voice sounded like a dry, older soprano but strong everywhere and her "scariness" worked in the role. Kind of a Judith Anderson performance.
Interestingly enough, someone spoke to the artistic director of the Bastille Opera who was attending the performance. He said that he flew in just for Rosalind P. because he had hired her as Kostelnicka in "Jenufa" in Paris sight unseen and voice unheard due to the pleas of R.P.'s British agent who is a dear old friend. (What did I say about those English agents - they really sell their product!) This artistic director or casting person in Paris was delighted with Plowright and very happy to have her. Indeed, Plowright's reviews for her Kostelnicka in Paris were superb - check Opera News. I would have rehired Roz on the basis of that debut (she would be good as either Mere Marie or Mme. de Croissy in "Carmelites").
However, the Gertrude was a disappointment. Her only strength is that she is very tall and towered over Schafer and Coote making them really look like children. She also has strong stage presence. Zifchak wouldn't have looked as effective but would have sung fiftly times better.
Zifchak also sang rings around Magdalena Kozena as Dorabella in "Cosi" for her one cover performance at the Met (two seasons ago) but looked frumpy in comparison with her svelte, much more famous and publicized and recorded alternate. Odd that Zifchak has the better voice but no CD's at all because another singer looks better(!?!!)
People used to be recorded because of how they sounded, not how they look in a slip. But Podles, Blythe and Zifchak are largely underrecorded or on lesser labels while the cover girls Garanca, Kozena and newbies like Isabel Leonard are signed up for major recording contracts - based on how they look on the cover art.
Anyway, I hope Plowright sounds better elsewhere and wish her luck. More Blythe and Zifchak for me.
I attended Plowright's Met debut as Kostelnicka too and I found her wanting. Not awful( as she sounds now as Gertrud) but with nothing on top, a hard, fixed tone and subpar Czech. After seeing Rysanek, Silja, Forst and Urbanova, her dramatic performance seemed pretty routine.
Where was Judith Forst during that whole run of that JENUFA??
I would happily have gone to see, in their time, Sylvia Fisher and Pauline Tinsley in this role.
Mark,
In response to your comment about Adam Klein: I was at that perfomance. He posessed a richness of tone akin to Tauber and his understanding of stage craft, i.e. comedic timing, was as fine as any well known comedian on Broadway and beyond, not to mention his musicianship was superb. I would suggest, before you criticize a tenor's performance, that you learn a bit about the instrument you are criticizing.
Krunoslav
We can all think of better Kostelnickas we have seen: in my case Shuard, Kniplova, Tinsley, Randova, Silja, Urbanova but Plowright was more effective in the role than Polaski whom she was covering. She did one performance as a cover having never sung the role before. I would like to believe that Judith Forst was better, but I don't. Her Komponist at ENO was a HORROR! I've seen her Kabanicha somewhere and that was okay.
Post a Comment
<< Home