eternal night?
A loyal reader writes:
I wanted to let you know that the Tristan prima was a disaster. Only because of the Tristan (which, I guess we can’t relegate to a minor consideration), since it was otherwise mostly okay — if you can accept zero visual dramatic sense in the whole expedition. (As an extreme illustration of this last, the audience laughed aloud as the couple quaffed the potion. I wonder if this has ever happened before in history anywhere in the world. Granted, this was partly because of the ludicrous lighting effect, but I don’t think the man, woman, or child exists who would have laughed under any crazy staging whatsoever when Nilsson and Jess Thomas took their medicine. No, ma’am.)
Mr. Master (since I don’t aspire ever to know him well enough to call him “John Mac”) is, without any doubt, the most repellent thing I’ve ever witnessed on the Met stage, and I’m a hardened veteran. I’m not one of your “lookists” when it come to opera. But I have never seen such an ungainly, repulsive mass of flesh supporting such an unpleasant visage on any stage. He had great trouble getting up and down (which, on a set without furniture, he was required to do often) . . . .
And the sound! His voice sounds completely untrained. And if it is, in fact, as nature left it, nature should be ashamed. He seems to have a very defective ear as well, since he sang drastically out of tune. The love duet was a torture on pitch grounds alone. Voigt must have died a thousand deaths.
And the sound! His voice sounds completely untrained. And if it is, in fact, as nature left it, nature should be ashamed. He seems to have a very defective ear as well, since he sang drastically out of tune. The love duet was a torture on pitch grounds alone. Voigt must have died a thousand deaths.
This doesn’t constitute a thorough, fair account of all aspects of the evening, but I did want to say that, in 37 years of Met attendance, I’ve never witnessed such boos as the poor man received at the end of this debacle. The shrug with which he received them did, I feel, do him credit, however.
Our own JJ is assigned to review the February March 14 performance of Tristan and so your doyenne will have no comment until that critique appears in Gay City News.
For Isolde I think there’s also Jeanne-Michelle Charbonnet. Why no Met appearances for HER? I think she is miles more interesting than Brewer.
There’s also Eva-Maria Westbroek who in five years, say, might develop into a hochdramatische. The voice sounds like it’s going there. She made a huge success as Sieglinde last summer at Aix. The Brunnhilde, though (Eva Johansson) was despicable.
Just for the record, there’s really one Voight performance I did enjoy, that was the bcast of Les Troyens in 2003. Her Cassandre was mesmeizing, especially when compared to the Dutoit recording, where she sings “la douleur n’est rien” as if she just remembered that she didn’t turn off the gaz. But with Levine in the pit (such a wonderful Berlioz conductor) and excellent people around, she really made it work for once. Its not Antonacci (how could it be), but wonderful nevertheless.
Still, LHL was on as Didon for the 2nd half of the evening, so that was that for everybody else. Well, sharing the stage with the best singer this generation has had, that’s a tough one.
I recently heard Charbonnet in Dallas as Ortrud. Although it was an enjoyable performance, the timbre of the voice (I know there is a lot of joking about this on this websight) would be acceptable in few other roles – perhaps Lady Macbeth. It was metallic in the extreme, it called to mind the final stages of Roberta Knie’s career. High notes were reached(!) only by the use of fortissimo straight tone.
Mac Master’s Isolde in Wales was Swedish soprano Annalena Persson.
I knew I saw Stemme on the MetManiac website, but at 3am, I completely wasn’t seeing straight. Actually, I don’t do anything “straight”. And I seem to have borrowed Evenhanded’s quotation marks.
I’ve heard Charbonnet’s Siegfried and Walkure Brunhildes. I thought her effective in the Walkure, and not very effective at all in the Siegfried (although to be fair she was sick during the run). Nonetheless, I agree with David about the severe metallic quality of the voice. Having heard her Liebestod from her Tristan DVD on youtube, I don’t think I’d care to hear her in the role. The voice isn’t very warm or feminine, and the legato isn’t very developed. She could sing Elektras in big houses where the sound and dynamic would even out some, maybe? I don’t really know what else the voice is made for.
Well, I saw one of Gwyneth’s MET Isoldes and I don’t care if it was one of her vocally off nights – I loved, loved, loved her!
Spas no.
But Troyanos as Brangäne!
On the topic of current Heldentenors, has anyone experienced Pär Lindskog? He’s doing the title role in Washington Opera’s Siegfried in May, 2009. He seems to have sung mostly in Sweden, and I’m guessing this will be his American debut. I’ve always thought the Siegfried Siegfried must be one of the most exhausting roles for any singer. I hope he at least has the stamina for it.
Troyanos is my favorite Carmen. And I saw her at the Lyric in I Capuleti, with Gasdia, which was amazing.
As can be said about every other segment of her career, that run of Isoldes at the Met found Jones in mixed form from night to night. Unfortunately the Met broadcast caught her on a day the voice was particularly unresponsive, and so the belief has grown up that she couldn’t ever sing Isolde. (If it doesn’t happen on a Met broadcast, then it didn’t happen: that’s how the rule goes.)
In fact, Jones was a great Isolde, just not consistently so.
hot stuff–and needless to say, nothing like what I heard in 1981. I wish she hadn’t scared me off so: If I’d stuck to it, maybe I would eventually have caught her on an “on” night. I heard that the Elektras some years later, with Rysanek’s Clytemnestra, were pretty riveting.