are they all like that?
La Cieca has heard that New York City Opera General Manager (Designate) Gerard Mortier is planning a new production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the 2012 season, directed by Austrian film director Michael Haneke.
This will be the director’s second attempt at operatic production, following his 2005 Don Giovanni for the Paris Opera (revived and filmed in 2007) — also under the aegis of Mr. Mortier. Haneke is currently in New York for the March 14 premiere of his new film Funny Games, a shot-by-shot remake of his controversial and violent 1997 film of the same name:
But..but…La Cieca, if some of the comments on this board after his appointment was announced are to believed, Mortier is going to impose a regime of only the most difficult, singer-hostile, serialist 20th century stuff at NYCO, that all that beloved (by some) can belto and ba-rock stuff will never darken the doors of the State Theatre again!
They couldn’t *possibly* have been over-reacting, could they?
/sarcasm
The big question here is, will the dire Sylvain Camreling be conducting?
Oh who cares. As long as they hire people who can actually SING THE ROLES, I could care less about any of it.
Not to care about who conducts a Mozart opera is pretty remarkable for a professional singer.
The Rake’s Progress — the breakfast scene with Tom, Nick and Baba the Turk. Did I get it right this time?
nice that they have plans for 2012, but what about, er, SEPTEMBER?????
(just for the record, the announcement of the upcoming un-season is by most accounts a month overdue.)
Hey Holland, you almost sound as dumb as your names at the Times.
No one was over-reacting. Mortier has announced that his first season will consist solely of 20th century works. So people were reacting to facts.
I could sing Anne Trulove *tomorrow*- it’s a question of color and tessitura.
I would let Mr. Haneke do a Handel. Da capo numbers seem to be his thing.
No one was over-reacting. Mortier has announced that his first season will consist solely of 20th century works. So people were reacting to facts.
Well, none of the works Mortier announced for his first season were serial or even atonal.
So, unless all 20th-century works outside the Barber-Menotti axis must always be considered “difficult” and “singer-hostile”, there was an awful lot of over-reaction to those facts.