On a side note – superb performance this evening by Kelly O’Connor in Lieberson’s Neruda Songs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. The last 3 sonnets in particular were exceptional. (Haitink and the CSO brass brought down the house in Mahler 1.)

Company moral at NYCB under Peter M. has reached epically low levels…, he is , indeed a good fund raiser…but a horrible successor to the Balanchine Style..

I would love to see…but know it will never happen–Susanne Farrell take her rightful place, as custodian of Mr. B’s works…

I WOULD be very interested in hearing what you feel is a good Martins dance-work—and no flame intended to you…or for that matter, Mr. Martens (who danced like a dream , in his day….

Jack: Not everyone thinks highly of Martins’ choreographic skills. What do you think is his finest ballet? I have no candidate to name, other than “none of the above”. And I am not a Martins hater, I assure you. He has excellent administrative skills and has kept the company in excellent financial health for a quarter century. Not everyone could have accomplished that.

Probably not necessary, but possibly useful. Have you ever been in the Armory? It runs all the way from Park Avenue to Lexington Avenue. A big opera house if you’re wearing heels!

What about Sean Lavery?

SFO this summer – Das Rheingold, with Mark Delavan and Jennifer Larmore as Fricka. Better still, Ariodante with Susan Graham, Ruth Ann Swenson, and Ewa Podles.

New York on the other hand, has Die Soldaten, which is aparently a Disney ride. The seating is on tracks and moves throughout the performance.

Discuss

On a side note, I first fell in love with opera while watching Jessye’s Sieglinde in the televised MET ring in the early 1990 or thereabout. My life was changed at that moment, with Jessye as my first love. (I hope she doesn’t mind my current infatuation with Stephanie Blythe.)

But something happened around the Troyens. By the time she got to doing both parts she was overwhelming, she threw caution to the winds, let her voice out, dared big high notes and didn’t care if they weren’t perfect and above all abandoned herself to the emotion. As I mentioned on Hell, her Jocasta alone was a stunning example of outpouring, there were some great Sieglindes (and some not so great), the first run of Ariadne was amazing except for the very top and one could forgive that, and there was a run of Gurrelieder(s) that was thrilling. But surely by 1990 all had begun to fade; she lost weight and her voice got smaller and less reliable. The mannerisms (amazingly absent in Berlioz) returned, and so did her physical inhibitions, something she had put aside when she was bigger for those few years, She also began to have intonational trouble which I had not noticed before. I am talking BTW about live performances, not CDs or LPs, though I thought a fair number of those were so-so. The last great thing she did was Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung. The Kundry (91?) was frankly poor in all ways. It didn’t help when in act three there were these daisies everywhere on stage and when she stepped on a group they gave under her, then popped up as she moved on — I have, sorry to say, never seen a funnier third act of Parsifal. And the Makropulos (94–95?) was a return to the bad old days. In that six or so years were some great concerts — I’ll never forget her handling of the end of the Ives dyptich ‘Memories’ — the second song climaxes with an endless winding vocalise in slow tempo — everybody breaks it for a breath — she didn’t, spinning the sound around the hall until one was sure it would break but it didn’t and it was gorgeous.

” She scared the audience to death as she came running downstage at her first entrance; people thought she was going to pole vault the orchestra pit and kill hundreds.”

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DE1DE1339F934A35752C0A9609

In fact though, Lucia come scritto is a high role at a=440 in terms of tessitura if not actual notes, because the mad scene, for instance, was written in F major as far as I am aware. That makes for rather a lot of non-optional high cs, and sustained periods above or on the upper passaggio. Not ideal for Ms Studer, but I do agree that it isn’t ideal for her in e-flat either.

Very sad story about Richard Vasalle. You did make me laugh on the subject of Jessye though!

Far from a basher, I saw all four Elettras at the Met where she was spectacular (so was Rolfe Johnson who did the original Fuor del Mar). She was a good Donna Anna — maybe not Steber or Joan but good. I saw her do two Empresses in Munich, the first with PG Davis and his sunt, they decided not to return because of Ute, but hell I thought Cheryl gave the most spectacular account of the role I had ever heard (and I AM Leonie Rysanek) — at least from a vocal perspective. I also saw her Elisabeth at Bayreuth and she was thrilling, again not Leonie in act three (she’d rip your heart out however badly she had sung) and not Jesseye who was absolutely spectacular in her 36 month prime (but who scared the audience to death as she came running downstage at her first entrance, people thought she was going to pole vault the orchestra pit and kill hundreds).
That Tann at Bayreuth had the wonderful Richard Vasalle in it — that was his big break after years of covering and singing all sorts of things in smaller German theaters and now and again in Spain and Italy. But his son had AIDS and when he took a turn for the worse, Mr. Vasalle gave up almost three years of engagements to nurse him personally (not sure when his son would die, he had to cancel a lot of things in advance). After that his career lost momentum and, cast in a small role, he died on the Met stage — horrible.