bellini as a series of ones and zeroes
What looks to be the Next Big Thing coming from the Met: offering their audio and video content for download a la iTunes. La Cieca is not clear on the details of this new program, but a job listing has just gone up on metopera.org for a Digital Producer who will be responsible for the web interface for “Met Digital subscription and rental sales.”
Sorry…that should have been adressed to Operaman…forgot who I was talking to…It’s been a long day (and it’s only 11:30).
Operaman, you can find my email on a thread from about two weeks ago called “Indoor Voice.”
PLEEZE, La Cieca! Can’t you throw us a bone? I can’t read any more about boozy Russian singers or Mahler cycles! Isn’t anything gossip-worthy happening in the world of opera??
PLEEZE, La Cieca! Can’t you throw us a bone?
I couldnt bring myself to read it so imagine how ready I am!!!
Perhaps we could rehash a prior controversy, like discussing the SAVAGE, RAUCOUS BOOING of my colleague Shirley Verrett upon her role debut as the BALLO Amelia at La Scala.
iltenoredigrazia / High C’s
I think that, in fact, Cieca has already gotten the job and is only teasing us like it were still open so we can rejoice in the suspense
I think shes fallen and cant get up.
A few observations
Re: Dessay’s Olympia’s, There are at least 7 of her Olympia’s on video. Each startlingly different as to physical interpretation and also musically different. Her interptretation depended on director, the edition and cadenza freedom encouraged by the conductor,
What is astonishing is that she seems NOT to have done “her” Olympia. But really worked the production. But it is all now in the past,
Robinesque notes and roles are now not in her ken.
Probably the funniest and most startling Olympia is her La Scala. In this her very advanced pregnancy is high lighted or even exploited for comic effect. Here Olympia is the human and the chorus the automatons. She is given very sensual hand and arm movements. She sings while circling the floor. She has a gown that not only emphasizes her belly but has a cone shaped stand away skirt so that as she takes tiny rapid steps that gives the illusion of floating over the floor. If you can remember the Moiseyev Dance Troupe you know what I mean. Her facial expressions are as if she were channeling Imogene Coca or Fernandel.
There is video of her Sophie. And at the time she really soared and floated in the presentation duet
Re Sutherland, I did not know about her Hoffmann MET heroines being recorded complete but her Melbourne 1985 were taped complete in final dress. She is spectacular and hilarious and the voice is huge. I forget but I think it was a strike that caused the performance not to be telecast. Her La Fille Marie exists on video from 2 different venues.
Another, IMO, good -great professionally shot performance that exists only in a rehearsal is the Paris Opera Les Troyens w/ Bumbry and Verrett. The unions struck the evening of the premiere so the telecast was canceled. I had seen excerpts of this on one the Musique Au Cours programs. Finally saw it complete.
Verrett marks most of the time and is really only walking through much of this. “Nuit d’ivresse et d’extase” alas does not become the time stopping beauty it is written to be, However she takes flight for “Adieu, Fière Cité”
Bumbry is divine. On fire!
Ray
I thought this last Fille on tv today quite underwhelming.
This morning the NY TIMES has another “news piece” by The Great Daniel J. Wakin that reads like a travelogue mixed with cites from Wikipedia. He offers no estimation of the musical performance ( Roussel’s “Padmavati†at Spoleto)– given his lack of qualifications to do so I guess we should be grateful for that, but it does seem that more and more the TIMES is going to use this kind of “human interest” piece instead of reviews- they have let Alan Riding do this sort of thing for a while.
Two years ago, they would have sent Anne Midgette who would have discussed the music, singing and conducting.
I’m sure Sam “Homespun” Sifton thinks that Wakin’s concentration on the elephant was ‘just dandy’… “a real honey”.
Wakin didn’t offer his estimation of the musical performance because he’s not a critic. He’s a reporter.
It’s true that Anne Midgette would have discussed the music, singing and conducting, but she is a critic.