parterre box

118 comments

• mrmyster says:

  I would offer one bit of fine-tuning: New York is the *commercial* music capital of the World. Otherwise, posters here are right – Berlin, London, even Paris, far excell in musical life over New York – far, far.
  But for Music Capitalism – NY! Ja ja!

  on November 11, 2008 at 11:42 AM
• LVPO says:

  HEAR HEAR!!

  on November 11, 2008 at 11:58 AM
• armerjacquino says:

  CerquettiFarrell- you’re ploughing a lone furrow talking about period performance style on this blog, home of tens of ‘Who the fuck is Emma Kirkby?’ posts a while back.

  on November 11, 2008 at 12:55 PM
• balabanov11 says:

  The whole concept of “period performance style” is questionable anyway – early music has been plagued for years by bad, straight-toned, colorless singing, masked as “period performance style”, when really it’s the result of this music originally being brought back by musicians and musicologists, who while being wonderful researchers, couldn’t sing. Now, supposedly, all vocal quality should be stripped away when peforming vocal music up thru the baroque period – ridiculous. So spare us the “Mozart should only be performed in a closet” theories. It allows for way too much mediocre singing in the small european theatres that you want to tout.

  on November 11, 2008 at 1:13 PM
• Browser says:

  balabanov – actually the extreme forms of baroque styling are not as prevalent in Europe as you would think. Majro baroque artists like Veronique Gens and Anna Maria Panzarella rae much more ‘mainstream’ in their stylisations than you would think.

  Another plus for London is the amount of chamber music (much of it can be heard for free in City of London churches during lunch hour.

  on November 11, 2008 at 3:11 PM
• CerquettiFarrell says:

  Actually the past 10-15 years have seen a radical change in period practice, now you might say that the ends meet. People like Isokoski, Orgonasova, Margiono, Delunsch would never have been considered appropriate for period bands some 20 years ago. People like Minkowski use “real” singers. But the scope is very different. They are not expected to project in an impossibly large hall, and can fine-tune their interpretations. Thus Donna Anna, one sung by the likes of Nilsson (with utter damage to the purity of the line), is taken nowdays by people like Orgonasova or Olga Pasichnyk, much more reasonable and in keeping with the entire company. Fleming in the Giovanni DVD from the Met, is too obviously concerned about projecting in the hall than about the music. Likewise Kringleborn, a beautiful voice ruined by trying to force the sound to suit larger halls. The list goes on and on. Very few people, like Terfel for example, have the requisite power AND still are able to communicate subtlety and intimacy in a large hall, and in Mozart.
  How refreshing it is, for example, to hear d’Arcangelo’s voice intertwine with the winds in Leporello’s catalogue aria, creating true chamber music, rarely rising avoce mezzo forte. Why not? That happens in the Gardiner recording. See the atrocious Harding production from Salzburg and voila, a totally different singer, constantly shouting to be heard above the uncontrolled VPO and trying to project in the vast Grosses Festspielhaus, where you should never, ever perform Mozart.
  Only once did somebody manage to overcome the problems of the Grosses Festspielhaus in a Mozart opera. The M22 production of Cosi fan Tutte unbelivably managed to create a sense of intimacy and ensemble. BTW Ana Maria Martinez is a great, great Fiordiligi and why isnt she a Met regular?

  on November 11, 2008 at 4:25 PM
• Sean Twosie says:

  McMyster — a 2200-seat house for the MINI-Met? Why would any company that has to fill a 3800-seat house take on such a white elephant? What the Met needs for a mini-house is something in the three-figure range — 1000 seats is already too much. And even that would only take two or three productions per annum.

  No, the State Theater is too big for anything but GRAND opera, and it’s sound is not good for grand opera.

  The reason the early NYCO was such a hit was that it was in a funky house of reasonable size for opera at a time when opera (and all theater) tickets seldom cost two digits. (The Old Met Orchestra was about $8 a seat.) You can’t do it now.

  Turandot — the Chicago Giulio Cesare was inaudble past about the first thousand seats. Handel simply can’t be sung adequately in that house. I heard Partenope from up top and down below, and up top it was absurd. That too is a very grand opera house, and Handel does not work at that distance. The Chicago production of GC came from Glyndebourne, and that’s about the size of it. I loved the NYCO Handels because I never went if I had to sit farther off than First Ring. That cut the number of performances I could go to down to two or three per annum, but it was worth it.

  on November 11, 2008 at 8:43 PM
• Ian says:

  I’m fascinated that Gerard Mortier has morphed into a discussion on period performance. Rock on!

  on November 11, 2008 at 10:34 PM