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.

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.

Let’s agree that NYC is the musical capital of the Americas and one of the major musical capitals of the world.

Have you HEARD any of the “singing” going on at ENO or ROH lately? Ghastly. The Don Carlos and Giovanni recently put up there (beside Joyce Di Donato) were laughably bad.

Fleming sings all over the world. Who cares? She sings here and she is discussed. Got it? Stamp that little foot at the cruelty…….ah the humanity.

=:o

It can only be because you are such a bitter twisted old sister, who’s life is so pithy and pathetic, you can’t even find company or interest anywhere else.

I’m afraid that NY, as fine a city as it is, does not come close in terms of musical activity…

Let`s pretend we all are so polite and talk about Cultural Things…like..THE OPERA ! All one reads is the old boring epithets such as …well….I can`t help myself …but mention such nasty words : Fuck…..Asshole….Jerk…..etc…..my face is turning red reading such things in such a lofty forum….and of course …”Euro-Trash” – which to be honest…is what you Queens are – the trash whose ancestors came here and whose mongrel offspring you are , and try to enoble yourself with “KULTUR”: “Oh my dear , I am so above the hoi-polloi …I go to the OPERA….and write to the Tuntendreck blog …”

I’m sure our friends in London will enjoy reading this when they wake up tomorrow morning.

For the so-called “Capital” of the music -world, we ain’t doing very well lately…eh, doc??

I also have no interest in trash like Angels in America, A Wedding, and the mediocre casts that Houston and Dallas put on.

NYCO is needed far more than Houston or Dallas or Santa Fe.

As for Chicago, they just recently did Giulio Cesare — and as a point of reference it was the first time that had ever performed this masterpiece in over 50 years of existence.

Please.

Im just sayin’…

Thank god for La Cieca!

As for those who think NYCO has been worthless I beg to differ. Yes, I avoided the standard rep stuff they did because it was almost uniformly bad. Yes, I wish they had engaged better conductors. But it was also a place I could go to see and hear things I didn’t get anywhere else. Neither the MET nor Chicago has done Die Tote Stadt but I saw it there 3 times over the years with fine casts.

All the Handel wonders I could see no where else. Did I always like the productions or the singing? No, but I’m glad I got to see them.

Some of the Strauss operas — Daphne for instance — that I can’t see at the MET or in Chicago or San Francisco.

The rarities — Ariane by Dukas, Mines of Sulphur, Little Prince, the Gilbert and Sullivan, many, many others.

So I will be sad to see them go because I have had many pleasurable experiences there.

Mortier offerred an artisticly challenging an interesting start for his first season no matter what a persons views are about 20th century music. He had plans for little perfomed operas like Les Hugenots and he was contracting exciting young singers a la Bruggegossman. Lord knows I was sick of getting under prepared newbies from HGO’s Young Artist Program. Mortier certainly is not the cause of NYCO’s woes. This has been a long time coming starting with Kellog’s antagonism toward Beverly Sills and his stupidity in not realizing that she would have been his biggest fundraiser. J’accuse Baker and all of the silly board members who let this happen to the company.

It is New York City’s loss to lose a General Manager like Mortier. Like him or not he would have made real changes. Well, there’s always BAM and of course the Met.