everything but the bloodhounds
Well, the first thing La Cieca will say about the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala is that for all its sprawling splendor it doesn’t look quite what you’d call entertaining. Or rather let’s say it looks as if it won’t sound very entertaining. The visual element — you know, computer-animated Marc Chagall murals and Waltraud Meier prancing about in a copy of Rosa Ponselle‘s Carmen drag — will likely achieve a level of instant camp approaching that of Rosie O’Donnell‘s variety show last night. (La Cieca had no room for the phrase in the previous run-on sentence, but, anyway, good old Rosa’s “controversial” toreador pants ensemble was of course designed by “dyke, ya know” Valentina.)
Leaving aside such questions as “are there really more than a dozen people in New York iwho are really panting to hear Natalie Dessay sing Violetta,” what La Cieca wonders is: can there be a less appropriate selection for a gala than the final scene from Parsifal, and to close the first half (a la Birdie Coonan) yet? Surely someone at the Met realizes that as soon as the audience starts applauding, some heligie Kunst nut will bellow, “Shuddup! It’s a sacred festival play!”
On the other hand, La Cieca feels that in the current political climate it is a deliciously subversive act for the Met to program this music drama for its anniversary, since the company’s 1903 premiere of the work constituted perhaps the greatest example of theft of intellectual property in operatic history. Pirate-y!
Pirate Jenny, are you trying to do an American version of the Vicar’s line? I mean, if I wrote – but what about Boughton’s The Immortal Hour or Goossen’s Nelson, I’d be ‘avin a larf, wouldn’t I? Though I’d have to admit Barber’s pieces are on a slightly higher level – closer, mebbe, to Walton’s tedious-noisy Troilus and Cressida (or Ades’s Tempest, but let’s not get started on that again).
The total absence of vocal requirements would seem to throw open the door to all sorts of exciting possibilities for a glamorous star turn.
Renata Scotto. Better yet, Kathleen Battle.
Don’t know how it would be done, but some year at one of it’s anniversary galas, maybe the Met could pay tribute to Signora Goldoni(Grace Golden) who appeared on the second night of the Met(1883) and sang the Page in Rigoletto for 3 performances and a Sunday night gala) and never returned. A tribute to all the singers who never became Big but for a brief time got on stage. Or do a tribute to the bought-out Oscar Hammerstein. Just some winter night thoughts.
Hello: I have a novel idea for the upcoming March gala: Levine sits in a box with the chairman of the board and other top dogs of the Met, and a series of star conductors, those remaining, who have conducted the Met do the work in the pit.
Think with me about that a bit. Would that not be worthy recognition for Levine and perhaps a very healthy move for the Met? If that does not work, how about the pit work being done by Luisi of SFO, Davis of Chicago, etc etc, including Pappano ROHCG, and let us hear what we’ve been missing?
Finally, this: Do not be surprised if the 125 Gala is called off. It looks very expensive at every level, not very interesting, and in this time of deconstructed finances, who needs it? I say let’s spread the wealth, by supporting a revivied NYCO, and leave the Met to Hedge Fund Conservatives and Hank Paulson (who will be called upon any moment now to bail them out!).
MrM/sfe
Regie, I see nothing wrong with Troilus, though it is not a work to make a bloated invert weep like Vanessa, it is still a lot of fun to play at the piano, almost as much as Vanessa which takes the prize, they are followed by A Knot Garden the second act of which I love and adore and weep through (best musical meditation on Schubert EVER!!).
However it had never struck me before that there are similarities between Troilus and Anthony and Cleopatra. They both sound like the composer worked for a while, then went for a long sit in the loo, whilst an imp of the perverse sneaked out of the closet and wrote a bunch, vanishing when the composer returned, and all he said was “got further than I thought, I guess”. I am talking of the FIRST Anthony, the revision is too sad.
One thing to be said for Troilus is the highlights record with Evil Incarnate, Richard Lewis and a sniggering Peter Pears (“that’s a modulation BEN wouldn’t have made, heh, heh, heh.”) It is one of Evil’s most eccentric and bizarre performances and one must have it!
Welcome back, Mrs. JC!
Perhaps some year when The Money has returned, the Met could put Mozart and Salieri on the boards, or give us some new interesting works, such as Goebbels and Blackhead, or Tito and Zinka(the castings would be interesting). Re Grace Golden: there was an article on her years ago in Opera News. If I remember, she was a girl from Indiana? who did her brief stint at the Met and then sang around for several years before dying of TB in the 1890s. She may have sung with Sousa, if I remember.