the beautiful room is half-empty
A new feature just introduced on the Met’s website allows customers to view and select exact seats available for a given performance. It’s handy for those of us in the audience who prefer a certain row or area, but another less obvious benefit is that the online maps offer a snapshot of how ticket sales are going for a given performance. For example, here’s what Orchestra looks like for the February 2Â repeat of Eugene Onegin:
The “o” symbol stands for a currently unsold seat; the dots are the seats that are already ticketed — so it does appear that a lot of seats for Onegin are going to show up on same-day rush or simply remain unfilled. (In contrast, for tonight’s Lucia only a handful of Family Circle standing room places remain available.)
My problem with the Callas comparison is that I don’t find Netrebko’s singing to be particularly expressive. Take away her physical acting, and the singing itself is a lot of beautiful vocalism (on a good day). There really isn’t much in terms of expression or intrepative insight, which puts even more emphasis on the technical aspect of her singing.
And I resent Tommasini’s attempt to dismiss critisim of her passagework as being the domain of “puristis” (those evil opera goers who actually demand that the music be sung correctly).
When he says: “Vocal connoisseurs who believe that Ms. Netrebko has no business singing daunting coloratura roles like Lucia could point to rough patches and indistinct passagework in her performance to validate their opinion”, he’s essentially saying that he won’t sink to that level (aka refuse to do his job as a critic).
Hi Kashie, it’s me Amni–good post!
Will, what “earthy, subdued expressivity” is Tommasini talking about/ I have never heard it!
Well, I certainly can’t tell you about this Lucia as I wasn’t there. I do remember being moved by some of her Puritani Elvira, and she made something very sincere of Norina’s remorse of having abused Don Pasquale. I will, nowever, readily agree that I don’t hear and have never heard the wide variety of colors in her voice that I hear in Callas.
For me also, the puritani elvira had its moments, and watching her mad scene from that opera, you can hear that the line and passagework was MUCH cleaner than the lucia was.
So Aleksashkin sang Gremin? He’s now listed for the first two shows. Wonder if Morris will cancel all of these too?
Tony T. is clearly willing to say anything it takes positive about the designated Gelb “A team” to move Met tickets. Whatever faults he notes are always “outweighed” by their sheer stardom or charisma or evocation of Hunt Lieberson or Callas or whatever. And the elusive “connoisseurs” and “fanatics” –by which he means those of us on here and Opera_L who are aware of his mendacity — are often invoked only to have their objections dismissed– as with the non-starter Voigt TOSCA.
Plus, like the lowest variety of web-based film critic, he always gives the Met good pull quotes for the print ads.