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.)
Netrebko last night in the first two acts was hardly a disaster. Her tone remains bright – after the very beginning she was often absolutely on pitch, able to pluck out a high note dead on without sliding or gliding into the note. Not so many can do that (Zylis-Gara could). I do not think there is any tonal loss since childbirth. Sometimes her tone reminded me of Gruberova without too many mannerisms (and I adore Gruberova despite them). The Mad scene proved that Netrebko is no Gruberova – there was less fluidity, less nuance, less linking of the notes. Her two final high notes (Es I guess) were not impressive (but then Lily Pons when I heard her always sang them quite flat, Callas was very strained at the top with a huge wobble the night I heard her, even Gruberova has floundered a few times). There is some funny business in the mad scene when Lucia is kind of tearing up her veil with great force while singing which cannot help a soprano vocally. So for me Netrebko’s mad scene was not overly impressive, the special candenza(s) she mentioned in an interview were pretty much non-entities – The applause after the mad scene was somewhat restrained (compared to the ovations Sutherland or Gruberova were accorded and accustomed to).
Villazon had obvious difficulty – phlegm or something after the sextet where he hit a horrible note, stopped, cleared his throat and went back to the note after a pause. His tone is as attractive as ever – he seems to be pushing the voice too much (as he did not last January when he sang Manon in Vienna – quite beautifully I might add, after his break from vocal trouble.)
The worst singing, in my opinion, came in the first scene from Mariusz Kwiecien – nothing but bluster and unevenly forced tone. Whatever happened to the lovely voice heard singing Don Giovanni in Vienna some years back? In the second act, with Netrebko, there were occasional flashes of a little elegance in Kwiecien’s voice, but not often enough.
I do not see why Netrebko should be so heavily criticized for desiring to do Lucia which she is doing at the Met now after St. Petersburg and prior to some performances in Vienna. She may not have it on her schedule at all for the future. Those who do not want to hear her as Lucia can hop over to Vienna in late May-early June for Gruberova. I am sure Mosuc has a few Lucia performances scheduled someplace. Maybe Dessay (though not so likely) or Damrau will still do it. Rost probably no longer,
I think some people left early last night more due to the very long intermissions and lateness of the hour than for disappointment with the performances. There is no reason why Lucia should go until Midnight. The scenery in the last three scenes (comprising the third act) is pretty non-existent. Hence no reason for a scheduled 40 minute intermission.
Eugene Onegin Dress Rehearsal this morning was quite good. Matilla singing full out, sometimes with considerable beauty of tone; Hampson not as sonorous as of yore, but still very valid; Beczala almost definitely a Slavic sound but bright and focused. Conducting good – Sets are very minimal. If Netrebko is going to get a new production of the opera a few years hence at the Met, all they will have to dispose of of from the current set are a few chairs and a quite a few autumn leaves. Did not care much for Sergei Aleksashkin as Gremin – a gutteral slavic timbre of little beauty.
Something seems to have gone off the track with the MET’s stage crew’s ability to get the sets on and off within a reasonable schedule. I’ve been there on two or three occasions when I wasn’t allowed into the auditorium until almost ten minutes before curtain time. Some of the already long intermissions have gone way over with no audible or announced illnesses that particular evening.
I am not of the school that blames Gelb for everything that goes wrong everywhere in opera, but I will mention that this all seems to have begun after Joe Volpe’s departure.
Actually Will, I’d guess it may have more to do with their longtime tech director Joe Clark retiring. He’d been there for like a gazillion years.
Yes, Ian, I had thought of that. He was a long time close personal friend of Volpe, who relied on him heavily.
r.71 I believe Dessay is tentatively penciled in to reprise Lucia for 2010-11 season.
Sirius Schedule Change–Hmmmmmm?
“Schedule change: The broadcast of Lucia di Lammermoor, originally planned
for Thursday, January 29, has been postponed to Tuesday, February 3. There will
be no Rigoletto broadcast on Wednesday, February 4, but the opera can be heard
on Thursday, February 12.”
Past midnight, for a opera finish for ‘Lucia’? Jeepers! Normal time for an intermission in any theater with even reasonable stage machinery is 20 minutes (max 30 minutes).The Met is not exactly ‘scene changing at the local regional Town Hall’ If they were doing long acts of Wagner, one could except the longer duration we hear of here of 40 minutes or longer (to benefit the singers). What’s going on at the Met? A ‘go slow’ behind the curtains? Start shuddering at the mounting up overtime payments for all the staff. Then keep expecting to hear about ‘needed cutbacks’ in the Met’s ‘budgets’!
Has anyone read Tommasini’s review of Lucia? He is now comparing Netrebko with Callas!
Either Ms. Tommasini is out of her mind, or she is being payed off by the Met.
No question, Callas she ain’t. But to be fair Mr. Tommasini said: “Her earthy, subdued expressivity had me thinking of Callas.” NOT Anna’s singing, but her earthy, subdiued expressivity. He also called for more accuracy in her work and decried her two attempts at E flat.
Here is where tradition versus the composer’s original intentions become a problem. Those Es occur nowhere in the score. Those who can sing them should, particularly if they feel that the mad scene, a dramatically harrowing encounter with a psychologically abused woman driven mad, can survive the big vocal display finish. Those without the E shouldn’t be pressured into trying it just because Mmes. X,Y, and Callas (who blew a number of those Es during her career) did it. Nor should they be condemned for not trying something the composer never wrote.