parterre box

25 comments

• Browser says:

  Saw this in Amsterdam a week or so ago and it is very good indeed. Not tremendously interesting musically, but a really very clever (and I should imagine very expensive) production. Apparently Intendants from around the world have been invited to see it, so it is not without the bounds of reason that it will end up in several other major houses before the end of its life…

  on January 28, 2009 at 2:05 PM
• Miss Kitty Litter says:

  As a long time monstrous fan of the composer (and big rubber dicks), it saddened me awfully to watch this.

  Cavalli speaks for himself quite eloquently without the need to tart him up by some misquided director whose ego must at least be as Ercole was ‘long’.

  on January 28, 2009 at 2:34 PM
• Hans Lick says:

  It LOOKS like they’ve simply staged Hercules’s 12 labors, which involve (among other things) carrying the heavens on his shoulders for Atlas, wearing women’s clothes and spinning thread for Omphale, slaying lions, stags, boars, baby seals (no, oops, that’s something else), cleaning the Augean Stables, et al. I’m sure that’s how Louis took it, and what the Padre intended. It can’t be anything naughty – the composer was a priest, you know. (Like da Ponte.)

  Yes, I’d love to see it. Bitchy, if you didn’t like Ritorno di Ulisse, you have no ears or testiculi. Okay, maybe it was a bad production.

  Louis’s wife was a dimwit. The girls at the French court asked her if she’d ever been in love before she came to France (and at once fell in love with Louis). She was astonished at the question. “There were no kings in Spain except my father!” she cried. The idea that one could fall in love out of one’s class (and hers was Habsburg) never crossed her mind or her heart. Louis’s affairs were a great trial to her. (It was also she, not Marie Antoinette, who wondered why the poor did not eat cake when they ran out of bread.)

  on January 28, 2009 at 2:41 PM
• Vanderdecken says:

  It is indeed tremendous fun… I saw the production and I liked it a lot. However, Miss Kitty Litter’s objections are completely understandable: at times all the visual effects were a bit too much and some of the more serious aspects of the story were obscured by all the comic effects. I’m sure Miss Litter means to say that Cavalli doesn’t need all this extra ‘help’ from the director and he probably doesn’t. The production has enormous entertainment value, but I would love to see the work again on a somewhat smaller scale.
  The basic idea – having Louis XIV change into Hercules – was fine: it gave the Prologue a place in the story as a whole. Luca Pisaroni as Louis XIV/Ercole kept the production together. I was impressed by Anna Bonitatibus as a very graceful and dramatically convincing Giunone.

  on January 28, 2009 at 3:14 PM
• wotan_in_inman says:

  If you are juxtaposing Cavalli and Monteverdi, then I feel you give credence to this production, which delights me, incidentally. Cavalli is Bernstein to Monteverdi’s Copland.

  on January 28, 2009 at 3:38 PM
• Regina delle fate says:

  I so wish I had gone to see it and I hope it will be taken up by other companies. Alden’s Calisto from Munich at Covent Garden has been the highlight of the season so far – stunning to look at and way over the top, but so is Cavalli. I think Alden’s penchant for a certain kind of visual camp and kitsch suits Cavalli better than it does Monteverdi. Those clips really make me envious of those who saw it. I hope they are already planning the revival.

  on January 28, 2009 at 7:42 PM
• Leonardo d'Olandia says:

  It WAS a very nice production! I´ve seen it three times and never get bored, which is very remarkable, cinse I´m not an (pre)barok opera fan. This will be released on DVD next year. Cast was good (Luca indeed) and Concerto Köln was directed by Ivor Bolton.

  Actually, I thought this production would end up in the Regie quizz….

  Cheers!
  Leonardo from Holland

  on January 28, 2009 at 8:32 PM
• Hippolyte says:

  I attended the premiere in Munich of Alden’s production of Cavalli’s La Calisto (which was remounted this past fall at Covent Garden). It was extraordinarily detailed, “entertaining”, looked like a million dollars (which it probably cost or more), and for me had little or nothing to do with Cavalli and most everything to do with displaying Alden’s ingenuity. As annoying as that production was, at least it wasn’t as actively destructive as his twin Christopher’s production of Handel’s Arianna in Creta done by the Gotham Chamber Opera a few years ago.

  on January 28, 2009 at 9:45 PM
• Cassandra says:

  “Cassandra: To be fair, dear, you confuse a lot of people.”

  Oh, I’m quite sure I do.

  on January 29, 2009 at 2:18 AM
• Bitchy Testiculi says:

  13. Hans Lick

  ‘Yes, I’d love to see it. Bitchy, if you didn’t like Ritorno di Ulisse, you have no ears or testiculi. Okay, maybe it was a bad production.’

  Well, Hans dear, I was up for a ‘Ritorno’ – and even got to the point of learning the music for this production. Even though I just LOVE singing recit, I thank Cruise this project got 86′d.

  Having sung a fair amount of Monteverdi and love listening to the madrigals etc. and also having invested a lot of money and money on cds etc of that time (‘Giasone’, ‘Serse’, Rossi’s ‘Orfeo’ and Landi’s ‘Sant’ Alessio’ etc) to give it a fair chance … I still find that style of music INCREDIBLY boring. Loads of recit with mostly VERY short arias. Although production like this ‘Ercole’ would make me stay for the whole show – and I’d probably go back for a second or third viewing.

  ‘Poppeae’ is in a class of its own. And regardless who composed what, it is a masterpiece by any time’s standard.

  Back to ‘Ritorno’, for what it is worth, my opinion is shared by colleagues of mine who are critically acclaimed for their Monteverdi. Go figure.

  Well, if 17th century 10 minute recits gets your juices flowing, good for you. Each to his own I say.

  on January 29, 2009 at 5:25 AM