parterre box

95 comments

• rapt says:

  #46: re: “too cheap to be in the house.” Just a reminder that not all who read this blog live in New York or environs.

  on March 3, 2009 at 4:03 PM
• Miss Kitty Litter says:

  Billy’s Butt….what a cool nom de blog.

  Tyrolean gamboling is something else I hope to cross over my Must Do List.

  on March 3, 2009 at 4:12 PM
• billy's butt says:

  #46 Not Peter Gelb “this was unquestionably the ugliest production in Met history”:

  In my humble opinion, “Thais” was the ugliest, cheapest looking and most tasteless production in MET history. But I only started going to the MET in the late 1980s, so maybe I missed some other ugly ones.

  on March 3, 2009 at 4:28 PM
• almavivante says:

  The latest negative review has appeared online, from bloomberg.com. See the link below:

  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a5FqN2g0o7uQ&refer=home

  on March 3, 2009 at 4:32 PM
• iltenoredigrazia says:

  xiaoming, Productions do not have to be by Zefirelli to be succesful. (Not that all Zefirelli productions have been succesful.) The Met has had many “traditional” and “non-traditional” productions that have lasted for years and years, e.g., Rosenkavalier, Gioconda, Dialogues, Parade, Otello, Manon Lescaut, l’Elissir, the Ring, Hoffman, Tannhauser, Rigoletto, Rusalka, Jenufa, etc., not to mention the old Barber, Samson, Luisa Miller, Frau, Ariadne, Flute, Hansel & Gretel, Turandot, Fidelio etc.. Some streamlined (and sometimes cheap) productions may not have been particularly loved but they did not offend either, e.g., the ’70′s Aida, the Ponnelle Mozarts, L’Italiana, etc. The sensationalist productions just don’t last and, therefore, are not economically justifiable for a theatre with no government support and always struggling for donations.

  on March 3, 2009 at 4:39 PM
• Meet at the Vilar Grand Tier? says:

  My biggest problem with the production was that it had no internal consistency. The premise of the actors lives mimicing the lives of their characters could be interesting. The stage manager (Lisa) competing with the diva (Amina) for the love of the hunkentenor (Florez). But I could not figure out who the Count was in this scheme. And why did they have the inn on the stage of the rehearsal room? Why would the diva be sleeping in the auditorium? I tried to follow the internal conceit, but it all fell apart for me there. The remainder of the production made no sense following its own internal scheme. At that point it was just a cheezy grad-school exercise in postmodernism with expensive singers.

  on March 3, 2009 at 4:49 PM
• voyagerx says:

  Whatever happened to tomatoes?

  on March 3, 2009 at 4:51 PM
• Ian says:

  Oh dear. I desperately wanted Sonnam to be liberated from Alpine kitsch, but it doesn’t sound like Zimmerman is the woman to do it.

  on March 3, 2009 at 5:41 PM
• Dominatrix says:

  56 — that’s just what I was thinking — why not bring back the custom of throwing rotten tomatoes or eggs at bad stage directors?

  on March 3, 2009 at 5:52 PM
• Maury D'Annato says:

  Williams: I believe you have just Ric-rolled us.

  on March 3, 2009 at 5:56 PM