Comments on: no way out

ilpenedelmiocor commented

ilpenedelmiocor — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:41:33 +0000

Re: #72

“At the end of the dress rehersal of C et M at CG, the audience applauded Netrebko and Garanca for 15 minutes, rather unusual for the reserved and cool British! Nebs is not that bad after all!”

Music criticism via applause meter.

Did she actually manage to get through an entire production without ever going off pitch? I would applaud that vociferously as well.

Alto commented

Alto — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 08:08:59 +0000

Are you under the impression, R 93, that those Broadway sillinesses are put on for New Yorkers? No, they are mostly for the tourists — including the visiting Chicagoans.

operaaficionado commented

operaaficionado — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:12:50 +0000

You New Yorkers just don’t get ‘real’ theatre. Too many boring Broadway productions have watered down your sense of theatrical adventure not to mention intelligence. Too many of NYC’s great dramatic and musical productions have started in Chicago. Chicagoans know the Windy City is the real ‘theatre’ town, home to the Goodman, Steppenwolf, Lookingglass, Victory Gardens, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and numerous other great theatre companies. Mary Z is brilliant! Send her back to us with Dan, Mara and TJ! Love them all!

wenarto commented

wenarto — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:18:13 +0000

OK, whatever it is, just boo my Sonnambula

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkcrkATqvWA&FMT=18

jatm2063 commented

jatm2063 — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:38:58 +0000

Who else noticed that many of the other videos on this list of 15 provided to us by our doyenne are of gigantic muscleboys?

harry commented

harry — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:01:25 +0000

For those that scream about the Met being too traditionalist, what are they trying to say? I always thought the word firstly in regard to Opera, meant the seeking of consistent high quality standards.

That is, not allow a lurch into what people could expect to see at a local high school production with all the usual risible faults and flaws plainly on show.
Where people politely tell each other untruthfully of course, that everybody had a fun night with a forced smile There, one is expected to forgive if some ‘little Ms Nattie’ screams a few notes and her tits off key, the direction is ratty because Ms Zimmer the drama teacher did a lousy job, like last time she handled things as well. Well next time everybody will have the new excuse “Its Regie, didn’t you know!” And some pretentious thing probably nicknamed the Queen of Maria Theresa Chandelieria so wanting to SUCH a fan of Regie because they believe it to be hip will exclaim “Yes, I know and is’nt it SOOOO outrageous opps, too I nearly always wet myself!”

Lindoro Almaviva commented

Lindoro Almaviva — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:01:44 +0000

Quickly, I’m 100% with you.

Famous Quickly commented

Famous Quickly — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:45:57 +0000

I could boo Mary Zimmerman *tomorrow*: it’s a question of also booing that narcissistic French baggage who fancies herself too hip and ironic to perform Romantic rep as written.

Nerva Nelli commented

Nerva Nelli — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 06:26:20 +0000

Keith MC confessed:

“Yawn! Reactionary American audiences. Zzzzzzzzz”

Well, go sleep the sleep of the ill-informed. The staging was not “daring”– it was inept and cheap and lacked internal logic. Met audiences will cheer updated productions **if they work**: for example the brilliant LADY MACBETH OF MTSENSK and more recently SALOME.

Anyone who sees this controversy as being about artistic daring in the face of conservatitism is a patsy of Gelb’s publicity machine.

ortrud jones commented

ortrud jones — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:54:45 +0000

I wouldn’t count on the Met being a good Wagner house with the horrid Lisa Gasteen singing Brunnhilde. Of course there’s more to a Ring Cycle than Brunny, but still, she can’t sing anything above a G….

wotan_in_inman commented

wotan_in_inman — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:58:05 +0000

Who adjusted my meds when I wasn’t looking. I meant Operadent at #82.

I’ll be sulking in the powder room.

Or pouting int he sulker room.

One or the other, but I’ll be doing it.

wotan_in_inman commented

wotan_in_inman — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:50:24 +0000

Cassandra @60.

WAGNER ! ! ! ARE YOU SIRIUS !! I MEAN SERIOUS ! ! ! !

Did you live through the recent spate of Tristshit und Ioldpoop?

Until the last run of Don Giovanni, I would have said the Met is still a good Mozart house. Rossini? Yes. Puccini is on-and-off.

What makes me scream in anguish is that I can’t see that The Met is in any worse shape than any other international house. Aida is an endangered specie. Another Regie Nabucco set in an opium den.

Hey, La Sonnambula set in a Catholic High School. That would work. Sort of “Grease” without the attitude. Yeah.

Sorry, I digress.

Doris Godunov commented

Doris Godunov — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:36:48 +0000

Dears, you need to practice your booing – rather underwhelming. If you are going to do it, do it properly. Maybe voice lessons and projection would help. I thought you vulgar Americans would trump us decadent Europeans, but this was nothing on the overwhelming torrent of disapproval that greeted the production team for Anna Vriebrock’s recent Paris ‘Ariane et Barbe Bleue’.

Give it some welly, you big sissies.

operadent commented

operadent — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:49:14 +0000

In re. #80 (Cassandra) – maybe Wagner – but, then again, wait for the new Ring. That could be a meltdown.

operadent commented

operadent — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:45:09 +0000

A production such as this insults the composer, the musicians/singers and the audience to such a degree that a vociferous response is not only valid but many ways necessary.
Our wallets were violated and our intellegence was called into question. Not to express outrage would run against our feelings and need to express our displeasure. Sitting on our hands would have been unthinkable and unhealthy.
In short, we booed the bastards!

Cassandra commented

Cassandra — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:23:56 +0000

Jesus Christ.

It’s one fucking bel canto disaster in this house after another. In this season alone a fifth rate Lucia with multi-tenor casting with epic fail after epic fail, and now this fifth rate, dredged up staging for a classic “weak libretto” (you bitches’ description, not mine.)

I mean really, why even fucking bother.

Can’t get through Verdi, can’t get through bel canto, is there ANYTHING this house can do well any more?

I seriously wonder.

Houndentenor commented

Houndentenor — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:01:11 +0000

If it is acceptable to cheer, then it is also acceptable to boo. Enough of this PC crap. I have sympathy for singers having an off night. It happened even to the greatest singers. But an awful production is the result of a great deal of planning and worse was approved well in advance by the company.

wotan_in_inman commented

wotan_in_inman — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:35:11 +0000

I’ve got to remember that even though my response is right under the previous when I type it, it will not be posted with the same immediacy.

Hence, may I explain that #77 is for the elucidation of #73

wotan_in_inman commented

wotan_in_inman — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:31:54 +0000

I have the Sirius broadcast recorded. On strictly the aural evidence, the applause for the performers is long and vociferous — standard for the Met. But when the production team enters, the booing starts and totally drowns out the applause. Juntwait makes the aforementioned adjustment to her commentary, calling it “mixed.” It may be that she was able to see people applaudng, but you certainly could not hear them. A comment is made about Dessay strongly applauding Zimmerman, with the phrase “flapping her arms,” which conjured up the image of a hungry seal.

I would assume at that point, it was decided that to go one would be futile, so perhaps everyone left the stage at once, because all audience response stopped and I guess having had their say one way or the other they went home.

Ciri-biri and Biri-Bin went into their usual “Gee, I can hardly wait for tomorrow night. See you then” crap, and it was over.

Matt Circle commented

Matt Circle — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:24:49 +0000

Interesting point jatm2063. It seems that since Natalie Dessay had so much influence on the conception of the La Somnabula, RF may have equal if not more weight in what goes into the Armida production.