hit it, boys!
When la Cieca’s dear friend and chief flunky around parterre.com JJ shlepped out this morning to fetch a copy of the New York Post, he seemed oddly keyed up. “With what I got in me, I could have been better than any of you,” JJ muttered.
Flinging the tabloid down on the breakfast bar, he continued, “What I’ve been holding down inside of me… oh, if I ever let it out, there wouldn’t be signs big enough! There wouldn’t be lights bright enough! Here he is, boys! Here he is, world! Here’s James!”
Congratulations, JJ!
I read the review posted online here. It was brilliant, and as fine a literary critigue not seen in New York since the days of Andrew Porter.
I enjoyed it immensely!
Bravo to JJ!
Jolly good. Pleasing to see a more frank and sensible assessment of Dessay’s vocal estate. TT gets worse and worse, and actually described her voice as ‘well supported’, or some such far-fetched nonsense that has never been true about her in his piece.
That’s probably the best written review the Post has seen in years. Can you start doing their theatre reviewing, as well? Elisabeth Vincentelli’s debut review of GUYS AND DOLLS on Monday read like it had been written by a retarded middle-schooler.
where ARE my glasses, I may have to actually read the Post and if they decide to keep a great critic about the arts, well….
a subscription cannot be far behind.
well done, james.
Congratulations JJ! Beautifully done.
I hadn’t thought about the finale as “Springtime for Hitler”, but that’s exactly what it was like.
La Cieca, you better keep your eyes open – your errand-boy James “Eve Harrington” Jorden is on the loose.
BRAVO, JJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another example of excellent work.
Five beignets and a cup of chicory to JJ for the NY Post review! A critic who understands voice and stagecraft is now reviewing opera performances for one of NY’s dailies and JJ and Opera Chic (whose blog is mentioned with increasing frequency in major publications) are getting the recognition they merit.
Wow…I wasn’t accustomed to good writing on the NY Post until JJ’s review!
Did you notice if there is a section on the Post webpage to leave comments about JJ’s review?
Good review; it underscores many of the comments on parterre post-dress last week.
Very well done, indeed!
The first review I’ve read to gave an accurate assessment of La Dessay’s vocal state.
The entire review demonstrated a real understanding of music and stagecraft; should be basic knowledge for a professional critic, but alas…
We always knew that someday you’d go far
And if you do, will anything happen?
Will we see you again?
Very exciting! And a great debut to boot. I was wondering about the wee secrecy of our doyenne’s absence from this past chat, but never would I have imagined this!!
Has there been a period where the NYP bosted better arts critics than, well, them?
I think the hiring of James Jorden is part of their internal revolution in the aftermath of the shot monkey cartoon. Clearly the Post needs to redefine itself at all costs and the hiring of this Jorden person is a fine start. If James gets invited onto Rupert Murdoch’s yacht, don’t let him forget his old, old, old opera buddy Gualtier Maldé (I hear the Weekly World News needs an opera critic and I am sending my resumé…)
!!!
JJ, Good for you!
Chère doyenne, is it me or was this review a tad shorter than the Rezensionen you wrote for GCN? If paragraphs were sacrificed for lack of space, would you be allowed (or inclined) to post the full review, if one there be, here or elsewhere?
Congratulations JJ! Great job. and certainly more accurate than the NYTimes’ meandering review.
A cursory perusal of the ticket availability diagrams on the Met’s website suggests that a number of Met mink-lady-und-plutocratische subscribers are returning their expensive seats to the formerly sold out perfs of La Sonnambula.
Most of the new arrivals are “premium” orchestra seats on the aisle @ 275-295. Looks like more than 25 availabilities for March 18, for instance. Cheaper seats, i.e., under 220 or so, seam to be holding their ground.
You scared them off JJ. This is the best first review I’ve read in the Post since Frank Rich’s review of “The Wicked Dreams of Paula Schultz” back in the 70s. And look how far HE went.
One of the great blessings of having discovered La Cieca is having learned how to access reviews by JJ – who joins, in my book, Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun as “worth a detour” (like some French restaurants). FYI, here’s Anne Midgette’s review in today’s Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/03/AR2009030303255.html
That’s what Im talking about!
Complimenti ed Auguri!
No one has worked so long nor deserves his voice to be heard, Caro JJ!
A very reasonable, non-inflammatory review which gives credit rightly to Mr. Florez first, and delineates the decline of Mme. Dessay talents succinctly. Pitie pour elle.
The only thing more pleasing would be to see JJ replace TT–it would be the gotterdammerung of ‘Dusky, Earthy & Strapping’, Inc.!!!!
It’s nice to see that all of the reviews are basically unanimous. Congrats to JJ for joining the pantheon.
Does this mean you are gonna get to meet Cindy Adams..?.I am plotzing with envy….lol!!
Good luckk..JJ…!
(I hope this doesn’t mean we all have to be nice about that rag, the Post—other than your contribution to it…..)
Fabulous! Bravo NY POST! Congratulations JJ
Here (I have tried posting it before) is another pan from Howard Kissel in the Daily News:
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/culture/
By the way, I thought that the current GUYS AND DOLLS revival was just about the worst musical experience I’ve had on Broadway in close to 30 years. How could they have gotten so much wrong?
Goodbye, Liz Smith; hello, JJ!
Curtain up! Light the lights!
Bravissimo!
Congratulations, JJ, you’ve clawed your way to the bottom. Sorry, I know we all need a pay-check, but the POST!!???!!!?
La Cieca—Please proffer my congratulations to JJ for cracking one of our city’s dailies. I’m glad the Post has decided that an event like this is worthy of its attention, and I hope this turns into a comfortable berth for your friend.
Now only if he could do something about the guy who drew the monkey cartoon!
Brava!
it’s good to see, especially since she was the one who originated it, that midgette has dropped her criticism of JDF bleating. 1/2 of the idiots in the world immediately picked up on that criticism.
let’s face it he’s the best tenor working today…whether you like his repetoire or not.
It’s nice to read a review that accurately reflects what happened in the opera house. Great job!
Many congratulations JJ! Good writing is a skill not easily acquired, let alone writing about opera, and they are very, very lucky to have you.
Perhaps the post could use you in a double capacity? Surely as part of the nypost team they could also use your considerable wit to help them come up with classier yet equally “clever” headlines as “ike beats tina to death” etc.
@27, Kissel mentions JDF’s “tight fitting jeans”; even TT didn’t go there. JJ and Martin Bernheimer have written the best reviews I’ve seen thus far. Succinct, no b.s.
Wow, congratulations! A major publication! I was wondering when this was going to happen.
One question… Rupert Murdoch? Eeeeeee….
Tristan_ wrote: “Congratulations, JJ, you’ve clawed your way to the bottom.”
From what all the girls tell me JJ will scratch, eat, bite and commit cannibalism to get his way to the bottom…any bottom in NYC…
I’ll just add though, it’s great that you are being published in a place that will most likely leave your particularly opinionated and readable style alone.
If it were the Times, it would have to be drenched in boring Kobbe’s style back history that has nothing to do with singing. No writer can seem to escape the morass of mediocrity there.
Congratulations, La Cieca!
I hope your new assignment is a permanent one!
And, finally, someone worth reading besides Bernheimer!
JJ:
A friend who accesses various newspapers through a phone-service for the visually-impaired called me at the crack of dawn, this morning, to say..”You will never guess who is writing for the NYPost…!!–lol..!!
(hope ya don’t follow in the slumped over foot-steps of the last Post” critic”(Clive Barnes)..and are found snoring thru most evenings at the theater….)
Bravo, JJ. I, too, hope that this is a permanent gig.
“Zimmerman attempts to add a layer of sophistication to this naive tale”
This is the core issue, n’est-ce pas?
That some of the people involved with the conception and realization of the production do not understand La Sonnambula.
Thanks to Bellini’s genius, the naive tale has all the layers of sophistication it needs to make a properly poetic effect in an opera house, if, that is, it is well-produced and of course, well-sung.
If that poetic Bellinian effect is not exciting enough or satisfying enough for whatever reason to whichever person, the person should just walk away from Sonnambula, not cruelly rape her.
So I say chapeau, Hut ab and Bravo! to JJ for reading my mind, saying just walk away, and getting that piece of my mind published in the New York Post.
Good review. I hope Tony reads it and learns something. My only quibble is that I think Pertusi is overpraised.
YAY! Go James! Nicely written, well-considered, all the hallmarks we’ve come to expect from our years (nine in my case) reading your work on this site. Go forth and conquer, or words to that effect.
Scott @ 44:
You have finally distilled for me the idea I’ve been groping for all week:
This opera’s nature is a “poetic” one. In that direction lies the only truly effective stance for a production to take towards it.
The narrative (with whatever limitations we may attribute to it) is radically secondary to the opportunity that the situation gives to both the composer and the librettist for poetic images. (As when the hero envies the breeze for its intimate contact with his beloved’s hair.)
This is the real offense of the “concept” the Met paid millions for: it is a stranger to poetry and intends to be.
Well, I have been hearing for years about the homosexuals trying to infiltrate the media and mainstream press to promote their depraved agenda and put down family values and sacred Christian religious beliefs. Now in our own New York Post I see it is coming true.
THANK GODDESS!!!
Wait, La Cieca has a breakfast bar?
Congrats, JJ!
JJ! Go on with ya bad self!
Now, how can get JJ to replace juntwait?
The cream will always rise to the top!
Sincerest congratulations!
BRAVO JJ!! Congratulations and may there be many more reviews.
midgette needs help though. jennifer black was clearly miscast. and having distinct trouble at the top. again with the “silly ” opera crappe. Shame on you Ms. Midgette. IT has no problems surviving centuries. YOU will not. It is a beuty of a romantic tale.
@as for sleepwalking…..20/20 did two weeks of stories of people eaitng in there sleep, driving in their sleep, KILLING in their sleep. What is so silly about an overwrought poetic soul sleepwalking into another room?
Mr/ Florez DOES have a bleat, but was literally the only one in interviews with the proper respect for the Bellini opera and his performance showed a desire to beautify his voice to the score’s demand. NO ONE else did.
Walking in from the Hall is a old idea and shuld not be encouraged and still, no one places the damn blame, er, rather, boos where they belong. On the shudlers of the supposed diva Dessay.
She asked for this and then passes the boos to zimmerman.
applauding onstage doesn’t cut it.
well deserved.
shame THE POST is such a disgusting rag,
Pithy review and to the point but at c. 18 sentences not exactly in Andrew Porter country, despite an earlier comment. However, given the fire-breathing rhetoric that has taken up 100s of posts on this site and others since the dress, I’m frankly surprised that most readers on here are satisfied with a review that doesn’t include phrases like “desacration”; “banned from the MET forever”; “sin against Bellini”; etc.
With a nod to “chimp-gate”, should include a cartoon of Natalie gunning down a young girl in a dirndl, Zimmerman looking on with an inane smile on her face…..aside from that it’s perfect, concise and well balanced, certainly the best of the several I’ve read so far.
Well done!
Well …. alright. It may not be Andrew Porter of yesteryear, but rather a more current version for modern tastes.
What it thankfully isn’t, is a glossy, trendy, silly veneer that are American essays on opera today. The author clearly demonstrates a deep and concise understanding of the work. But most importantly, he writes for his audience at The Post, in a vernacular that works for everyone; neophytes and the jades.
Great review comme toujours! Congratulaitons.
BRAVO, JJ Loved the review!
I’m wondering: When can a singer say “NO” to a production? Is a singer required to go along with whatever the director does with a production?
Would appreciate a link to the Bernheimer review, if anyone has it. Thanks!
Great job, JJ! The best use of the word “tangy”, too.
It’s hard to believe that a sophisticated production that adds plot elements to make the libretto more relevant to a contemporary audience uses one of the tiredest cliches of staging: singer/actors making their entrances down the aisle. The last time that seemed innovative was in a public school during the early 70’s. Perhaps it is a nod to the sentimental nature of Sonnambula’s libretto/characters/situations.
Great review dear JJ and your wonderful lead in on parterre only reafirms by belief that all of life’s experiences can be described using lines from Gypsy.
Can’t wait to read your next review.
Allow me to add to the hearty congratulations, James, on your New York Post job!
JJ’s entry into mainstream opera criticism is logical — and has been in the zeitgeist for a long time, in my view. Opera is a ’special’ art, and sometimes only a ’special’ person can handle it. Along with JJ’s fine observations and well-stated commentary on Sonnambula (and many other topies), I would commend Bernheimer in today’s Financial Times. Not to miss!!! Martin has his own distinctive style and the FT makes him write briefly, but he gets it all said and his view is crystal-clear.
Miss Zimmerman should be shown to her stateroom on the next White Star trans-Atlantic liner and her passport confiscated upon arrival at Southampton. Good bye, Mme. Z. (That last comment is mine, not Martins, tho’ I doubt he would object. This Met opera-obsession with Brits is one of it’s darker aspects in recent decades; add Santa Fe to that list, and oh yes, we have Jennifer Black’s Elisir d’Amore to put up with this summer in Santa Fe — or, maybe not!)
Apparently the note that Zimmerman is an American has bypassed some commentators–or not, is this performance art?
And is he trying to say that Houston-born Jennifer Black is British, too?
Mr Myster:
Zimmerman is a FUCKING AMERICAN….and the majority of her theaterical work was born and bred in the US of A…
With a name like Zimmerman – what makes you think we want her in Southampton?
Sorry – forgot to mention- JJ has the fine art of “balance” in critical review. Not easily achieved and certainly not often begotten.
Yes, pity the FT only gives Bernheimer a limit of 300 words for his reviews.
I hear that MZ and crew have made some revisions to the Sonnambula productions.
For one thing, they’ve added another sleepwalker – an unknown named Bizkit….
I hope this works:
http://video.yahoo.com/network/100000086?v=4604399&l=100000085
Hey congratulations!!! I read it this morning and thought it was the best review so far-didn’t even notice who wrote it. Thank you for an accurate description of ND. I tried to listen to her with an open mind, but she destroyed my favorite recit of all time when she entered and then the aria itself about gave me a heart attack. I don’t think that was the intention of Bellini-to cause my death.
I’m finding that all of these bizarre stagings are spawning a truly hideous cycle in opera. I was looking so forward to this “Sonnambula” (to record on DVD when telecast) as being really
spectacular. I don’t doubt that Florez does the best singing in the show (has anyone else ever sung this role as well??), but the buzz on Dessay is a little sad. We know that in this opera she’s not Callas or even Sutherland —- but should she really be singing this opera at all? In fact, given this ugly and inappropriate production, why even put on “Sonnambula” at all? I wonder what Callas would have done if La Scala or Covent Garden designed such a “Sonnambula” for her.
Martin Bernheimer has turned the short review into an art-form of which is uniquely a master. No-one writes pithier, wittier, more opinionated or to to-the-point reviews in 300 words. He is essential reading on the NY opera scene. James Jordan’s review tells you everything you need to know about the evening. Sad to read about Dessay’s current vocal state. She was a delight in Fille at Covent Garden. I hope she will be okay for your Hamlets next season. That was her RO debut and it was a sensation. It was a few years ago, however. Neither she, nor S Keenlyside are getting any younger.
Thanks for the review. Finally, an intelligent and informed alternative to the tired, sycophantic, and clueless ramblings from the NYT. Hopefully they pay you well. Brava!
Congratulations to JJ, to the paper, to the readers and to fans of opera and of intelligent and witty music criticism worldwide!!!
The art of operatic criticism will survive!!!!!!
BRAVO!!!!!
Wonderful JJ!!! Now there’s SOMETHING to read in the Post!
But go easy on my Natalie.
“Neither she, nor S Keenlyside are getting any younger.”
My god! That really is going too far.
Keenlyside is 49 years old. And the man sings like a god.
I heard him when he was an outstanding boy soprano and again when he was a choral scholar at Cambridge, and I’m not really ready to think of even myself as over the hill.
Why must such meaningless bitchiness be voiced? Have you no other means of taking out your frustrations?
“Keenlyside is 49 years old. And the man sings like a god.”
I heard god sing recently and Keenlyside doesn’t sound anything like him.
Yah. God sounds like Boris Christoff.
I thought God was a woman?
http://www.kellygod.com/
And I hope that with the NYPost gig, Parterre Box will continue to flourish-it’s one of my regular pleasures.
““banned from the MET foreverâ€;”
There are several people involved in this production, both from the production team and the singers, that SHOULD be banned from the Met forever.
“I heard him when he was an outstanding boy soprano and again when he was a choral scholar at Cambridge, and I’m not really ready to think of even myself as over the hill.”
Good god, then I’m an infant!
Brava Cieca! … tu canti agli angeli le tue orazioni…
Please let me add my congratulations on a really fine piece of work.
When I saw Bizkit on Dooce I near to split my sides a-laffin’. And I immediately thought of La Sonnambula! This is waaay too good not to make the Portland Opera blog next week.
Kudos to JJ, and congratulations.
The curious thing about this misguided production is that the Met has hired erstwhile staff stage director Leslie Koenig, given that Gelb, by his own admission, is not strictly-speaking an “opera guy,” to help him and the senior artistic staff “vet,” shape, and edit new production concepts as they’re being pitched. Did all of them share a bong together before sitting through MZ’s presentation for her “Sonnambula” concept?
JJ:
Well deserved.
Toi, toi, toi!
87, your writings here have never read to me like those of an infant.
And you seem to miss the possibility that one can be the same age as S.K. (or even younger) and still have heard him during those years. The fact that he was performing one of sixteen boys in one of the world’s most exposed choirs and making recordings as a small boy (not to mention sight-reading absolutely anything) must have been better preparation for his career than most have these days.
Jorden RULES!!(I am not sure exactly WHAT he rules..but I think he must rule something.).
How dull life would be without this dude…I am prejudiced of course…but I think we all recognize this guy/goy/gay as a special personage in our lives…..Personally, if one of my friends ever got hit by a truck, James would be the one to inherit all my Rings….(I mean the Wagner ones,of course)
Do you think we could get up a petition for James to star on the VIEW!!!! WHOOOOPIE!!!!!