souffle du printemps (was ring penetration begins)
Werther with Rolando Villazon and Susan Graham continues on France Musique. (Broadcast began at 3:00 pm EDT.)
Concert donné le 28 février 2009 à l’Opéra Bastille à Paris, en simultané avec l’Union européenne de radios. Rolando Villazon : Werther, poète; Ludovic Tézier : Albert, jeune homme; Alain Vernhes : Le Magistrat; Christian Jean : Schmidt, ami du magistrat; Christian Tréguier : Johann, ami du magistrat; Susan Graham : Charlotte, fille du magistrat; Adriana Kucerova : Sophie, sa soeur. Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Paris. Maîtrise des Hauts de Seine. Choeur d’Enfants de l’Opéra National de Paris; Direction : Kent Nagano.
Listing from Operacast.
Discussion of the first afternoon of the Met’s broadcast Ring cycle. (Illustration from P. Craig Russell‘s Ring of the Nibelung graphic novel
mj: It’s description, isn’t it, rather than a comment on race?
A tall blonde woman. A middle aged woman with blue eyes. A young black woman.
There is nothing more embarassing than gabbing about how fabulous a performance is during intermission and then forgetting to turn your cell phone off. One of my worst moments at the Met – Lulu final scene before her murder – silence – my cell phone (which was back inside my bag) going off and me scrambling to turn it off. I was sitting in a dress circle box. If it wouldn’t have destroyed one the most rivieting moents in opera, I would have thrown myself out of the box. I was beyond mortified. I guess some people have no shame like the woman in the orchestra.
I’ll never forget the time a few years ago when I finally broke down and joined the 21st Cent.by getting a Cell-phone. I was in Family Circle Standing Room at the MET, and had my Cell in my knapsack..when all of a sudden a loud generic ringing begain, during a very quiet part of the work in progress. The looks/whispers/admonitions in my direction embarrased,mortified, and un-nerved me so much(I was positive I was the guilty party..), that I scooped up my stuff and fled for the side exit…when I got halfway down the stairs, I looked in my bag…only to discover that in fact, my phone was turned..AND LOCKED…OFF…LOL..!!!
Thank you, La Cieca, for an excellent post.
And, in my opinion, describing someone in racial terms is very different from mentioning the color of their hair or eyes.
I understand that people would want a less traditional version of the Ring, especially after all this time. But, as someone new to opera (and not necessarily because of my age, which for the record is mid twenties), I appreciated seeing a traditional take on the masterwork and can’t wait for the next three installments. At least I wasn’t driven crazy by extraneous stage business. After I see the complete cycle, I’m sure I’ll be ready for something more adventurous, but this is going to keep me coming back to the Ring, something I was nervous about because of its length. And that, I think, should be celebrated. I realize there’s a small portion of the audience that wants something “more,” but there’s 4,000 seats in there.
#49, I believe they do this in Singapore.
Are they totally scrapping the Schenk production? In 10 years or so it would be nice to have it back or a novel concept of doing a cycle with alternating productions. It probably won’t happen, but it certainly would be interesting. As a “RingNut” I do appreciate this traditional staging. This current production was my introduction to the Ring. It was nice to have a solid starting point waaaaay back when I was a little opera princess. It has added a whole lot of depth and understanding to some of the more challenging productions that I have seen. I am glad that I have the opportunity to see these final performances. With my dress rehearsal tix and eveing tix; I get the opportunity to see it twice, thank goddess.
A story is going around that the Schenk “Ring” and the Zeffirelli “Tosca” will be stored rather than discarded.
Gualtier: In this year’s season announcement press conference, Gelb did state the the Zeffirelli Tosca was going into storage for possible future use. So I suppose it’s possible that the current Ring might be stored similarly.
I understand, though, that moving forward one of the conditions Gelb is making for new productions is that the original director must be available to put new singers into major revivals. Really elderly directors like Zeffirelli and Schenk are probably not going to be called on for new work at the Met.
I think the major objection that most people who dislike this Ring have is not that it is “traditional” per se, but that from the get-go it didn’t have an idea in its head–and actually had several careless mistakes. The one I remember most vividly is Freia running onto the set singing of being in terror of the giants, and then being directed to casually hang out near them rather than Wotan or Fricka for protection during the rest of the scene. Bad blocking, Mr Schenk, and not in sync with Wagner’s libretto.
Of course one can also cite the fact that any time a dragon was supposed to appear (Rheingold scene 3, Siegfried act 2) Mr Schenk just had the stage darkened almost to black so nobody could see what was going on. The thing was just plain dull. The only time the first act of Walkure was remotely interesting was when Leonie Rysanek sang her last two Sieglindes (I saw the second) and kicked the whole thing into overdrive. God love the woman, SHE should have directed it.