regied refuse
Kudos to tannengrin who identified last week’s Regie puzzler correctly as Nabucco. La Cieca’s heart, though, belongs to Leper Ello, who made a minimally plausible case for Boris Godunov (“The Fool – in drag – laments the future of Russia”).
There’s more to lament in this week’s very serious staging.
marshie-
yep, I agree with you on Karajan, and on “voices”, and on the impossibility of choosing one over the other conductor. (Do you think Superman could beat up Bohm? What about Batman AND The Freeze versus Leinsdorf?? ha….)
And maybe your opinions (indeed, ALL opinions on parterre.com) differ from mine slightly because I am NOT a voice person, rather first an orchestral person, and my first impressions about Leinsdorf came not from the realm of opera but from his BSO documents where he pushed them – quite against their will – to acheive a ferocity of sound only hinted at during the Munch era (albeit with a certain sacrifice of Munch’s Menschlichkeit.)
Karajan is ridiculously UNDERrated, and I say this in spite of his blithe and blind popularity, which amounts to nothing but pop-culture hero worship. This has led music snobs to disown him, whereas he deserves ever bit of adulation for a spectacular career and for being a synthesis of NEARLY all the qualities on could possibly want in a twentieth century maestro. Which is not to say he was perfect, but he was still quite great.
I would never accuse Herr Doktor Bohm of being a pig or a slob and I’m sorry I said he was a routinier, but I perhaps don’t get him yet. It’s ok, I have lots of time to figure it out!
(scampers off…)
83. Well, Marshie-baby, to be fair in the performing circle things have a way of ‘coming out’ sooner – particularly when one enjoys the protection and confidence of a well-informed dowager …
Cocky, Premiere Opera offers a Jones/Vicker/C. Davis Tristan from 1982 at Covent Garden. The sound is execrable–recorded as if from one side of the pit. I’m not sure either Jones or Vickers is shown to their best advantage. It’s cheap enough, but those fellas take 6 months or more to ship an order. (That’s why I’m hesitant to order the Norman/Vickers Tristan excerpts from the BSO & Ozawa).
87. I have to agree that Boehm was something special. I shouldn’t like him in Mozart, but I do. I love his studio ‘Serail’ with Auger and Grist who ARE magic. The men ain’t bad either.
For some reason I find Boehm’s recordings of the live Ring and Strauss undisciplined and a little all over the place. And I feel like a sh*t for saying so cos today I would pay in blood to see those casts.
I love Boehm’s Tristan despite it feeling too fast. But it is hectic and exciting, no? I love the Karajan interpretation a little better – from the first note it feels like it is already over, and in particularly the way the Liebestod is interpreted it sounds like Dernesh and the orchestra are under a spell.
I agree with the above poster that Karajan’s Italian stuff sounds a bit heavy… but I’d rather have it than not.
Tubsinger – thanks, I was actually dimly aware of that one, but I’ve never ordered it because, as you say, it seems one is lucky if one ever receives one’s goods from those people. I suppose I don’t mind a 6 month wait if it does look like it will arrive eventually.
Frankly, from what I’ve heard, Isolde was far from her best role and fell way short of what she achieved in her other signature roles, but I’ve also read her saying she identifies with it more than anything else she sung and that it was her most beloved role and so, ardent Gwyneth-phile that I am, I’d like one at least from the 80s.
Oh Cocky and tubsinger, the things one learns in parterre, I had no idea there was a Tristan with Dame Gwyneth and GOD, jeez, I’d love to hear it! too bad that the sound is so bad, I wonder if maybe another tape exists? Cocky, if you want a Dame G as Isolde from the 80s there must a broadcast from the Met, I saw the entire run, like 6 or 8 performances, with a not so bad Spas Wenkoff and Jimmy L of course. As far as a Tristan with GOD, the best tape I know of is the broadcast from Chicago from 1980, I was in the theater for one performance, and that’s when I decided that the only way to refer to him was as GOD, I can’t say anymore, as it’s not needed
. The Isolde was Roberta Knie, who was not bad at all in Chicago, and then had a total, complete, unbelieveable vocal collapse at the Met, I was in the performance when she started the Liebestod literally whispering the words, she had no voice, and then kind of getting some sort of semblance of a voice by leuchtet stern…. and then somehow getting pitches out to finish, very disturbing, and in the end very sad. It was a frightening experience really. But back to GOD, I had the tape of that Chicago Tristan and wore it off, so I ma sure it’s not usable now. I’d die to get it on CD now, anybody knows??????????
92 Marquise, not to beat a dead horse, but I think that Karajan must have “enforced” a tighly-closed closet door, because no one ever talked about it, unlike with say Lenny. In fact Behrens, who was/IS extremely homo-positive, even vacationing in Fire Island
, never uttered one single word, and she must have surely known, as the gentleman in question was very much around before 1977 and long after. He just passed on at age like 90 in Vienna. The dowager who told me the story said that everyone in Vienna knew, the apartment was right across from the Opera, but no one talked about it. That’s how it always was in Europe, very discreet, probably, right? Now Eliette would fit right in, hand in glove at parterre.com 
Oh Squirrel, I could not agree with you more about Karajan, I also think he IS underrated now, for the same reasons you say, pop hero, etc. Also Karajan himself, but the time he moved to SONY, he was a bit wayward, weird, and showy, so that hasn’t helped his image. To me the most perfect Karajan is the second generation DG, he repeated most of the stuff from the early 60s again in the 70s (the Beethoven and Brahms cycles in particular are the greatest!!!), and that should have been it, but he still redid it one more time for SONY and that is for the most part weird, except for the sublime Don Giovanni with Anna Tomowa Sintow. Also the operas he did with EMI are magnificent except the Hollaender! Oh and of course was there EVER a greater Parsifal, that orchestra!!!!! and to think that that Kundry should have been Behrens!!!!!! and the idiot fired her to replace her with Vejzovic!
You mentioned earlier Meistersingers, the most sublime recording of that has to be the one with Kubelik, and the divine Gundula Janowitz and Konya!!!! heavenly performance. What a pity that DG was supposed to release it but never did. I had it on Myto in good sound, but later I found a German version at Ludwig Beck’s in Munich, can’t remember the label, but it’s in sensational sound. My other favorite Meistersinger is of course Sawallisch and there you have a pretty gloriously sublime Cheryl Studer, with Heppner in his best recorded performance! My God, the Wach Auf gives you chills…….. Weikl is a bit rough, but you can neverhave perfection right?
I heard Jones sing the Walkure Brunhilde around the same time in NY (the previous production to that being trashed now), and thought that she sounded a bit less taxed at the Met than she did at Covent Garden as Isolde. The CDs are filled with some fearsome yelps, but one expects that with GJ. That Brunhilde occured the same season I heard Birgit and Eva in DFoSchatten under Leinsdorf (at opposite poles of their career paths). So I suppose I heard some loud singing that year.
As for Boehm, I do separate the idea that he had some incredible Wagner and Mozart casting (that Abduction is a classic for the singing) from the idea that he could be, most of the time to my ears, rather routine. He may have accompanied singers beautifully–on that I’m not qualified to opine. I do recall hearing a recollection of a Bayreuth Isolde complaining that, while singing under HvK, his beat was nearly impossible to follow, his eyes closed in a self=indulgent reverie, and she and her Tristan had to hold hands and tap out the beats of the love duet for one another with their fingers. That said, I find HvK’s recorded Wagner far more interesting on record than Boehm’s. But I’m perverse enough to continue to listen to Lenny’s end of Act I and Act II from Munich just for the conducting, despite having to sit through Hildy and Hoffmann. As for Boehm’s reputation for all-round excellence in Mozart, I prefer the wit and crisper bounce of Mackerras and Davis, who were recording the symphonies and operas largely at the same time, devoid of Germanic ponderousnous.
this has nothing to do with nothing, but I just heard the FroSch recording by Haitink/covent garden (must have been 80s?) with Paul Frey as the Emperor.
While i have heard many tenors screw the role up – indeed I never understand why it is sung so badly, and it seems so few tenors “get” the part (I only really love James King or Ben Heppner) Frey is absolutely unlistenable. I had to turn it off!! It’s not because he lacks the notes. It’s just that he sounds so absolutely boozy and bloated and arrogant, like a drunk, violent sailor knocking over every bottle on his way to to the floor. An absolute mess. I gather he was a big singer in his day. Anyone experience him before??
I bring it up because I am sometimes fascinated by the Worst of the Worst the same way I am fascinated by the Best of the Best.