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.
78 I could not disagree more with your charecterization of Dr Karl of course, but I believe you do confirm that the end of Gotterdaemmerung is not the most sympathetic reading, and as a result the sainted Birgit is brought to great grief, as she is gasping for her life in the final pages of the Immolation, that should have a natural at a time considered her vocal prime. The opening of the Immolation, is already rushed and Birgit does not rise to the great climaxes with the expected grandeur, for example the big A in “hehresten Held” that Behrens is spectacular in the video with a very grand Levine carrying her along the way, I am talking of the video. All this shows, is that there are no absolutes in life, it all depends on a confluence of diffferent sometimes fleeting factors, that add or substract from a given performance. we should be thankful when things DO go the right way.
Someone else (I’m sorry, I don’t remember who) said this on another regie quiz, but it’s become my stock guess for all regie quizzes:
Mary Zimmerman’s new production of The Merry Widow.
72 Marquise, OK so then you must be a very perceptive young Q, because this Q here who has been around a few blocks, had NO idea, or even an inkling, he seemed so much the “family man”, in control of everything, etc, etc, etc. And really I had never ever heard any rumors whatsoever, unlike say dear old Lenny, that had left such a trail at my college, that by the time I got there several years after he had been for the Norton Lectures, the stories were still legion.
Then I met Eliette in Munich in 96, and under the heavy influence of sevaral libations she started talking like a Village Queen (Village as in Greenwich Village), the words “grosses schwanz” peppered throughout the conversation. She also spoke very liberally about her daughters – which would be in agreement with what Lifeisacabernet says in 76. Again I was rather shocked that this was no one else but the great HvK’s widow!.
So anyway this summer in Vienna, I was shown the building where HvK shared an apartment, filled with the most glorious antiques, and very near the Opera, with this very elegant gentleman (a very snappy dresser!) who had been his life-long lover.
This is a very interesting one. It looks too much like The Ring to actually be Walkure or Gotterdammerung, but it really does seem Wagnerlich (if there is such a word). Lohengrin, perhaps.
Alternativey, Purcell’s Dido:
1. “Spite of Jove’s command, I’ll stay. Defy the Gods and Love obey.”
2. “Our plot is took. The Queen’s forsook.”
3. “Thy hand, Belinda.”
Samson and Delilah!
Marshie: Them are some tall tales!!! No, seriously, thanks for the memories. Very interesting indeed. You have been near some Goetter, haven’t you.
Leinsdorf was not a routinier, he was a PEDANT! There is a huge difference. As a pedant, he made a strong and (sometimes offensively) singleminded impression on all he conducted. This meant sometimes very brisk tempos, but that usually came with very tight ensemble and dramatic fire. He was (and I’m making this up as I go along…) like Toscanini but with a much longer and better-recorded track record.
Bohm was a more curious and hard to define phenomenon. His 1938 Meistersinger Act 3, recorded on 78′s, is luminous! I agree with you on Bohm being terrific with FroSch – indeed almost noone is better. I don’t see quite what is wrong with his and Brigit’s Bayreuth GD, which I have on disc and count among my faves. But the fine fellow above is right that his ’66 Tristan is unbearably sloppy, and the Mozart is perhaps good but from another generation and hard for me to appreciate. I think that sometimes Bohm showed signs of being a routinier, and not a pedant. But when he was good he was good.
All these opinions, of course, from a young Squirrel who was not there!!!
Ok Squirrel, I appreciate your more nuanced approach to Dr Karl, Bill did a masterful summary of all of what Dr Karl was and eventually I’ll have the time to analyze in more depth the operas I thought he was truly the greatest, but dramamtic fire is exactly what Leinsdorf does NOT have for me, in the otherwise sensationally cast 8 Fidelios from the Met 1980, what with the sublime Behrens and GOD, together at the Met for the only time (except for that freak night in 84 with Tennstedt). Boehm for me, as an amateur, has two main qualities, his rythmic alertness is always impeccable, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, but always right, and then the second and even more important is the musical phrase, the long line. I owe my entire musical understanding of opera to my early years listening to Maria Callas (Norma, Trovatore, etc). There IS a before, and an after. In the before I liked dazzle, good coloratura, loud sounds, i.e. Sutherland, Nilsson, etc. After my freshman year in college, I fell for the Callas spell, and since then, though I rarely listen to her now, her musical heritage informs how I appreciate everything, the legato, the long phrase, the portamento, etc. In that Dr Karl is again supreme, so is Karajan of course, and Furtwaengler. But Dr Karl I saw live, in the 8 unforgetable Frau ohne Schatten with the sublime Rysanek in 78. Similarly in Fidelio, again the perfect rythmic
excitemnt coupled with the long majestic musical phrases, plus some dramatic fire, made for some sensational music making with Behrens and King. There is a very good version from Munich in Orfeo from roughly the same time, same year, actually 78. I also adore his third movement of the 9th Symphony, the majesty of the phrasing is divine. And so on……..
I won’t put ideas in your head if you love the GD from Bayreuth, but from that Ring all I want to listen is Act I and II(specially) of Walkure because for Leonie he was like a magic carpet, always supporting her in perfect spiritual synchrony the two of them, those were kindred souls, and he adored her.
Karajan of course was similarly endowed, sometimes grander, sometimes more heavy handed (Mozart) and so on, but both are Titans for me and could never choose one over the other in a sort of childish “isn’t this one better over that one” deending on your fetish of the day. Now with divas is ttally different because with divas there is an emotional involvement that brooks no logic
I could sing as hideously as Behrens *tomorrow* – it’s a question of color and tessitura…
Isn’t it ridiculous that the 1966 Bohm Tristan is always the one you are told to go and buy unless you talk to somebody who really knows opera. I must say that buy it I did when I was 16 or something, and I thought it was amazing until I grew up a bit and realised the love duet was so frantic it was almost risible. I’m very much happier with my Kleiber, Bernstein, Karajan (Modl), Jochum and Pappano recordings. Jiri Kout falls into the same trap as Bohm I think, but the DVD is a must due to the presence of Dame Gwyneth – the only Isolde of hers I have ever tracked down, sadly.
This one is too hard to guess…