where will the elite meet?
Now that single tickets are available for purchase by Met season subcribers, and as the NYCO continues to dribble out details about casting, it’s time for La Cieca to start organizing her social diary for the opening of “The Season.” Where will Le Tout New-York be tooting this time around, cher public? Let La Cieca know in the poll after the jump.
Please note that you may vote for more than one “must see” operatic experience — if you can find any in the following list.
I will be in town for the prima of Anna Bolena.. opening the 2011/12 season. Without question, I’m booking in a 4 star dinner with the great Cieca in advance at an establishment of her choice….
If only that Bolenna had a cast of Belcanto specialists, THAT would be a night to remember
I voted for Tosca because it is part of the Met’s Opening Night Gala. The elite, even those who don’t care about opera (like some random rapper or actor) tend to show up for Opening Night at the Met.
I would think that the most talked about story of the new season will be the fact that the Met will be replacing the Zefirelli Tosca. I think audiences will not be happy about that and there will be a lot of grumbling and bitching about that.
That Tosca has many detractors, but also many defenders and it is a link to the old establishment. Gelb will catch a lot of shit for that one. I will say that he will also replace that Boheme soon and that will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many.
I am not opposed to replacing any of them if the new productions have something interesting to say. I know Gelb is not an idiot and he has already started the PR campaign that the Zefirelli Tosca will be kept and revived for special occasions. I’m sure he will do the same with the Boheme and the Traviata when the time comes.
I think we might be witnessing one of the last Revival’s of Bob O’Hearn’s Rosenkavalier. This production is due to be replaced within the next 10 years. It will be a shame, since the production is beautiful in every sense; but it is also 30 years old and not in keeping with the new hipMet, so I will guess that Gelb might replace it soon.
I have a feeling that the Carmen will be a mess. Who designed the new production? What is the concept?
Where, oh, where is Lulu in your poll!? And, yes, I’m being serious.
Lulu is in the same place as Armida & Hamlet–that is, not until spring.
there is i think at least some element of scarcity implicit in the notion of a “hot ticket” … i think “esther” might have fallen into that category, but the koch is so cavernous tickets will never be hard to come by.
not that i have anything against cavernous kochs, mind you …
Lindoro–Whatever Richard Eyre comes up with, his Carmen can’t be worse than Zeffirelli’s—such a thing isn’t possible. I won’t shed any tears over the Tosca either, although it isn’t quite as imbecilic as the Carmen.
As for the Merrill/O’Hearn Rosenkavalier, a quick session at the abacus will reveal that it’s 40, not 30, years old. As fine as it is, the decades have lent it a certain old-man smell, and maybe it’s time to see something new. Except that in this case, the replacement will inevitably be worse.
I voted for Tosca and Rosenkavalier for many of the reasons already voiced. I’ll go to Tosca just out of morbid curiosity. Cannot for a second imagine Mattila as Tosca and the production is bound to upset Puccini’s soul.
The Met’s Rosenkavalier is a gem that I wished were duplicated instead of replaced. You simply cannot improve on the first two acts. And the cast – regardless of everything that has been said here about Fleming – is probably as good as you can get today.
Carmen and Gheorghiu fall in the same category as Tosca and Mattila, but my masochism has a limit. That one I will miss.
Tous les dix sont billets chauds.
I am most looking forward to Turandot with LISE LINDSTROM!!!!!!! She is finally making her Met debut and will put the other one to shame. HA! As wonderful as it was to hear Domingo last season even in transposition, I will never recover from that Adriana butchering as long as I live.
I have, as always, gotten tickets to all the MET’s new productions. I see them the first season that they’re new because for good or ill, I want to see the directors’ and designers’ work while it’s fresh, before other hands tweak and adjust it and begin to dilute the intended original experience.
My personal hot tickets are Esther and House of the Dead, two modern works I have not yet seen on a stage or, in Esther’s case, heard a note of. My interest in and passion for opera began when I was a child and very quickly encompassed everything from Monteverdi to what was written last week. God, how I love the stuff!
Where is “Attila” on this list. One of Verdi’s most rousing operas. The debut of a major conductor. A cast who looks on paper able to handle this “any thing you can do i can do better” work
I expect it will be like the first “Frau’s,” a real sleeper
Cheers
Odabella
“I will say that he will also replace that Boheme soon and that will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many.”
Don’t worry: they still have the Christmas show at Radio City.
I would trade all of Puccini for Gotterdammerung,
Act II, especially if H. Behrens were singing B.
I’m not a fan of the Zefferlli Tosca, so I welcome any changes. What have we heard about the new production?
Gelb has publicly stated that he has no plans to get rid of Boheme or Turandot, hasn’t he? Stop gripping.
I will miss Rosenkavalier if/when it is replaced. I don’t think it needs replacing. We’ll see after January.
My big must-sees are Elektra and Hoffmann. Bart Sher is a genius and can do no wrong in my eyes, and if the cast turns out to be good, this could be a highlight of the season. It’ll probably be a divisive production, as his Barbiere was, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. Meanwhile, Elektra looks perfectly cast and should be absolutely fantastic.
See, what La Cieca doesn’t get here about the Zeffirelli “Boheme” is that people have had hundreds and hundreds of opportunities to see it over almost three decades now, practically every season. It’s been filmed twice.
Is there some symbolic quality here that trumps the artistic, some arch-conservative spirit that equates FZ’s frippery to the good old days when aristocrats ruled the earth? In that case, why not have the Zef make a Met comeback directing a new production of “Ghosts of Versailles?” Talk about your perfect match of content with treatment!
FZ’s “Tosca” was always a crashing bore with only two moments passing muster: the gazillion-dollar procession to the altar finishing Act 1 (what the Vatican could do if they had money) and the use of the elevator stage to reveal Cavaradossi’s cell in the bowels of the Castel Sant’Angelo. The first of these effects is just that, an effect, without any real connection to the meaning of the piece — really if anything, it’s about gold-plated 1980s “more is more” New York.
The elevator actually is a great idea though it lasted only the first season since Pavarotti couldn’t climb the stairs. (Curiously, nobody at the Met seemed to think that this massive change in the staging was worthy complaining about, but, after all, the color of a prima donna’s wig is so much easier to throw a hissy fit over.)
Could someone please explain to me why there is so much (to my mind) necrophilic passion for these Zeffirelli productions?
Cara Cieca (#17) – For me, the Boheme and Tosca (Turandot to some degree too) are comfort food. They are the ideal visual aesthetic I want for these pieces, ever since I was a princess reading my Victor Book of Opera, and there are very few productions around of which I can say this. OK, the stagings aren’t the most sophisticated – I know we are supposed to crave rigorous Regie (and I do appreciate that too). But there are days when I don’t want to think and just want to wallow in my double fudge chocolate ice cream. These productions allow me that pleasure, and the Boheme even more, as I usually am moved no matter how routine the performance in those big sets.
dear and esteemed cieca, a little thing you left out.
the intentions of the guy who wrote it. Puccini included in all his operas distinct stage directions. who alive should argue with him what brought us?
boring? hardly. people come for escape, to travel, to be in far off romantic lands, to see empire gowns somewhere other than the film the titantic. Opulence and respect for the composers wishes.
Jertiza did well in time period correct, callas THRIVED, Magda incinerated the auditorium in period correct, why kill FZ because he follows the composers wishes magnified for a house of 4000? They always sell well, which in this day is important.
of course they have to distract with smoke and mirrors now. modern day, poor man’s version of Jeritiza, not without a somewhat limited but available charm coming from Matila, they suddenly have to RETHINK this masterpiece. To fit what? Limited vocality? A bored general manager?
by all means germanize the italian rep. it lives on despite their best attempts to kill it. That house, national and international standing should have both.
with just a hint of petite malice but always respect dear hostess.
did Puccini intend for his operas to be staged by Zeffirelli? Did he intend for Cafe Momus to be masked by coat racks, only to be whisked away mid-scene? Did he intend for not one, but two mid-scene scenery changes in Tosca, Act III? Did he intend for Turandot’s palace square to have plain bridges in Act II, only to acquire pagoda-like structures in Act III?
The thing that galls me about these Zeffirelli productions is not how “traditional” they are, but how willing they are to sacrifice “authorial intention” to gaudy scenic effect.
15, oh my long lost gehmal, be careful, or that all-knowing sage with so much love for opera singers, old, young and in-between, might take you to task for bringing up the merits and de-merits of the great German soprano (I dare not utter her name or I’ll be also sent to the gallows)
21
Surely the highlight of the entire decade will be hearing the house erupt in cheers when Mme. Behrens makes her entry as the Cleaning Lady in 2011-12’s MAKROPOULOS CASE.
I’m going to Mattila’s Tosca because I go to everything she does, but I’m expecting a train wreck. Not a Puccini soprano, dear. (The way Netrebko is not a Verdi or Donizetti soprano.)
I’m looking forward to House of the Dead because it’s been what? 20 years since it was last staged in New York? and I’ve only heard it once and much more into Janacek now than I was then. (Ditto for The Nose, Shostakovich.)
I’m looking forward to Jonas Kaufmann as Don Jose, even though I suspect the Met is too big for his voice.
I’m looking forward to Esther because I’ve never heard/seen it.
Otherwise it looks a rather tired season compared to, say, Chicago. Barely any Wagner. Three of the most exciting revivals (FrOSch, Lady M, Ben Cellini) were canceled. If I subscribed, I think I’d rethink.
Well, lets see:
1)You can’t have a must see Elektra without an Elektra. From what I’ve read about Bullock she’s got a smallish voice for such a heavy role. I think operas like Elektra and Norma should only be done to showcase a diva in one of her acclaimed roles, not just a reperatory work like Boheme where any-old-body will do. If you don’t have a soprano with the charisma of a Behrens or Jones or the voice of a Nilsson or Varnay, you shouldn’t bother putting on Elektra. When the production was new in 1992 some said Voigt stole the show from Behrens. I’m afraid she’ll walk off with everything from the carpet to the chandelier next to Bullock.
2)I chose Tosca as a must-see event because Matilla is a brilliant singing actress who triumphs in everything she does. She will be a Tosca in the Behrens’ Mode: cool of timbre but passionately involved. Could some of the experts tell me what it takes to be a “Puccinian Soprano?”
3)Don’t know whats so special about Turandot. They’ve trotted out this production many a time, and with much more reliable sopranos than Ghulegina.
4) From the House of the Dead and Il Tritico are the two best reasons for flying to New York to the MET. The MET does stuff that regional opera companies wouldn’t touch, because a work would not be commercial enough(like the Janacek) or to expensive(like Tritico).
23) Hans Lick don’t forget about the cancellation of La Chenowith’s long-awaited Met debut!
What makes people think that the new Luc Bondy Tosca will be modern-dress Eurotrash? The Bondy Don Carlos on DVD is in period costume–granted, the sets are starker than usual, but the costumes are period. And you don’t really need opulent sets for Tosca.
A large catholic church, one of the most beautiful of Rome’s Palazzos, and a castle – no call for opulence whatsoever.
24, Noel Dahling, yes it is true that Voigt stole the show from Behrens when the Elektra premiered in 1992, no question that is true, but the reason is Behrens was deadly ill, made the mistake to sing, and on top, not make any announcement. She cracked on the first C, and it was downhill from there, had to leave entire phrases out, and remarkably was able to finish and not permanently damage her voice. When she returned in 1994, in magnificent voice, and had the most overwhelming triumph, garnerning what was described by Charlie Ricker (who had been at the Met 45 years by then) as “the largest ovation at the Met in history”, there was no question who was the star. Voigt could do nothing but join the rest of the cast and clap, as they joined from the stage, a frenzied audience that screamed themselves hoarse after one of the singularly greatest nights at the Met. That opening night was the most unforgettable performance for everyone who was there. The sensational telecast only partially captures the impact of the performance, and the audience reaction, to every one of the performances in that run. A year later, the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires asked Behrens to repeat her triumph, as her theater debut. Behrens asked that her dear friend Rysanek be included as the Klytemnestra as a package. Breslin added Voigt to the package, so all three were making their Colon debuts. Behrens and Rysanek garnered all the attention, Voigt was very pale, and got no attention. So you are right, Voigt did steal the show in 1992, but rather as an accident of fate, than as a pre-ordained fact. It was a very lucky break for Voigt because since then, the Met had to really reckon with her. Good for her!.
I can try at giving you my opinion of a “Puccinian soprano”. It’s someone who does a lot of scooping, overuses portamento, attacks the notes from below, and indulges in lots of hysterics. Look up Magda Olivero for starters.
Interesting that you bring up Varnay as an example of a great voice, of course she was! did you know that she played the Cleaning Lady in The Makropoulos Case when Behrens did her stunning portrayal of Emilia Marty in Munich? “The great Brunnhilde of the 50’s washing the feet of todays reigning Brunnhilde…” said the reviews in 1989. Those reviews are approvingly quoted in Varnay’s own autobiography, she was extremely fond of Behrens, and stayed friends until the end. Behrens is off next week to Japan where she will be honored one more time with honorary titles, and give Master Classes.
Has anybody heard Voigt recently? I am absolutely fascinated by what sort of shape she is in these days, having read such a lot of doom and gloom about her, but also some very positive comments about her Chicago Isoldes earlier this year. I’m given to understand that her Salome in Vienna was such a disaster that they wanted to fire her after the dress rehearsal, but her Ballo Amelia in Paris in May, whilst dull and not as refulgent as it would have been 10 years ago, was perfectly respectable. I’d be fascinated to hear from anybody with first hand recent experience.
Still can’t quite believe Bullock is down for that Met Elektra. I found her woefully inadequate at Covent Garden this year.
Cocky, you see I disagree with you here. While the originals of the locales for “Tosca” are indeed opulent, that opulence is not necessarily relevant to the meaning of the work. Now, if a production were to take the point of view that the Church was complicit in the repressive political atmosphere in Rome circa 1800 (which it most certainly was), then a director could make a point that the lavishness of the procession is either a function of the totalitarian mindset or else an ironic commentary on how the Church provides “bread and circuses” instead of genuinely Christian relief for the oppressed.
But Zeffirelli doesn’t make the opulence mean anything; it’s basically big and expensive only because an audience will ooh and ahh at anything that looks big and expensive. Essentially, then, Zeffirelli creates a Las Vegas production show suggested by Puccini’s “Tosca.”
There’s nothing wrong with Las Vegas, except that it’s not opera. It’s spectacle for the sake of spectacle. Like nudity for the sake of nudity or leather trenchcoats for the sake of leather trenchcoats, this kind of “effect without cause” really doesn’t belong in a serious opera house.
Or at least, it doesn’t need to stay at the same opera house forever. Zeffirelli’s “Tosca” had a run at the Met of 200 performances over 20 years. That is a very long run for an opera production, one of the longest (in number of performances) of any in the Met’s history. Why, then, the whining that the delicious shiny toy is being taken away, after only 20 years?
Scene from Luc Bondy’s production of Don Carlos
La Cieca, I wasn’t making any kind of case for the retention of the Zeffirelli Tosca. It was a mostly flippant comment spurred by the comment which immediately preceded mine.
All I would say is that the locations in which each of Tosca’s 3 acts are set all exist, I’ve visited them, and they are, to greater or lesser extents, opulent, hence a production that is faithful to the work’s composer and librettists does need opulent sets. But I personally have no problem with productions that do not stick religiously to the original locations and time-frames, so it isn’t something I care terribly deeply about, as long as the results are somehow effective.
The Royal Opera’s own Zeffirelli Tosca was replaced by a production that seemed equally traditional – in fact, it could almost be the same sets photographed from a different angle, so it seemed like pretty pointless exercise. I hope the Met does get something starker that throws the characters into more striking, immediate relief. That’s probably fairly likely, with Luc Bondy in charge. My own most pressing concern is that they manage to get Mattila to look good in a dark wig.
I picked Rosenkavalier. I can’t wait to hear Persson in person, pardon the pun.
gee, it is a sort of flat fall season, isn’t it? the Janacek a highlight of course, but I assume the “elite” will be fleeing Manhattan to avoid it and leaving the house empty. . .
Rosenkavalier and Trittico will probably have beautiful things to offer; I’m looking forward to Borodina in Damnation, and I think that Aida with Urmana, Zajick, Botha, and Guelfi might also be a well-sung performance; the Bondy Don Carlos excerpt might allow us to hope that slow stretches in the fall season could be filled with parterre.com contests that involve putting funny wigs on Thomas Hampson. . .
<>
Cocky–The logic here is flawed. Given, the original locations are opulent. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the work itself, as the “composer and librettists” conceived it, calls for opulent sets, any more than a production of Hamlet requires the producers to rebuild the castle at Elsinore. (This would be especially true if the production were to try to replicate the staging practices of Shakespeare’s time.)
I am not going to pretend to be an expert on early-twentieth-century operatic staging. But I would guess that Puccini would have expected to see the opera use mainly flats–in other words, settings a lot less opulent than Zeffirelli’s.
oops–meant to quote Cocky here:
All I would say is that the locations in which each of Tosca’s 3 acts are set all exist, I’ve visited them, and they are, to greater or lesser extents, opulent, hence a production that is faithful to the work’s composer and librettists does need opulent sets.
Well quoth, I did say I didn’t particularly care how it is staged, but I also don’t see how the logic is flawed – a flat can look opulent, can it not, if your conjecture that Puccini wouldn’t have expected much else is correct?
well, opulent in a different way from Z’s, perhaps. But I don’t think it necessarily stands to reason that because a dramatist places his work in a certain setting, he intends for the staging to reflect all the qualities of that setting.
In the case of Tosca, I would guess Puccini was less interested in opulence per se than in the contrast between the official image of the settings of the first two acts–the sanctity of the church, the august authority of the state– and the wordly doings that unfold within them. That’s where the drama lies–and the usefulness of the settings for the dramatist.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure the Castel Sant’Angelo qualifies as “opulent.” And certainly Puccini would have cast a cold eye on the showy and entirely unmusical scene changes that Z interpolated into the last act.
“But I don’t think it necessarily stands to reason that because a dramatist places his work in a certain setting, he intends for the staging to reflect all the qualities of that setting.”
That’s perfectly true. But we’re not just talking about ‘a dramatist’, we’re talking about Puccini. I think it’s a fairly safe bet that, given how specific his instructions were all over the score, Puccini expected the production to give a pretty good idea of the locations invoked. It’s also amusing to note that, for Act I for instance, Puccini consulted with church officials when the libretto was being drafted to find out what kind of liturgical preamble there ought to be to the Te Deum. When he found out that the answer was none, he asked the librettists to include one anyway, because he wanted a bit of a spectacle.
For me, castles tend to be ipso facto opulent, even if they aren’t stuffed full of frescos or gilding. Giant bronze angels and battlements have an opulence of their own, wouldn’t you say?
However, what I do keep trying to get across is the fact that I don’t give a monkey’s where Tosca is set, as long as it’s effective. I like what I’ve seen of the Decker Traviata, I loved the Robert Wilson Aida at the Royal Opera, and I’d look forward to seeing a Tosca given a similar treatment.
La Cieca,
Your analysis of the political situation in Rome during the Napleonic campaigns–the repressive ruthlessness of the RC Church, the reliance on pageantry to impress and placate the public, etc.–is on target, and Zeffirelli’s production of Tosca reflects this very well. We don’t need to have these things “pointed out” or “demonstrated” by a director. Pageantry is an important part of opera, and we get too little of it these days. Zeffirelli’s productions provide it, and they are being replaced with “interpretations” and “explanations” by directors that we may not need. I don’t, at any rate. For an example of a successful “interpretation” of an opera that was written for spectacular presentation, try the DVD of William Christie’s Les Boreades, directed by Carson. In this production, stylized costumes and props as well as strange choreography were substitued for heavy historical pageantry, and boy does it work. This is a rare occurrance, though, and the budget of the Salle Garnier didn’t hurt.