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.
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?