parterre box

47 comments

• La Cieca says:

  I don’t know about that. Great houses used liveried footmen well into the 20th century. The levee as presented in Rosenkavalier is pretty much a fantasy anyway, so I am willing to suspend disbelief in a production that clearly indicates that it is not presenting the visuals as “historically accurate.”

  on September 15, 2009 at 10:30 AM
• Hans Lick says:

  Mad about the boy. No doubt it’s foolish but I’m mad about the boy …

  on September 15, 2009 at 10:41 AM
• Pelleas says:

  Oh, well–some people like certain kinds of productions, and others don’t.

  Re: JK however, I’d say I liked him a bit better near the end. At first it sounded oddly placed, I guess, but I ended up liking it later on. I can’t say it sounded pushed to me, but what do I know.

  on September 15, 2009 at 10:49 AM
• LeperEllo says:

  San Francisco Opera did a Rosenkavalier back in the early 90s, where Lotfi M. and team tried to reconstruct the first performances from 1910, with Alfred Roller’s original costumes and sets designs. Felicity Lott, von Stade, Eric Halvorson were in the cast; I don’t remember who the Sophie was.

  Musically it was decent, not spectacular, but the overall effect was a revelation, to me anyway. It was the only time I saw Der R. played on a small scale; a far cry from the usually huge, ostentatious, and expensive-looking sets. Even Faninal’s entrance foyer was played down from what we typically see; the idea of “nouveau-riche” was hinted at through doorways at the back of the set, but never down and front.

  Anyway, it was an education to see it played visually close to the way Strauss, Hofmannsthal and Roller first produced it in Dresden. The intimate nature of the story came across much more clearly than I had ever seen prior to that; I think much gets lost in the more typical vastness of most productions these days.

  on September 15, 2009 at 12:01 PM
• brooklynpunk says:

  LeperEllo/34:

  I remember…and loved..that SFOpera production, as well…one of the very few that Lotfi M produced that didn’t have me either fuming, or bored outta my gourd..

  I believe Christine Schäfer was the Sophie, in that run…Makuing her American OperaHouse debut?

  on September 15, 2009 at 12:12 PM
• Graciella Scusi says:

  @34 LepperEllo : “San Francisco did a Rosenkavalier back in the early 90s”

  I saw that production, LepperEllo, and also thought it was good musically; I think the Sophie was Christine Schaefer, and it was a very well balanced and compatible trio. And although I was happy to see, however shabby, a recreation of the Roller designs, my memory is of a rather ordinary sequence of hanging flats, particularly shallow in the second act, where I think Octavian slipped through a center door almost unnoticed to some of the greatest entrance music ever composed….to me it “screams” center staircase. Typically in these contemporary reconstructions, there’s no way to know what a European audience of 1911 experienced, let alone the alchemy that Roller with Max Reinhardt conjured.

  on September 15, 2009 at 12:47 PM
• LeperEllo says:

  Graciella; #36:

  Absolutely, the sets were fairly ordinary looking, smallish, almost shabby in the bedroom and inn scenes. And Faninal’s house was just a narrow entrance hallway with a center door and a hint of something larger and more expansive behind it.

  I know what you mean about Octavian’s entrance music there, which is why it was all the more surprising to have his appearance to be rather ordinary and downplayed. The focus was instead on Sophie’s and the house staff’s mounting excitement, and the music seemed to mirror that, and not a 3-story mansion all in uproar. The Marschallin’s boudoir looked like a lived-in and well-used bedroom, and not like the lobby at the Waldorf Astoria at happy-hour. The inn looked like a seedy little dump suitable for charging by the hour.

  For me, it was the first time where I focused on the story and the characters and did not become overly-wowed and distracted by expensive (even excessive) sets. Since then, it’s been an effort for me to watch the usual billion-dollar extravaganzas that Rosenkavalier so often is made out to be. That production gave me an altered perspective on Rosenkavalier, it changed the way I consider the story, and I really appreciated it for that.

  Agreed, I have no idea what 1911 audiences saw or experienced. But I really enjoyed seeing it done this way.

  on September 15, 2009 at 1:40 PM
• Lindoro Almaviva says:

  I don’t know about that. Great houses used liveried footmen well into the 20th century.

  You make a very valid point and one I had forgotten, Cieca.

  on September 15, 2009 at 2:04 PM
• Will says:

  And Covent Garden had–and may still have–liveried footmen in 18th century dress delivering flowers to the artists on stage during the bows. Doormen at grand–or perhaps just pretentious–hotels are n period livery all over the U.S. I just saw some bizarre liveries on doormen at a hotel in Portland, OR.

  I will absolutely second the call for a much more intimate Rosenkavalier–much more intimate lots of operas, actually. Roller’s original act 2 is something like an ante-chamber rather than a grand hall.

  on September 15, 2009 at 2:37 PM
• kashania says:

  I don’t think Kauffman is heading in the same direction as Villazon at all. His is a larger voice than Villazon’s and he has carefully grown his rep over the years. I just don’t hear the same over-singing that one could hear in Villazon. I love the way he opens up at the top. Yes, I prefer a less baritonal timbre for the role but I think he does sing it very well.

  on September 15, 2009 at 3:55 PM