Not sure of your tongue-in-check status on this one, but I presume you mean that, like the VRWC, hidebound conservatism clearly and demonstrably exists and is actively engaged, for mostly selfish purposes, in derailing the cause of reform?

Nobody who wasn’t in the rehearsal room can do anything more than speculate on how much influence any individual cast member had over what eventually appeared on stage.

Plus, did you read this place when ‘Sonnambula’ was on? Dessay came in for just as much as a kicking as Zimmermann did.

Indeed, conductors and directors and singers are hired by Peter Gelbs and forced together against their will. Which is a big problem. And that’s putting it very, very mildly.

Thanks.

You’re right. A “Hidebound Conservatism” is kind of like “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” isn’t it?

And I agree wholeheartedly that we are all too often given a choice between “Traditional” and “Whatever anyone wants to slop onto the stage”. I am no arch-conservative, and yet I fear that we are cowed into accepting any non-traditional enactment of an opera simply by peer pressure from the media and marketing goons.

Looking for info: do the directors choose the cast, or are they handed them?

absolutely, there should be experimentation. but I think it is naive to expect “experimentation” at the Met… Experimentation, as a term, has always struck me as meaning, essentially, that the director does not entirely know what the result will look like, nor whether his ideas will work. An “experimental” staging is a “workshop” piece.

At the Met there are such high stakes (leave alone even for a moment that this was an opening night Gala!). Should we not know what we are getting, and whether we like it?

Bondy is an experienced, nay benighted, European art-house director and should be capable of delivering his most impressive and engaging product under these circumstances. Did he?

As I often say in the comment field of your lovely Blog, It’s not about whether something experiments or not, whether it’s sparse or modern or abstract or literal – for me, it comes down to “Was there interesting Personenregie?”, “Were the roles well cast?”, “Did the staging convey something both congruous to the meaning of the piece AND challenge our thoughts on it?”.

Every generation could make their own “Traditional” staging of Tosca (ie: Candelstick=Candlestick etc) and every one would look different. A grand, expensive, literal Zefirelli production would STILL have to be remade after 25 years because it just. Looks. So. 80s. And there will always be a Cher Public to boo when you change it, because that’s how opera audiences are.

“What do we call the enlightened deities who float above the mere public?”

Um, that’s us who post here on parterre.com

And, by the way, what is the opposite of this alleged conservatism? Any old thing somebody decides to slap up on the stage? Seriously. We keep hearing about the ignorant public. What do we call the enlightened deities who float above the mere public?

But the idea of experimentation is a good one in itself, whatever the judgment of the product of that experiment. What frightens me is the large number of voices insisting that opera, as an innately conservative art, should shun experimentation altogether for fear of failure.

Michaels-Moore, natch.

Sure, bad art has a place. But to champion bad art in the service of good is misguided.

I’m reminded of a Hindemith quote which goes something like “this piece was performed, forgotten, and made no impression on anyone… I’ve written lots of bad music but at least it is of some obvious usefulness to other artists, which is the most any artist can really hope for.”

A meagre goal, I say.

In Paris they boo regularly. The audiences are the same as here. When TRSTAN was staged in rehearsal skirts before a huge Bill Viola video installation, the creators of the production were booed. Mind you, Wal-Trout Meier

It’s been said here many, many times by sensible people, but apparently still needs to be said- when people sit in the rehearsal room on the first day the instinct is not ‘how can we offend people?’ ‘how can we insult the composer?’ or even ‘how can we do something so controversial that it makes the news?’, it’s ‘how can we tell this story?’

The Zimmermanns, the Dessays, the Mattilas and the Bondys may not always succeed in their aims, and indeed may produce results which are unsuccessful. As such, the results of their efforts should of course be up for discussion. But so often, we don’t get serious discussion- we get talk of desecration and insult and all kinds of emotive terminology which disallows even the possibility that they might have been serious professionals who were attempting the best interpretation of the work that they could offer.

i know this may not sound good to some but is there a premier bel canto interpreter today?

what about a premier verdi interpreter? cappuccilli was one of them…

coz so far the ones at the met (i mean the superstars) arent really premier exponents of anything… unless you count mattila for german.. (not even…maybe Salome)

Renee said that Renata Scotto advised her to sing only recitals in Italy and never to sing a opera there again.

Non

One also should remember that sometimes external forces in a director’s life will affect the outcome of a new production, e.g., if his spouse has left him, if his parent is fighting a terminal disease or has just passed away. Unlike a singer or conductor who in such circumstances can withdraw and be replaced relatively easily, it is not so simple for a director of a new production to step aside and have someone else take over the work.

there’s Desiree Rancatore
there’s Elena Mosuc
there’s still June Anderson (i think)
there’s Fiorenza Cedolins
there’s Mariella Devia