“Nein, nein!”
In the comments section of this post, you are invited to offer your opinion on why Renée Fleming’s broadcast performance (as heard tonight, October 13) strikes you as not a great portrayal of the Marschallin.
The finest “Nein, Nein” response will win a copy of the Sony CD
Deadline for entries in this competiton will be midnight, Wednesday October 14 when the comments section in the “Ja, ja” and “Nein, nein” threads will be closed. In honor of Our Own JJ, all eligible responses should be 300 words or less, and, while your doyenne invites your comments, nominations and general egging-on, her decision as to the winning essays is final. She also reserves the right to substitute alternate prizes to winners residing outside North America.
I dunno. I really don’t watch dvds much and I would love to have the Bernstein Rosenkavalier on CD – and since I’m too cheap to shell out the 14 bucks for the budget reissue, and I’m really torn about Renee in the role, I feel conflicted.
I’m also conflicted about the artistic question at hand. Does Renee seem to be rising to the challenge of the part? On her own terms, according to the low standards she has set for us, probably. Is this really good singing? I don’t think so.
Does anyone else squintily read program notes during the Mid-Act Longeur of Act II? I know I do, and one semi-fact I gleaned (darkly) is that according to either Strauss or Hoffmansthal or, hell, for all I know maybe Ralph Nader, Oktavian is neither the Marschallin’s first friend, shall we say, with fringe benefits, nor her last. So now the problem, and I say this as a sometime reasonably ardent fan, but the problem with Ms. Fleming’s portrayal of the Marschallin is that as lovely as she is, the way she plays it, it is absolutely fucking impossible to imagine she’s ever done that thing the trombones are talking about.
WHAT IS that annoying little expressive trick La Fleming does on a stressed, long note which sounds a bit like a broadening of the cheeks and a kind of Knoedel-yodel??? it irks me to no end!!! It is so shamefully ignoble.
maury, dude, you sound unaware that her last boyfriend was a major trombone player – cum – conductor.
if she hasn’t done that thing, nobody has!
Does anybody else think that Renee and Vanessa Williams look alike? I also think Renee ’sounds black’ when she sings jazz.
I’m pretty certain she took a wrong turn backstage, wound up in Aida’s dressing room, and got blackface smeared all over her.
5: yes and yes!
Squirrel, well I’m quite certain she has, and don’t wish her any less of it. I just find something way unlibidinal about her Marschallin. In the last scene of Onegin, it is 100% possible to believe she has tromboned.
I agree. She is professionally very very neat and careful, and the result is performances of sterility where no particular human qualities come through to make up for her vocal and interpretive shortcomings, as they must in a great artist.
Her Marschallin was certainly much improved over the previous outing, but I think she still barked way too much of the text and overemphasized words within the line in a completely unnatural way. I felt that instead of eavesdropping on the thoughts of a refined, wise woman, I was reading the Facebook stream of a 16 year old girl.
Nein, Nein, simply because she’s not Lotte Lehmann!
What? Everyone’s thinking it!
Renee Fleming, the American soprano renowned for her portrayals of Strauss’ heroines, returned to the Met yesterday in the familiar role of the Marschallin. In recent years, critics have hailed Fleming’s opulently sung realization as definitive, likely due to her aesthetically alluring sound. Tuesday’s performance, on that note, asks an important question about her affiliations with the part. Is she is just another nice lady with a pretty voice, or, a wise and noble woman who holds the keys to understanding life?
Vocally, Ms. Fleming has brought a beguiling vocal presence to the Marschallin. But beguiling, for this listener, seems to be all that is expected of the singer. For instance, her rending of the character’s reflections and soliloquys leaves one reveling in the tone but not in the thought.
A great Marschallin should be able to communicate an almost nonchalant, yet faintly pained understanding of life’s fleeting brevity while conceding to the irrevocable idea that life is “so very much a mystery.” Although brief, this character probably holds the greatest storage of philosophical riches in the opera—Hofmannsthal has left a veritable gold mine for any great interpreter to turn her phrases into key points of wisdom. But Ms. Fleming seems to mistake glamour for grace, abrupt inflections for interpretive nuances, and controlled, almost static, gesticulations for nobility and graciousness. How wrong she is indeed.
Ms. Fleming is fifty. Her once velvety instrument has taken a slightly rough edge, her phrasing sodden with mannerisms asynchronous to Hofmannsthal’s poetry. She is undeniably a gifted vocalist, but such gifts have been wasted in an artistic vision that has jettisoned dramatic sincerity for inert perfection. Make no mistake. She is a good Marschallin, but for one who fails to draw out that cathartic apotheosis, can she be called a great one? Nein, nein.
“Does anyone else squintily read program notes during the Mid-Act Longeur of Act II?”
May I inquire as to the extremes to which you’re driven during the dismal ramp-up of Act III?
I, for one, love Act II, but I always find myself more interested in and sympathetic toward Octavian than I am Whatsername.
Does ANYONE like the bits where Ochs holds the stage (apart from the close of Act II with that glorious waltz)?
14 – Only when a great artist like Michael Langdon or Tomlinson is at hand. Never with Hun duffers like Weber, Edelmann or Moll.
Renee Fleming as the Feldmarschallin is like a meal consisting of hors d’eouvre and dessert without the main dish, with cheap champagne to boot.
You have to be a personality in order to be credible in this role. Is Renee a good singer with a solid technique? Indeed. Is she a great personality? On the basis of what I’ve just heard – nein, nein!
I am the biggest fan of Renee in roles such as Thais – I can’t think of any others at the moment, but there must be some. In Rosenkavalier she unfortunately sounds like a waitress in a hamburger joint and not like a princess. Her overuse of chest voice not only makes her character too course and earthy, she wallows in self pity and seems full of bitterness. In her time aria she seems on the point of a nervous breakdown. She is almost a Blanche Dubois character trying to pull herself together and pull through a la Scarlet O’Hara.
I think it’s not that she doesn’t sing well, but I think she totally misreads the part. Where is that silvery ecstacy of numerous other Marschallins? Where is the dignity? I think once Susan Graham has moved on to sing the Marschallin, Renee should consider singing Octavian. I spent a lot of the time last night not quite knowing which of the two I was listening to. And where is the Viennese ambience? The conducting was great, but poor Edo was on his own last night.
I think much of the problem is a vocal one – the voice while still beautiful in the upper range takes on a startingly different cast below the break – it sounds old and unsupported. But even if thats true, the dramatic “effects” she is using to cover the problem are so bizarre and ugly. The monologue in Act One was a truly awful sounding melange of a sort of Sprechstimme and slithery portamenti. It was just a caricature of what should be a moving moment. I heard exactly the same thing when she sang the Manon Gavotte during her special performance last year. Some idiot from Opera News wrote that she intended to do it that way as a “put on”. Compare her vocalism to that of a decade ago and you’ll hear a startling change in her technique – as I wrote to another poster its as if she doesn’t trust her voice anymore so she slathers on a feeling of “tristesse”and put on “effects” – if she would just sing – she still has a gorgeous voice in the upper range. But now its just so phony and even cheap sounding I don’t believe in anything she sings – I always keep hoping she changes back to the way sounded before – Wagner fan
I think Rosenkavalier is one of these rare birds, an “ensemble” opera, like Meistersinger, Dialogues des carmelites, Falstaff, Schicchi and Midsummer Night’s Dream, among a few others. It desperately needs a house style, emanating from the orchestra and radiating upon the stage to all concerned, to create that seamless sense of naturaleness. Well, based upon last night, the Met doesn’t have that style for Rosenkavalier, regardless of the language barrier, extremely intricate in this and Meistersinger. de Waart did a very nice job and tried it best, but it all seemed like very hammy comedy with some moments of pathos, which Rosenkavalier most certainly isn’t. As I’ve said earlier, only three houses in the world are really able to project this work in a really convincing manner, being Munich, Vienna and Dresden.
#20 Cerquetti!!! A “house style?” How about a Strauss style???
For once we heard musicianship at the Met free of the gummy goo
of a certain conductor J. L., and it was a clear sweet breath of fresh air. It has real energy and pacing — rare at the Met!!!!
If you want to talk about mannerisms, Levine is your man. I thought
de Waart did a splendid job last night — at this stage of the game, he has far more energy and ability than J. L. with this or any other score. He actually Conducts the orchestra.
Hammy comedy with moments of pathos is very on point — you are right; so what do you want, a te deum? I thought it a highly idiomatic and worthy performance, with plentiful Straussian style — after all, it IS a theatre piece and that is how it was conducted.
As for Mr. Tristram in #12, I respectfully suggest you get some new batteries for your hearing aids, both of them. Pfaugh!! Such
pretentious wrong-headed blather! You really should not masturbate in public.
#21 Wow!
No, actually I don’t think that Rosenkavalier is just that. It’s not a Te Deum either. I want quicksilver comedy and witty asides, chatter that sounds as conversational as possible, certain wistful moments devoid of bathos and over-accentuation, brass and winds crispness and velvet string sound, not overtly lush. This may sound like nitpicking, but I’m spoiled. By Kleiber’s Vienna 1954 recording, still insurpassable, by Bohm’s 1960 Dresden rec (despite Schech) and by Karajan’s 1960 live Salzburg rec with the beautiful, unaffected della Casa, to die for. Bychkov and Luisi are great, very different, Strauss conductors alive today and both present a challenge to classically peceived notion of how to perform this score. Bychkov is tougher, more dramatic, while Luisi encourgaes Debussy-like textures and has an acute sense of architecture. Both have the perfect orchestras for this – Wiener Philharmoniker (Bychkov) and Staatskapelle Dresden, an orchestra I’m helplessly in love with. Luisi scores higher in my book because he encourages the singers to listen to the orchestra and perform like chamber musicians.
De Waart was really great last night, and he almost managed to make it all sound convincing. The Met players are really excellent, but the playing didn’t strike me to have the qualities I pointed above. That said, de Waart had some interesting insight into Strauss’ wind-writing and the more menacing shades, reminiscent of Elektra, were really evident.
#22 – You don’t want much do you, sweet Madame Cerquetti?
What you describe is what I want, but we rarely rarely get — from the recording studio yes, live from the pit, not very often. I thought Edo gave a performance very different from what we usually hear of this score from the Met. Late Levine is highly problematic, I don’t need to tell you. So Edo was refreshing and gave insight – and I mean it was a ‘theatre’ performance in the best possible way — give it two more run thrus, and it will be further polished and you might be more satisfied. YES, Luisi! I’ll be so glad to have him — in anything. What a big disappointment Gatti is in Aida – I’ve heard it twice now; no go.
Maybe you and I should take over the casting department at the Met? Ready?
J.
sfe
Yeah, let’s. Only if we can throw in suggestions reg rep.
To me, Levine always seems to be an extremely gifted technician, a wonerful orchestral trainer. But most of his readings sound like they belong to the ‘copy and paste’ variety, especially his Wagner, Parsifal possibly excepted. But as a Verdi conductor, I think he is very very different. He has a true personal style in this composer, especially fine in Don Carlo and Ballo. I’m not excatly fawning over whatever I’ve heard of his Strauss, though.
The problem is that Renee is SINGING the role rather than–and that old cliche applies (I know!)–really being the character (she just doesn’t know how to do that). And her lush voice with the chesty, lower tones doesn’t work well enough to naturally project the text. As C-F writes, it should be:
“….quicksilver comedy and witty asides, chatter that sounds as conversational as possible, certain wistful moments devoid of bathos and over-accentuation…”
I had to wait until the end of Act I to become remotely interested in her character; other singers have accomplished this with their first few phrases–they hook you right at the start, and it only gets better and better after that!