parterre box

47 comments

• wenarto says:

  Rondine al nido! welcome back

  on October 27, 2009 at 10:06 PM
• operadent says:

  Thank God Licitra didn’d do the aria at the end of Act II. He would have choked.

  on October 27, 2009 at 10:10 PM
• schweigundtanze says:

  Thanks for the report on the Turandot dress! Nothing sounds very promising about it, sadly.

  on October 27, 2009 at 10:12 PM
• brooklynpunk says:

  This “singing”, from Chicago has to be among the worst I have heard , in quite some time…

  on October 27, 2009 at 10:43 PM
• operadent says:

  I guess we can’t only lament the state of singing at the Met. Where did Chicago get this cast for a much touted new production? What a disgrace. And as for the conductor – saints preserve us!
  And to think that I have to sit thru the prima of Turandot tomorrow in New York.
  Is suicide really painless????

  on October 27, 2009 at 11:01 PM
• La Cieca says:

  on October 27, 2009 at 11:07 PM
• brooklynpunk says:

  WAIT A SECOND..this is beyond belief….

  Do you mean to tell me that Chicago did not have a cover for Salvatore..he should NOT be singing, if he is as sick as he sounds…this can only be doing some real additional damage to an already compromised throat…

  on October 27, 2009 at 11:11 PM
• operadent says:

  37 brooklynpunk
  I don’k know if they had a cover ready since the indisposition was not announced until before Act II and they probably had time constraints placed upon them because of the broadcast. If they did, this idiocy of letting him sing is beyond belief.

  on October 27, 2009 at 11:31 PM
• CruzSF says:

  Now that we’re all back: I’d like to post a review of Nadja Michael in “Salome” in a performance I saw last week…

  On October 21, I saw Nadja Michael sing the lead role in the San Francisco Opera production of “Salome.” Despite having my expectations lowered by some unfortunate Youtube clips, Ms. Michael sang very well on the evening I heard her. The scene in which she describes the beauty of Jokanaan’s skin was particularly well sung and contained beautiful, strong notes.

  She did seem to stray off pitch only a few times, but unexpectedly, BEFORE the clearly exhausting Dance of the Seven Veils. (I’m afraid I can’t speak about her ability to stick to the score, since I don’t know it well enough. I can only speak to the notes she attempted.) From my seat in Dress Circle, she could be heard quite clearly. A few other members of the cast, most egregiously Kim Begley as Herodes, were at times overwhelmed by the orchestra.

  She looked much better than the Youtube videos led me to believe. Her hair, curly in a style reminiscent of late 70′s Streisand, and her first dress (which also suggested Streisand in the movie “All Night Long” but was more famously based on Marilyn Monroe’s dress in “Seven Year Itch”) evoked a 17 year old saddled with a sexy adult body before she really knew how to master it. (Her wig wasn’t the same one in the clip that appeared on parterre.) Her Dance, too, told me that Ms. Michael totally inhabited the role, as sometimes she seemed to be making it up as she went along, mixing suggestive moves with strange bat-like arm motions, hand-twirling that wouldn’t be out of place on a cheerleading squad, and running around in circles. Her entire run through the seven veils made me think of a teenager trotting out moves she’d seen adults make without a clear understanding of why they were used.

  In her singing after the dance, I could hear a change in her voice, a darkening that I interpreted to be the hard-earned transition to womanhood that she could no longer stop. There were still traces of the petulant, pouting girl, but a deadly serious and unhinged woman began to make herself known.

  I didn’t give a standing ovation at the end of the opera (as I’m very stingy with my SOvations) but many members of the audience did. If it weren’t for my busy schedule in the next week, I would consider seeing this production and this singer a second time. I was very pleasantly surprised.

  on October 28, 2009 at 12:37 AM
• Baritenor says:

  They changed the wig? Thank God.

  on October 28, 2009 at 12:52 AM