Les feux d’artifice s’approchent
![Based on an original photo by Clive Barda]](http://parterre.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/prima_donna_nyco.jpg "Based on an original photo by Clive Barda]")
According to the always reliable Zachary Woolfe, among the beans spilled at the NYCO “Koch” Gala last night was the strong suggestion (from no less than Rufus Wainwright himself) that a production of Prima Donna is planned for an upcoming George Steel-planned season. [New York Observer]
Plus, squirrel, I didn’t want you to think that I didn’t know Mozart & Beethoven were long dead by the 1890′s. I’m not a heathen! (he said nervously)
To even be referencing Verdi, Mozart, etc. in the context of a posting about Rufus’ terribly lame and totally forgettable attempt at opera is just… absurd.
My point was, and I stand by it, is that we can’t know until afterward whether a new composer or work is “worth it”. This is one reason why musicals are in the doldrums on Broadway. It is so expensive to mount a new production that it becomes prohibitive to produce new works, unless they try out Off-Broadway first, such as Next To Normal and Putnam County Spelling Bee (a terrific show by the way) did. When new shows do open on Broadway, they’re so expensive that many shows never make a profit even if they run for several years. It’s why regional theaters, like La Jolla, The Goodman Theater, and the Signature Theater are so important. Next TO Normal started out in Washington and had a chance to not only polish the show but build word of mouth. The solution, I think, would be to not try and spend 10 or 20 million dollars on a musical. Or not produce dreck like Tarzan or The Little Mermaid. But even Shrek, which was wonderful, is closing in January. Thoroughly Modern Milly, with a terrific score by Jeneane Tesori, stunning sets and costumes, great dancing, and Sutton Foster lost money when it closed. Maury Yeston has never had a show run longer than 1000 performances (and the days when a show could run less than that and be considered a smash are looooong gone). Richard Maltby, Jr has only had one original show that was a hit (Miss Saigon); his other big hits wee Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Fosse. Adam Guettel has only had one show on BRoadway (Light In The Piazza) which was beloved of critics but not a huge financial success. Michael John LaChiusa has only had one show on B’Way (only ran 2 months). And John Kander’s first show on B’Way was A Family Affair (65 perfs). Not everyone can be Harold Prince (whose first show was Pajama Game and who, within the next 3 years, also produced Damn Yankees and West Side Story). People start somewhere and virtualkly everyone starts as an unknown.
If we use Verdi as an example, Oberto was not an overwhelming success and Un Giorgno di Regno was a downright flop. Had La Scala decided not to honor their contract with him based on his first two operas, we wouldn’t have Nabucco. And how many productions do we ever see of Mozart’s Apollo And Hyacinth?
Isn’t it better for someone to have tried writing The Letter than not trying new opera at all? For all that we (including me, I might add) squawked about Prima Donna, at least Rufus tried. He wouldn’t be my first choice to write an opera, but he tried.
cruz I think you are thinking of Figaro, which was not exactly a failure in the Vienna premiere but had certain obstacles relating to the State Sponsors who paid for it
sanford: blah blah broadway blah. what’s your point exactly? “at least he tried” is not a good reason to hire someone to write their first opera at the Met.
How do we know if someone is any good as a composer, and whether they will write a good opera? You wait until they’ve done it someplace else first. That’s usually how.
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/about
The cher public is encouraged to use the above link. Mr Koch is a friend of the arts very much in the same way that Joseph Goebbels was a friend of the arts. While such men are too sophisticated to document any quid pro quo for their support, there would of course be a subtle accommodation made to his views without his needing to ask for a thing. His involvement with the theater and the resident companies may become too big too fail, as they would say in the financial industry. At the moment, many people would say that some end justifies the means here, and I am inclined to feel that every dollar spent on decadent art in New York City is one dollar that will not be spent on any of the various anti-gay crusades around the country that are so manipulating our democracy. On the other hand, I don’t think Mr Koch will run out of funds soon, and should the arts be giving him this social legitimacy, which would appear to be motivating his generosity. As for Rufus, may his participation grace every State Theater event, as I think that this might become an embarrassment for Mr Koch. By the way, is it true that his name rhymes with a synonym for rooster? How delicious that would be.
Bravo again.
La Cieca posted about this issue here months ago.
As for me, I look forward to parsing out the subliminal messages they will be inserting in productions of Boheme, Tosca, Giovanni, Barbiere, and the rest of the core repertory.
It will help me stay awake.
squirrel, Figaro might the one I mean.
Sanford, your take on the current state of Broadway (I’ve never been — live on the opposite coast) saddens me, but it does make me think that operas could benefit from a system where new works are premiered at smaller houses so the kinks can be worked and then they’d move on to the bigger places. I understand why new works are so difficult to put on, and it’s not only that traditionalists would balk at paying to see them. They are simply too expensive to produce with a high risk of losing money. A preview system could help, like Sanford writes, to tighten up shows, make them more crowd pleasing, and to build word-of-mouth buzz.
Will such a system form in my lifetime? Probably not.
Oooops, in my previous post I meant “so the kinks can be worked OUT.”
I begin to be most curious who the squirrel is.
why? what did i do?