Please, Louise
My post about Nielsen’s Maskarade outraged only a few of you, and inspired a passionate discussion about what works we’d like to see at the New New Met. (Thank you, Hans Lick, for your very complete wish list!)
You are each now invited to vote for your three most longed-for revivals or premieres at the Met.
Rules after the jump.
- Only three operas! In no particular order.
- Support your argument, if you wish, but be brief! (A couple of sentences for each is fine.)
- The work must be have never been performed at the Met, or not performed since 1950, or must be Weber’s Der Freischütz.
The operas receiving the most votes will be tallied and announced here.
There are no prizes.
Now get to work!
(Photo: Friedrich Schorr as Schwanda der Dudelsackpfeifer)
Welcome to Squirrel.com.
I’m thinking of looking or another blog to follow. This new “superdelegate” system to fill the space is getting rather tedious.
1. Sorry, not Freischutz, but Oberon. Let a really great modern playwright work out the in between bits and cast Kaufmann as Huon.
2. The Mother of Us All. In a few years have Zajick go out with a bang.
3. Go Opera Comique. Do a new Belle Helene or Orphee aux Enfers.
Didn’t OONY “do” Oberon a few yrs ago with Lauren Flanigan and was it Stuart Neil? I think they had Roger Rees narrating the elaborate plot between musical numbers or, actually, sending it up in a rather piss elegant, satirical way…not a bad choice.
Mme. Scusi, it was Collegiate Chorale, conducted by that fellow that recently died. Yes, indeed with Flanigan (subbing for Voigt for whom it was largely revived, I gathered), and it featured Anthony Dean Griffey as Oberon. Done in the original English.
I am not crazy about Flanigan but she acquitted herself very well with the Big Aria. .
Oops! my bad, and, Yes! I remembered that Flanigan had replaced someone at the last moment, even though Voigt had a different understudy who was left in the dust.
Oh hm. I missed the original melee but I’ll play just the same. Only I think I’m ignoring some of the rules and not actually checking to see if my choices 1) have been done at the Met specifically since 1950 or 2) are Les Huguenots, though safe to say at least three of the three will not be.
Ok. Deep breath. Here we go.
1) Premiere: Výlet pana Broucka do Mesíce, perhaps known to you by the name they use when they do it at small town opera companies and high schools: The Adventures of Mr. Broucek on the Moon. Because I am curious about it and keep on cheaping out on buying the recording, that’s why. Also: it’s set on the moon. Get Zeffirelli to direct so it will be a nice traditional production that won’t do anything crazy.
2) Premiere: Friedenstag, because it’s quite enjoyable. (It’s short, though, so it should probably be paired with something. Let’s say: The Adventures of Mr. Broucek in the 15th Century.) Robert Wilson will direct, because frankly, Friedenstag is apparently probably better if everyone just sort of moves around nebulously and doesn’t focus too hard on making the libretto the focus of things.
3) Premiere: Rent, but in French, and staged by Christopher Alden. Rufus Wainwright can do the translation and show up to the prima dressed as Daphne Rubin-Vega.
Sorry, it seems I do not have serious answers except the one that I always give (Vanessa, disqualified for being too recently done.) As far as Freischutz, I feel like it is having a nice rest and we should probably not disturb it.
Given my nom de guerre, I am gratified that the lovely Maury nominated a Strauss rarity. I couldn’t leave one out.
1. Strauss’ Die Schweigsame Frau. It’s difficult and benefits from some trimming (it’s mostly a number opera, so you can do that), but I bet Damrau would bring down the house as Aminta. Not sure who’s going to sing the fiendish tenor part, JDF?
2. Gluck’s Armide. Fantastic opera, and surprisingly big enough to play well in the Met. Sure, the fourth act drags, but the Met has a huge stage and elevators and all that fancy stuff, do some magic with it. Title role has one of the best ending scenes in opera.
3. Boieldieu’s La Dame Blanche. Also hard, but a gem of the French comic repertory.
Throwing out an alternative set that I’d just thought of and no one has nominated (or gotten close to), there’s a lot of nifty Finnish opera, and god knows there are enough great Finnish singers around to do it justice. Let’s have Madetoja’s Pohjalaisia, Merikanto’s Juha, and Kokkonen’s Last Temptations or Sallinen’s Red Line or Kullervo, for a good sample of the range of those works.
Representin’ for the Baroque:
1) Alcina. A logical Handel option, since it is well-known, a star vehicle, and has some hit tunes (choruses! a trio!). I would love to see an extravagant production where a full-sized magical forest actually melts away into a desert waste. Cast two superstar sopranos (Fleming, Dessay, Damrau, etc.) and one superstar mezzo (Graham, DiDonato) and you’ve got all sold out performances (and you don’t have to hire a countertenor).
2) Orfeo. Monteverdi needs his due.
3) Aaaaand delving deeply into the obscure, I’d love to see Conradi’s Die schöne und getreue Ariadne staged in an English manor house roundabouts 1925, where the Labyrinth is a giant hedge maze, and Naxos is a grimy back-alley in the city, and Ariadne is played by Diana Damrau, Phaedra is Christine Schäfer, Pasiphäe is Dessay, Minos is Laurent Naouri, Evanthes is Andreas Scholl…sorry, I’ve already given this far too much thought.
I can’t believe I missed Alcina. That’s a good one!
The City Opera last did Alcina in 2004, I believe, so it’s not a complete stranger to New York. Probably my favorite Handel opera.
Well, yeah, City Opera’s done all the good ones (Semele, Orlando). If we want to go new to New York (and super obscure), my vote would be for La Resurrezione (which was fully staged at its premiere. It’s not an oratorio, people!). But now I’ve gone and broken the rules by suggesting more than 3. But as long as I’ve broken the rules by suggesting more than 3, I’d like you to listen to this aria and imagine Cecilia Bartoli getting lowered from the rafters and singing this aria suspended 20 ft. above the stage. Bad. Ass.
(I know not everyone’s down with the Ceci, but let’s be real, her coloratura is super precise and you can hear every note. That’s why I use her recordings to introduce people to new ridiculous arias.)
The third rule, the part about the work not being performed at the Met since 1950, got me thinking about what operas could fit that description. I had no idea so I found this:
http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/frame.htm
The Met archives are really great. Other opera houses have horrible online archives compared to the Met.
Interesting fact I learned up just now: Hamlet hasn’t been performed at the Met since 1897. It must have been THAT horrible. I wonder if Dessay will cause the opera to not be performed again for another 113 years.
So after looking at the list I pick:
1. Robert le Diable (last performed 1884) – I don’t know why I picked this. It would have been a great vehicle for Sutherland, Sills, or Anderson a few years ago but no one can really sing it now.
2. Zazà (last performed 1922) – Fleming put this opera on my radar with her Verismo recording. It would be interesting to hear her or someone else do it at the Met.
3. Euryanthe (last performed 1915) – It’s one of the most obscure operas I know so I just had to pick it. There’s a really good 1955 recording with Sutherland.
I’m sure that nothing on my list will be voted for again.
Thank you Javier, I meant to point out the searchable archives!
You all don’t have to each come up with new original suggestions! You may vote for a work that other have voted for! (How else will we know which works “win”?)
1) Robert le Diable — Yes Yes Yes! Bruce Ford in the title role, Patrizia Ciofi as Isabelle, Annick Massis as Alice, Barry Banks as Raimbaut, and John Relyea as Betram. On the podium: Mark Minkowski.
2) Massenet’s “Le Cid.” The height of pageantry, great crowd scenes to show off the Met’s chorus, and some fabulous arias.
3) Donizetti’s “Maria Stuarda,” for all the same reasons Hans Lick cites below. Plus, I felt compelled to name at least ONE Italian opera among the three. I thought seriously about “Dom Sebastien” (my latest favorite Donizetti, thanks to a fantastic Opera Rara recording), as it certainly fits the Met profile for Large Stage Spectacle.
Bruce Ford can’t sing Meyerbeer no more. Could he ever? He can’t even sing Donizetti now. Have you heard him lately? Like Miricioiou in Vespri: the moment has long long passed.
Hamlet is not “that bad” – it’s full of wonderful French-romantic music. But it will never be repertory because of the hash they made of Shakespeare’s play (blame the librettist…). Unfortunately, the upcoming production is going to make a hash of the music too, and Hamlet will disappear into oblivion again.
omg BEST NEW PARTY GAME. Ummmm, Gloriana, King Roger, and since Straussmonster STOLE Die Schweigsame Frau from me, Henry VIII by Saint-Saëns.
It seems that some people are not getting the point of this party game – which I will assume is my fault.
You need not each come up with a new suggestion of a completely obscure work! In fact, please vote for the works most truly deserving! If Schweigsame Frau is what you want to see, your vote adds to Straussmonster’s vote making… two votes! (gasp!)
Ugh, “votes,” so vulgar! That’s the trouble with Democracy, it’s as if half the country showed up in the same dress.
Very well, I will cast a vote for Straussmonster, as long as I don’t have to break up my (totally unintentional) fag triptych.
see now, I would never have even known that Szymanowski and Saint-Saens were fags. You must be an expert!
De nada to La Cieca for her thanks for my earlier list.
The entrants above do not always seem to have considered several very important matters which, to be fair, Peter Gelb often seems to ignore as well, to whit:
The Metropolitan is a GREAT BIG THEATER with 3800 seats. Chamber operas like La Dame Blanche are a perfectly ridiculous idea there. So is The Mother of Us All – the Stein/Thomson operas DO NOT WORK except in houses so small you can understand every word. Not read the titles, understand the words. Monteverdi’s Orfeo also is a CHAMBER work. This is also why I’d omit Curlew River or Beatrice et Benedict.
I’ve already voted for Robert or Les H, so we’ll set them aside for the moment (and there are several sopranos around who could sing Isabelle – the one who sang Queen Margot last summer at Bard, e.g.). I would also propose the Met produce Mefistofele and La Juive – the productions the Met gave recently were borrowed and, though sellouts and much admired, had to be returned instantly. They should stay longer.
I’ve already voted for Die Vogel and Die Gezeichneten.
So my choices here would be:
1. Maria Stuarda, never ever produced at the Met, a thrilling score and fine drama with two brilliant prima donna roles, popular all over Europe. If not this, I’d vote for the same composer’s Lucrezia Borgia (one Met performance c. 1912), and I’d put in a word for La Favorite (en francais) but the Met borrowed SFO’s lousy (italiano) production of this one for the Pav and has never ceased regretting it. The hideously cut edition and a mediocre cast generally did it in, not Donizetti’s score. But you DO need four bel canto singers: dramatic mezzo (Barcellona? Garanca?), tenor (Beczala?), baritone, bass.
2. For a New Year’s Eve treat: La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein in the translation used in Philadelphia, with Stephanie Blythe (as there). Easy to insert a party sequence with “the world’s great singers” showing up to entertain the GD before the climax. Second choice on the light side: Rossini’s Turco in Italia with Genaux, D’Aracangelo and Del Carlo.
3. Tsar’s Bride or Snegouroutchka, ideal for the house’s currently sturdy Slavic wing. If the director isn’t an idiot and plays the thing straight (i.e. not the Mazeppa way), these works could easily join the rep as popular favorites – irresistible tunes, thrilling drama (or delirious folk tale). (My third choice among the Slavs would be Tchaikowsky’s Maid of Orleans.)
OOH NO CANCEL THAT!
3. IF you can find the proper singer of the title role (and I can’t even guess at one these days), my number 3 would be Cherubini’s Medea. Certainly never given at the Met in my lifetime (and yes, we all know who SHOULD have been given a production of it, and if you don’t, La Cieca will strip off the back of her gown and show you). Those of us who would like another audition for Mayr’s Medea in Corinto could use the same sets.
Mr. Hans Lick,
Is that going to be Medea or Medee?
Big difference
While we’re doing Medee, how about a Vestale to go with it? We could have a good time and all learn something about the lineage of French opera.
oh MERDE! HOW could I have forgotten my Beloved VESTALE?
Once again, I pose the question
in italiano -or- en francais??
I can’t speak for Herr Lich, but as for myself, no excuse in this day and age for doing those works in translation (although there are other times and places and cases where translation is grand). That means we might eventually make our way to Agnes von Hohenstaufen, too.
Camille (who seems to have replaced Nerva Nelli as the person with whom I most often agree here) – Big Difference! Almost a different opera! Yes!
Well, like you (j’ose a dire), I’d prefer Medee, but the one we’re likeliest to get is Medea. Perhaps the long-awaited Antonacci debut….
P.S. to la monstre straussienne:
La Vestale – No. It really is a dreary score.
Agnes – No. Interesting, even fascinating if you are tracing the lineage of French declamation from Gluck to Berlioz and Wagner, but not a good piece. Maybe Fernand Cortez, which the Met gave (four performances) c. 1927.
Non, cherie, I much prefer your suggestion of Armide, a wonderful score – better than Rossini’s version, actually.
Herrlich Herr Hanslick!
It has just got to be the MeDEE! Some organisation named ‘Opera Quotannis’ did it in Tully in, what?, ’97 en francais. It is so much more effective.
As for Antonacci, I saw her No. American debut @ the Met Museum of Art (seated next to our beloved doyenne, who loves her) and I was truly impressed by her vogue, and her upper arms — very trim — but the voice did not show. Maybe she would act her way through as she is good as Crazy Girl. Better than Mme. Defray, even.
I think that Les Huguenots is probably gonna win this contest (along with Freischutz!) — and I,too, believe we need a ‘Piccola Scala’ to do a host of works, baroque, chamber, Monteverdi, etc, etc.
I am sick of the Ring Thing!
If it were done with adequate singers, or had Brewer been able, but not with these half+assed casts, thrown together.
I vote for Tsar’s Bride, just to get Netrebko into a non bel canto role that she can actually execute in a musically accurate fashion. Also, I so loved Borodina’s wunderbar voice and she could possibly still hack it, although after the Faust, I dunno.
Did you hear “The Bride’ last year in the autumn, sadly, one of the last manifestations of OONY?
Olga was DA Bomb!
Must not carry on so as not to invoke the Squirrelly One’s righteous wrath!
It was Squirrel who thanked you, and your De Nada is deeply felt.
Just to be clear, you are voting for Maria Stuarda, Tsar’s Bride, and Medea? No Schreker?
I voted for Tsar’s Bride and the Schreker in the previous game.
In this one I vote for Maria S, Grande Duchesse (anything to avoid Fledermaus or Merry Widow again) and Medea.
Hans,
The previous game was no game! it was you hijacking my Carl Nielsen post! This is your chance, man!
I will assume you are voting for Tsar’s Bride, Maria Stuarda, and something Schreker.
Having read the other posts, I think my votes will now be:
1. Tsar’s Bride (incontestably the most stageworthy of the Rimsky-Korsakovs, a gorgeous score, popular all over Russia)
2. Medea (prefer Medee, but we ain’t gonna get it)
3. And Grande Duchesse de G.
I’m omitting Maria Stuarda because, as you point out, it’s on the upcoming roster, and Gezeichneten because others are voting for it, bless their hearts.
I’d much rather Medee than Medea. No Lachner recits, please. I have two recordings. One is from
1997 on Newport Classics conducted by Bart Folse. This may be the performance that Camille mentioned
as being at Tully in ’97. Problem is that although it’s the French version, the performance is pretty inadequate. Much better is a recording from Martina Franca, 1995 with Tamar as Medee and including the young Ciofi as Dirce.
Maria Stuarda is already in the works, set to star Joyce DiDonato…so you should pick something else.
Ooooh- Yes, Yes, YES to Die Vögel! They could even make that one the “family friendly” opera they do every holiday season. And while I dearly love Die Gezeichneten, I can only imagine how that would go over with the conservative Met crowd.
I’m considering a vote for Die Gezeichneten myself, to be directed by Michael Haneke. I think it’s just what the Upper West Side needs.
I agree with Hans Lick’s strictures on the size of the Met’s auditorium–but if it’s too large for La dame blanche, it’s too large for La grande Duchesse de Gerolstein.
1. Les Huguenots: (1915) After seeing what the Bard festival could do, I can only dream of what the Met could achieve. Maybe that might a great Chereau project? It would be great PR for the Met to pull out this mammoth. I also think it IS cast-able these days.
2. Cendrillon, by Massenet (never performed). In a production for Joyce DiDonato. With a Mezzo singing the Prince. It would be a great crowd pleaser and an easy sell. The story is lovely and there is some stunning music. Especially some trios and duets that are remarkable.
3. I Capuleti e i Montechi. (never performed)
Long overdue. Beautiful piece, beautiful music. Great staging possibilities. Sort of a travesty that the Met has overlooked it this long given how famous so much of the music is.
Bonus Round: Lucrezia Borgia (1904, 1 performance) The piece is great. It holds its’ own. I am surprised they have not pulled it out for Renée!
These are great suggestions. Chereau’s Huguenots is a kind of goofy but genius idea!
This is only hear-say, but I read on another blog that when Renee was asked if she would ever sing Lucrezia at the Met she said that currently there is the possibility that the Washington production (which she sang in last season) will come to the Met (just as they did with Thais).
I vote for these, too!
No. 1 Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq D’or
Wonderfully satirical opera that hasn’t been done since the 1940′s
No. 2 Handel’s Alcina or Rinaldo
Can’t believe I got beaten to it. Love Handel’s operas (hopefully with a countertenor)
No. 3 Cherubini’s Medee
Fantastic opera, in French all the better
But breaking the rules what I would really ask for is Massenet’s Esclarmonde, but who could sing it now?
Check this out: The 1945 Coq d’Or –
http://archives.metoperafamily.org/Imgs/Coqd'Or1945.jpg
oop, that “smart quote” bolloxed the link in my browser. I changed it to http://archives.metoperafamily.org/Imgs/Coqd'Or1945.jpg
ugh, let me try again
thanks, and good work.
that is some saturation, isn’t it?
we don’t often get to see Met stagings from the 1940s in full color, but that one deserves it if any does.
Rinaldo was done in the ’80′s, providing Met debuts for both Ewa Podles and Sam Ramey. But they haven’t done Alcina yet, darn it!
No one could sing it after Sutherland. Unfortunately the opera is really boring, at least if you’re just listening to it. The first act is exciting, but it’s all down hill after “Esprits d’lair”.
Saw Esclarmonde at Washington Concert Opera, maybe five years ago. Not only could the Soprano (Celena Schafer) sing the part, but she actually sang the role as written. As opposed to Joan who rewrote some vocal lines because she did not have the notes. There is at least one G written into the score.
So before we say that no on can sing it anymore, let’s acknowledge that what most of us know as the only version of the opera is not actually correct musically. I’ve heard there is a Mesplé version, but I have not found it…
That’s true, but I only like the first act and I think Sutherland sings it perfectly. whoever this woman is who did it Washington, I don’t think she could top Sutherland’s “Esprits d’lair”. I’d still like to hear it as I read about this performance a few year ago.
Actually, Javier, Vaness sang Alcina gloriously at NYCO with Sutherland clapping away prominently in the First Tier. She went on to do a splendid Armida in Rinaldo at the Met.