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Cher public, don’t write comments like this one:
“As heard on the web yesterday, the singing was mediocre at best. But does that matter anymore?”
Why not?
Here’s why. Because that kind of comment is boring, predictable, useless. There are a lot of you who have very interesting things to say, from 3,000 word analyses to two-word one-liners. All those comments are more than welcome. What La Cieca doesn’t want to read is yet another expression of just how dreadfully bored and listless you are. Because talking about being bored, meanwhile expressing yourself in a boring way, is, frankly, boring.
So if what you’re about to post really sounds boring to you, please think twice, and at the very least try to sound entertaining, even if you can’t quite bring yourself to sound entertained.
Carry on.
To carry on in the same vein as the title of this thread – put some (Ma)grit(te) in your posts please.
re la nuit d’ivresse – anybody as taken w/ Gardiner/Graham etc Berlioz Les Troyens as moi? with dance it seems better paced and more exquisitely sensual than others without – and re tempo, those Armide excerpts on the hoped for Met revival list wither on the vine before you get to taste that gorgeous piece. How ’bout some long-term pacing in these lyric tragedies instead of ‘each aria for himself’? enough grit or too much gripe?
I’m afraid I’m bored with productions, pardonez moi ma deese la Cieca. I saw the little clip on youtube with the Met’s Hoffmann and was bored. As a matter of fact, I’m bored thinking of what they might come up with the Cirque Ring in the future. I’m bored with the puppets in Butterfly. I’m bored with the photographer in Lucia. I’m bored withe the Flatiron Sonnambula. Give me an old bare Greek theatre with the chorus singing Euripides and I’m excited. Give me a nice XIXth century theatre with a great conductor, a few portly figures that sing like angers, some sets painted suggesting whatever and a great conductor and I’m excited. The Trovatore in Venice at the start of Visconti’s ‘Senso’ is to me the most superb opera production possible. Show me an Adriana set in a Little Shop of Horrors and I’m horrified Gelb might see it too and get ideas even for Parsifal. All clever opera directors should be sent to Devil’s island as far as I’m concerned. But yes, after all this rant, I admit I have tickets to Hoffmann and look forward to it. Does anyone have any idea what they will do with Carmen?
Who is this Valkyrietta person? How dare she make these outrageous suggestions that happen to be the very things I would have said, and has even seen my favorite little-known operatic film? Is she my doppelganger or the person who sneaks to the computer when I think I’m asleep?
Just asking.
wait…. Parsifal set in a little shop of horrors? with a man eating plant? that’s genius!!
-Peter Gelb
La Valkyrietta, I love you.
You have invoked the shade of Visconti and that fabuloso opening scene of Trovatore which I felt I alone loved to that extreme degree.
Shall we repair to the anfiteatro at Taormina?
Let us take along mon vieux cheri, M. Hanslick as well. La-bas, mes freres, we will never suffer from ennui.
Although (to be pedantic) that scene was invented by Visconti – during the years in which Senso takes place, La Fenice was closed – the aristocrats who owned the theater refused to permit performances when Austria refused to give up Venetia after the war of 1859. (per W.D. Howells splendid book of Italian memories – he was U.S. consul in Venice during this period.)
Flatiron in La Sonnambula? I saw it several times and I don’t recall that. Refresh my memory.
That is the Flatiron District if not the building out those windows, Mandryka. This explains why, on there being a flash blizzard, though the entire cast has no trouble getting home by subway, the visiting baritone is unable to reach his hotel all of twenty blocks away and is forced to sack out in the rehearsal hall. At least, it explains the matter to Mary (Zar und) (thank you Sanford) Zimmerman’s satisfaction. I don’t recall anyone else being remotely satisfied with that production.
You saw it SEVERAL times? I’ve heard of gluttons for punishment, but you have an absolute avarice for the stuff.
Yes, La Cieca. You are right. But you know, if the people you are talking about — and we know who they are — did not have this outlet, I fear their issues would be acted out in even more unhealthy ways.
La Cieca — just a little shout out to the late great Madeline Kahn. (We all know where she is!) That wonderful picture of her as Lili von Schtupp, the Teutonic Tit-Willow, always brings tears to my eyes. She is so very badly missed! Has anyone ever really been able to bring so many layers of humor(and sadness) to one single moment or image? Madeline, I will always love you. Thanks for everything.
And it’s ten years today. Always remembered with affection.
mandryka: I smirk seeing such loaded comment (I quote you )….”But you know, if the people you are talking about — and we know who they are” (end)
Jeezz, it is the inclusive stuff of catty schoolgirls then stating “And you are not going to find our either!”
It implies the smugness of being so superior -minded and ‘all -knowing’ Well let’s see what usually starts the problem, when people get bored here. Usually when there is a hiatus on reported opera happenings. Even then, let’s get things into proportion. The MET is not the be -all or end -all of Opera. So some singer has never sung there…big deal!. It is a house that wants to represent the best…no doubt about that. To try and achieve that in today’s world and run its constant changing large program, it is really a fly- in fly- out star based system.
If I may crudely say it is ‘The Las Vegas of Opera! Lack of preparation on anyone’s part: reputations based far & wide, tend to crash and burn in such a type of spotlight. With the trend for a new look MET, towards more controversial stagings using ’shot in the dark hiring’ of newer wave directors, the stakes for various peoples’ careers & reputations will in the future , become more acute. An invitation to sing at the MET might just be viewed by some singers as ‘a poisoned chalice’. To any outsider, the artist cancellation rate appears phenomenal, even for opera singers. Then all the ‘duck shoving of covers / some understudy onto the stage starts’ as it is so quickly reported here. Imagine a normal business trying to work under such a situation.
Yet we see here amongst some, an almost snide feeling that if singers have not appeared at the MET they are therefore to be considered second rate. I take a reverse view in many cases. They probably do not want to be involved in all the ructions and hassle, associated with it. Thereby set about having a nice career elsewhere with greater chances of appreciation and ‘where they feel things, are more in control’.
Some might have tickets to Hoffmann….I have something better…. a ticket to seeing Teddy Tahu Rhodes getting down, dirty and steamy as Stanley K., in Previn’s Streetcar.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes is so good a singer and actor that he makes an impression on stage while fully clothed. Nathan Gunn cannot make that statement.
But if I’m ever obliged to see Previn’s Streetcar again, a full cast of Colt models and the Blanche going down on me in the delivery boy scene won’t make it worth the waste of time.
But I am an a philistine Hans Lick. I adore Streetcar’s music.
… ergo party to pleasures I defy. You go, girl! Us snooty wallflowers seldom get to dance.