Wanting magic
“As the Met chorus raised their voices at the climax of Les Contes d’Hoffmann Thursday night, the tavern setting opened up, revealing … a gray wall. It was a sadly appropriate visual symbol for a glamour-deprived dud of a new production.” [NY Post]
ouch!
Bravo JJ!
Fragile alcoholics should be slim? Many alcoholics are overweight. I don’t see the point of this Tommasini-like comment…
??
I took that to mean physiologically fragile and compromised not mentally fragile, which is what I think is your point.
JJ might get banned from the Met again after this.
what did you expect? he was going for kafka, remember?
they don’t do glamour anymore, the way *I* did in my prime…
oh, where are MrsJC and Famous Quickly! She could sing Olympia tomorrow; it’s just a matter of color and tessitura.
Very painful, and yet not offensive. No singer was called a “bad joke.”
Seems that the met is going for the pair down stripped bare stage productions these days. After the Zefirelli years I am not surprised.
I can’t wait to see it on the HD moviecast.
Mr. Z. has plenty to answer for. But how is this his fault?
I’m not saying it’s La Zefa’s fault. I am saying after the years of opulence when more was more and bigger was always better(in which he was the high priest), it is a natural reaction to move away from that and use more pared down productions and minimalist stagings.
Huh, I’m surprised at the undiluted pan, but that’s how it goes.
OT: But I just remembered that there are two Joseph Callejas. One is the tenor in this production. The other, I am reminded by a friend when talking about this production to her, is the late Joe C., the rapper and sidekick of late-90s/early-2000s rock/rapper Kid Rock. If you weren’t in fourth through seventh grades when Kid Rock was popular, this might not mean much to you. But to those of you who were, this might be–as for me–a HUGE revelation.
i was more of a limp biskit kid. lol
The first Joseph Calleja was an actor
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0130407/
Sher’s production really flattened out all the crazy that is actually in this piece. He’s the Anti-regie!
His next project will be “The Rake’s Progress” set in a suburban cubefarm where Baba the Turk is an Admin. Assist. with a little bit of a moustache problem.