Broadcast season’s greetings
Just a reminder that parterre.com is your place to chat the light fantastic tomorrow at 12 noon, when the Met kicks off its 2009-2010 Toll Brothers Broadcasts with Il Trittico!
Intermission features will include interviews with Deborah Voigt, Stephanie Blythe, and Joseph Calleja!
Warm your fingers for chatting, which starts at noon. The music starts at 12:30.
For more info visit www.operainfo.org
Does anyone know if the Met Opera Radio broadcast on Sirius is the same as the broadcast that goes out to local stations? I’m traveling tomorrow, so I’ll only have Sirius in my car. The broadcast’s listed on the Sirius schedule, but I didn’t know if the intermission features were the same.
I believe so, yes, absolutely.
Grazie Don Squirrel!
Wow it’s so nice seeing that photo of Milton Cross in the anteroom of the box at the old Met. I wish I had a photo to remind myself of the exact shade of the deep red material on the walls. Did one call it crimson? I think I’ll phone over to Louis Sherry’s to make reservations for dinner, but the men in the white coats say I have to go back to my room now.
Sure miss Milton Cross and wish they would keep his commentary when they stream archive performances, instead of cutting him out and subjecting us to yet more of ill-informed Ms. J’s chatter.
Dementia is a terrible thing…
I am really looking forward to the Suor Angelica (one of my favorite operas) and Gianni Schicchi.
Really? One of your faves? I mean, I like it and find the second half very moving but…
Yes, it is one of my favorites. My favorite part is obviously the 2nd half, but I have learned to love the 1st half as well. The scenes of daily life and the ways the nuns allow for the smaller things to become little miracles, if anything so they are not bored to death is very interesting and beautifully portrayed.
Right on, Lindoro. I agree with you about Suor Angelica. I like Gianni Schicci, too, but I’m usually so spent from Suor Angelica that I’m numb through the first half of Schicci.
speaking of the broadcasts…
i have a question which i do not really know how to fully articulate… but it’s something thats been in my head for a looooong time..
in a hundred years, do you think the standard rep will still be the 19th century works?
i love opera, but i’m a little frustrated at the hundred year (mostly) lag that “the standard rep” is all about, it seems.
no one really even plays Vanessa, or Susannah, or Ghost of Versailles….
thoughts?
In 100 years opera as we know it will have evolved into music theatre, with 100% amplification. Opera houses will mainly be museums where old fashioned
opera of the 17th – 20th C period can be seen via digital video recordings.
Opera queens will be banned by law and not allowed to be cloned or reproduced in any way. Historians will speak of “regie direction” or “age of the stage director” when referring to the 21st C period of opera’s demise, but no one will know what it means.
And everyone will vote Republican because there will be only one party, and no one will care at all because it will no longer matter.
Talk about standards? Nope; doesn’t matter.
The movement of The Politically Correct will have run its course and leveled the filed of classical music and opera.
Music education will have ceased to exist and not even Mozart will be there.
“And everyone will vote Republican because there will be only one party …”
Have you missed the many polls that show the small percentage of Americans who identify with that Party? This statement is of a piece with your other wildly scatter-shot dogmas.
Well, Alto … I was depicting a world where education
had largely vanished, thus made room for Republicans!
So, you are pretty hostile to me, eh, Alto?
Ok!
That’s because Vanessa, Susannah, and the Ghosts of Versailles suck (and I’ve seen each one at least twice). When someone writes an opera that moves the general public as much as many of the 19th century operas do, then it will be loved and get played.
Nero, sorry old bean — I agree with you BUT no one, I mean nobody, writes lyric melodic operas any more nor is there any sign they will do so.
We are witnessing the end of an epoch.
mrmyster you absolutely right. Nowadays I think that musical composers (Lloyd Webber, Sondheim, etc) have a better sense of melody than opera composers.
Just so!
A point!
D’accord!
I play my VANESSA recording and VERSAILLES video with some regularity. SUSANNAH has a couple of very nice arias that I enjoy now and then.
I dispute the notion that the standard rep is more or less the same as it was 100 years ago. We play far more baroque and bel canto material than we used to, we’ve rescued almost all of early Verdi, and we are interested in obscure Richard Strauss (AEGIPTISCHE HELENA for heaven’s sake).
50 years ago TURANDOT was a rarity. And WOZZECK was a trial. I love ‘em both – and LULU too.
But when will we stop rediscovering and actually start supporting contemporary compositions??? im sorry but we can only unearth so many operas….and i think the reason why some of them were buried in obscurity was because they werent really that good.
the only way for opera to survive i think is for new compositions to actually exist that has the support of the public and kind of come into competition with the likes of Verdi, Wagner, the the residents of the standard rep.
Lloyd Webber, Sondheim write good melodies… these melodies and the patterns in which they write reek of Romanticism… and frankly… Romanticism’s time has passed, even to our dismay… isnt this a time of exhausted and decayed romanticism? are we clinging onto a model of opera that died with Puccini????
why is no one composing them then? if thats the thing. im sure that there are a lot of intelligent composers out there..
so if Barber sucks, Floyd sucks, Corigliano sucks.. does that mean that we’ve had like…a 70 year expanse of sucky-composers who have no idea how to write good operas?
rommie, are you trying to make this site EXPLODE?!
Rommie – a couple of “modern” opera’s are nominated for a Grammy. That is encouraging.
Best Opera Recording
(Award to the Conductor, Album Producer(s) and Principal Soloists.)
•Britten: Billy Budd
Daniel Harding, conductor; Ian Bostridge, Neal Davies, Nathan Gunn, Jonathan Lemalu, Matthew Rose & Gidon Saks; John Fraser, producer (London Symphony Orchestra; Gentlemen Of The London Symphony Chorus)
[Virgin Classics]
•Messiaen: Saint François D’Assise
Ingo Metzmacher, conductor; Armand Arapian, Hubert Delamboye, Rod Gilfry, Henk Neven, Tom Randle & Camilla Tilling; Karin Elzendoorn, producer (The Hague Philharmonic; Chorus Of De Nederlandse Opera)
[Opus Arte]
•Musto, John: Volpone
Sara Jobin, conductor; Lisa Hopkins, Joshua Jeremiah, Museop Kim, Jeremy Little, Rodell Rosel & Faith Sherman; Blanton Alspaugh, producer (Wolf Trap Opera Company)
[Wolf Trap Recordings]
•Shostakovich: The Nose
Valery Gergiev, conductor; Andrei Popov, Sergei Semishkur & Vladislav Sulimsky; James Mallinson, producer (Orchestra Of The Mariinsky Theatre; Chorus Of The Mariinsky Theatre)
[Mariinsky]
•Tan Dun: Marco Polo
Tan Dun, conductor; Stephen Bryant, Sarah Castle, Zhang Jun, Nancy Allen Lundy, Stephen Richardson & Charles Workman; Ferenc van Damme, producer (Netherlands Chamber Orchestra; Cappella Amsterdam)
[Opus Arte]
The Classical Grammys are a TOTAL joke….
Seriously, rommie, not everyone thinks Barber, Floyd, and Corigliano suck. Wait. Let me take that back and say this instead: not everyone thinks 20th century operas suck (and, to simplify things, let’s group Puccini’s work after 1900 in with his 19th century work). I think you WILL have to see a certain percentage of the current opera audience … how shall I say this? … move on to the next phase of existence … before less lyric (less melodic) operas are given another chance.
I think you’ll also have to see a certain percentage of living composers accept that melody isn’t a bad, dirty word. I mean, there’s a reason that such music ruled the concert hall for so long: humans can more easily identify with it (IMO).
There’s a fair chance that you’ll live into the 22nd century, rommie, so I hope the state of opera won’t be as dire as mrmyster projects.
Random, off topic question:
Are there any serious downsides to sitting in the Dress Circle Boxes at the Met? You know, obstructed views, sound issues, etc? Mainly worried about the view.
On the audience right you face the risk of falling into the timpani or grazing someone sitting in the more expensive seats downstairs, but the fall will not be fatal as it would be from the Family Circle. Actually there are many advantages to sitting in the upper levels of the MET auditorium. The closer to the proscenium you are on the sides the less you will see on the corresponding side of the stage. Try it, you’ll like it. There isn’t much onstage these days anyway.
By sitting in any of the side boxes you run the risk of having an obstructed view. Obviously the farther up and closer to the stage you sit, the more you can’t see. Also, you really don’t want to sit in the back of the side boxes.
Are there any productions in particular you are thinking of? Because the site lines can vary wildly between them.