Last soprano standing
“As for Elektra — one of the most strenuous of opera roles — the Met seemed to have settled for a singer who could survive the ordeal.” [NY Post]
Cher Public
- Adalgisa: I’ve had the pleasures of her Senta, Brünnhilde, Isolde and Ariadne. In my opinion there is no... 5:02 AM
- Bosah: Finally found Fanciulla in my local Target. Had to ask one of the kids stacking the shelves. I spelled it... 4:58 AM
- cosmodimontevergine: A. Poggia Turra brightened my day -I long to see “The Perfect American!” 4:48 AM
- bobsnsane: Thank u Blue 4 the very detailed review… I loved this so much that I am driving (six hours total)... 3:04 AM
- Camille: Caught in the shower, singing her Victory Cantata—La Divina CIECA!!!!!! httpv://www.you... 2:30 AM
- CruzSF: Frighteningly plausible, APT. 2:02 AM
- Baritenor: SAMSON ET DALILA 1. Ambelich and the Gran Pretre go all Gitmo on the Old Hebrew. 2. The High Priest has... 2:02 AM
- A. Poggia Turra: Aside: The Tosca in the previous Regie quiz is the production in which a scenery wall collapsed... 1:39 AM
colleagues
- A Liberal's Libretto
- AndrewAndJoshua
- Barihunks
- Cafeteria Rusticana
- Capital New York
- Civic Center
- Counter Critic
- Daniel Stephen Johnson
- Family Circle
- Handelmania
- Hugo Alvarez Domínguez
- Intermezzo
- ionarts
- Iron Tongue of Midnight
- Jumping Clapping Man
- Likely Impossibilites
- Mass Culture Mozart
- My Favorite Intermissions
- New York Post
- Opera Arts
- Opera Bouffe
- Opera Cake
- Opera Fresh
- Opera Rocks
- Opera Tales
- Opera Teen
- Operacast
- Operavision
- Out West Arts
- pArts
- Poison Ivy's Wall of Text
- Sandow
- SFCV
- Superconductor
- The Classical Beat
- The Classical Review
- The Opera Tattler
- Una butaca en el paraiso
- Vilane fille
- Wenarto
- Willy or Won’t He?
- Wo bleibt Elektra?
- WQX-Aria
- Yankeediva
- Zachary Woolfe
86 comments
Today's Events
Upcoming Events
Chats
- May 19 at 1:00 PM: I Capuleti e i Montecchi (webcast from Bavarian State Opera)
La Casa della Cieca →
Topics
- anna anna anna
- barihunk
- bel canto
- blind item
- blog bloggity blog
- broadcast
- camp
- cancellation
- chat
- cher public
- contest
- critic
- diva
- dvd
- filth
- gala
- gay gay gay gay gay
- happy birthday
- hd
- jj
- l'evasiva
- la cieca ci guarda
- la scoopenda
- maestro levine
- man of steel
- mp3
- need you ask?
- new york post
- new york times
- nyco
- our own
- our own jj
- peter gelb is...
- regie
- review
- sad
- the met
- unnatural acts of opera
- wagner
- youtube
Would La Cieca care to enlighten us on Mr Jorden’s reference to ‘dings’ in Voigt’s top register? How is a ding manifest?
I saw Debbie Voigt do this in Chicago and it was SyooPERB
Harvey Fierstein sings!
an sich!
It’s a tribute to this reviewer’s craft that he can pack so much pointed writing into such a tiny, tiny space.
Let’s hope the Post loosens up on the the word-count before the next Ring cycle hits.
This is an excellent review: concise, clear, and specific. My reaction to the Sirius broadcast matches this in virtually every way, and I especially appreciate Jorden’s appraisal of the changes in Voigt’s soprano.
Great review, … although I would have been MUCH harsher on Bullock. Have I missed it, or was there EVER a NY Times review?
The Brits love Bullock but her Elektra in D.C. and Brunnhildes in Toronto were pretty much washouts. Christine Goerke was a great Chyrsothemis in D.C.; why Goerke doesn’t sing more at the Met is puzzling. Or is it?
Due to NY Post space limitations, JJ is using the Martin Bernheimer miminalist approach to reviewing? Such short reviews are one of the truest indicators of a writer’s abilities. Loved the jitterbug reference.
Meanwhile, the Post continues to devote an inordinate amount of space to Tiger “Cheetah” Woods.
I disagree. I think Bullock made a great impression with her Elektra in Toronto.
+1. That was a really fine night at the opera (ok, the Chrysothemis had a peculiar voice, but interesting.) Of course the size of the house was better for Bullock, whose voice is neither small nor enormous.
Edward Seckerson said of a London performance:
There is nothing quite as satisfying as the spectacle of Susan Bullock (Elektra) wielding the treasured axe that could dispatch her murderous mother. But her dramatic journey to the point at which she finally dons the smiling mask of death and dances for joy is riveting because not a word, not a gesture, fails to ring true. From the terrible images of death in her first scena to the disbelief that her beloved brother Orest (the excellent Johan Reuter) is alive – “a vision sweeter to me than any dream” – the richness of the word colour and her total honesty as a performer adds up to something not just exciting but genuinely moving for once. One or two anxious notes notwithstanding, Bullock shows us that you don’t have to be a screamer to play Elektra. She sings everything as beautifully, as meaningfully, as she can.
Good God, is Edward Seckerson the Vicar’s day job persona?
I’m going tomorrow and I’ll see for myself.
Sure enough none of this came across in the broadcast.
Jay, I just realised that I didn’t read your post carefully enough. You didn’t mention Bullock’s Toronto Elektra but her Brünnhilde. So, I’ll just say ditto for her Brünnhilde.
Seriously, putting aside the obvious issue which is that she (like most sopranos taking on the role today) doesn’t have a true hochdramatisch soprano voice, Bullock’s Brünnhilde was moving, fierce, vulnerable — most everything the role requires.
Kashania, which Toronto cycle did you attend?
I went to the final one, can be a grind for any soprano (although Eaglen was a knockout vocally in the last Seattle cycle Seattle in 2001). I don’t doubt Bullock’s dramatic commitment. But vocally, she just didn’t deliver during that third Toronto Ring cycle.
I just went back and re-read Anne Midgette’s Elektra review at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/11/AR2008051101997.html
“Goerke stole the show…” Midgette writes. “Bullock at her first entrance appeared to be in a part that was a couple of sizes too big for her.
“To Bullock’s credit, she has not pushed her voice out of its natural line, so that when she was called on to sing more subtly — in Elektra’s duet with her sister, and especially in the bittersweet reunion with Orest — she delivered some fine vocalism.”
This review was based on the prima. I went to one of the very last Elektra performances and, again, Bullock may have been running out of steam.
I’d like to hear Bullock in something other than a killer role, e.g. Jenufa, to get a better sense of what she might deliver vocally and dramatically. Based on later performances of the Toronto Ring and the Washington Elektra. the hochdramatisch repertory isn’t a good fit for her vocally.
But, if you’ve enjoyed Bullock’s work, then “sehr gut!” (Parenthetically. I wasn’t blown away by the Met’s FTHOTD. At first I thought it was partly because I was sitting underneath the overhang. But I talked to someone else, who had a first-rate seat at the same [i.e., final] performance, and was also somewhat disappointed.)
Jay, I also attended the third cycle. I should say the Toronto Ring was my first (and only) live complete cycle, though I heard Eaglen sing the role in the Met’s and Chicago’s Walkürie. IMO, The only thing that Bullock lacked (aside from a truly big voice) was grandeur.
I should also add that I was working for the COC at the time, so I got sneak into the hall and hear individual acts of the other cycles too. So, when I recall her performances, it’s hard to single out the third cycle specifically.
Are you thinking Jenufa or Kostelnicka?
While I did love her Brünnhilde and Elektra in Toronto, I also had the sense that she was only going to be able to deliver in that rep for a limited amount of time. As I’ve mentioned before, she has to push her voice to its absolute limits to sing those roles and I don’t imagine her being able to do that consistently for too many years. And I would guess the Met is too big for her in those roles. Toronto probably got the best of her.
kashania, how big is the house in Toronto?
Jay: I compltelely agree about Kostenicka, Ortrud and Kundry for Bullock.
CruzSF: Toronto’s house seats 2,000. The acoustics are really great. (And I’m not just saying that cause I spent nearly three years raising money for the building
)
Goerke is the cover at the Met, Voigt was originally hired for “Frau ohne schatten”; this Elektra was what filled in it’s place, so the contracts were filled with this show instead.
oh I hope the Cher Public keeps us filled in in the case that Goerke goes on stage during this run! That would be fun to see. She’s a tremendous talent.
Kashani, at this point Kostenicka would be a better fit for Bullock. We could spectulate endlessly about what roles artists should assume… Kundry and Ortrud could be future possibilities for Bullock. She has the dramatic chops for both roles. Would they fit vocally? Quien sabe?
I’ll letcha Squirreley Baby, if she does!
letcha KNOW, I mean.
Pile-on with the Goerke love! Just saw her Ortrud twice in Houston and she was great. She was nice enough to attend an after performance lecture/Q&A and she was very down to earth. Since I had never seen her before the curtain went up, I then did NOT recognize her when she entered the after meeting. A complete transformation.
The highlights of that London ‘Elektra’ were i) Johan Reuter’s Orest and 2) Mark Elder’s conducting. For all her skill and dedication, Bullock doesn’t really possess the stature for the part, either vocally or dramatically. (Seckerson does tend to jump on his own little bandwagons, especially if the name ‘Bernstein’ is flashed before his eyes — though obviously it wasn’t here.)
Monty – what you write is absolutely correct – she is not a true hochdramatische, but she has cleverly found a way of singing the big roles which – while not ideal – has won her plaudits all over the world, not only from British critics. Her Elektras in Frankfurt were widely acclaimed by the public there. You can’t really disagree with JJ’s review because if her voice was a bit small for Covent Garden it isn’t going to be any bigger at the Met. The sound she makes under pressure can be metallic, but she also sings some phrases quite beautifully – she is an intelligent and committed artist, certainly not one to be dismissed as a nothing by the pathological Brit-haters in here.
Earlier today a poster on All That Chat, disputed that some Brits opinion that Reginald Goodall and Jascha Horenstein are respectively the world’s greatest Wagner and Mahler conductors. And no one labeled her a “pathological Brit hater”.
I sometimes go for long periods without posting because of the vitriol that shows up on chat boards. Our doyenne has curtailed some of the worst of it here. We can disagree without launching into personal attacks.
Spend a few days on Dealbreaker, a Wall Street chat board. I protested against the homophobia on that board and another poster replied saying I was reeking of lesions. My point: people need to be considerate of others’ opinions and not be so quick to jump to conclusions.
She has been very clever with her career too. Having been a bit of an also-ran for many years (probably because the voice is not beautiful or distinctive, though I can think of some very successful lyric sopranos of whom that can also be said), she is now singing the biggest roles at the biggest theatres, and getting away with it honourably — so good on her.
is the times not reviewing this?
Here’s TT’s review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/arts/music/15elektra.html?_r=1&ref=music
How is that “TT’s” review?
Ha! I just assumed it was Tommasini. My bad, folks!
MIRABILE DICTU! A TonyTom review without a single Husky, Dusky, or Strapping. Always sounds like a jockstrap sporting goods emporium to me when he starts in with those adjectival modifiers.
I was thinking that if we all chipped in here at Parterre Box, we could get Tony the Oxford University Press’ Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary for Christmas/Chanukah/Chwaanza, etc. Would La Cieca provide a hat for us to throw our spare change to attain this goal?
By the by, I like JJ’s short and snappy style in his reviews. It doesn’t wander off and start palavering away about Madame BigBoobs* in 1937, in a production of Simone Boccanegra off=off=Broadway. Sticks to the point and for someway reading a throwaway paper on the way home on the subway (which is what the Post is for me) it’s just about perfect.
*Herva Nelli
Was gibt? Did some people’s copies of the paper attribute this to Tony? What’ all this talk of him and “strapping,” and what does it have to do with Vivien S.’s review?
Guess I shoulda checked first to see who authored…Me so Myopic. Vivien strikes again.
Am I ever disappointed it wasn’t TonyTom.
Well, we should still get him the Thesaurus if La Cieca allows.
I wish Andrew Porter wouldn’t drop names as much as he does. He may be very much a doyen these days (b.1928), but he gratuitously compared a soprano to Welitsch the other day, just because he actually saw Ljuba.
Well, I’m not sure one can really call that a review, but we can safely say that the newspaper reported on it.
Reads like something a Met press agent would write, but we all the NYT is very objective re: the Met.
“Jürgen Rose’s set for this dysfunctional family places the action in a ragged courtyard, with a broken statue of a horse lying on its side, perhaps alluding to Agamemnon’s death and the Trojan horse. Lights flickering through windows in the palace wall suggest the grisly action taking place within.”
I don’t think this is finished. Maybe we should shoot the editor?
Both JJ and Vivien S. had “fairy music” in the lede?
Takes a fairy to make it pretty – even matricide.
“I wish Andrew Porter wouldn’t drop names as much as he does. He may be very much a doyen these days (b.1928), but he gratuitously compared a soprano to Welitsch the other day, just because he actually saw Ljuba.”
I think it is splendid that Porter prefaces every review of a Wagner performance with his memories of having seen Hotter and Schwarzkopf in “Garden” performances for which they learned the texts in good, clean English.
He is also a prime source for the general superiority of — among others — Sylvia Fisher, Jo Barstow, Harrison Birtwhistle and the great Jonathan Dove.
Dove’s Pinocchio soon outstayed its welcome as far as I was concerned, but the UK critics treated it as some kind of masterpiece. The production was quite fun, but the opera was at least 30% too long and the music unmemorable. It just sort of chugged along much of the time.