Kam der neue Gott gegangen
La Cieca hears that Lance Ryan, scheduled to make his Met debut tonight in Ariadne auf Naxos, is indisposed. Subbing as Bacchus is Michael Hendrick.
La Cieca hears that Lance Ryan, scheduled to make his Met debut tonight in Ariadne auf Naxos, is indisposed. Subbing as Bacchus is Michael Hendrick.
And a subtle Bacchus is not alliterative, but it is surely an oxymoron.
Great voice – pity he looks like the love child of Orson Welles and Ernest Borgnine (also like Mario Lanza on an overdose of cortisone).
Bashful Bacchus?
In an opera house, my seat would not be 5 feet away from him. The size of his voice, the size of him…would fill the house, thrill the audience and get the job done in fine style. HD will be the murder of opera, except for the light ones that the pretty, young, skinny sexy singers can handle…which includes none of the ones I want to hear. Obviously the audience there didn’t mind his looks.
Hendrick’s web site says he will be covering in two operas at the Met next spring. The roles are not given, but based on the time frames and his listed repertory I’m guessing Bacchus again and maybe Gherman for the earlier period. Maybe Tambourmajor in Wozzeck, though he doesn’t yet list that as one of his roles.
I made the trip up from DC and am thinking about going again for the matinee in a few weeks. Stemme was fantastic – very strong and secure. I thought Kim and Connolly also did a good job.
You are of course correct – sadly the disbelief is getting harder and harder to suspend now that we have become used to close-ups and expect a modicum of veracity onstage .
I have seen Alfredo Kraus in his sixties (or seventies?) as Nemorino, I have seen Pav in Tosca where he had to die by sliding slowly and precariously down a wall, I have seen consumptive Violettas who seemed to bear the illness very well indeed, and lots of Juliettes who looked a tad older than 13, and of course one always has to see a Turandot who has to inspire violent love on sight – sometime not very easy to believe.
Audiences nowadays are more demanding as Peter Gelb seems to know very well. Sad, but true.
People falling asleep…….jeepers! Over the last few hours I have listened to a complete Lucia di Lammermoor, quickly followed with Debussy’s Pelleas & Melisande. Where is people’s attention span these days? Probably having being wasted, waiting for over long intervals at some live performances to conclude.Then going back in, to rage about the type of mounted production they are seeing. Wasting a full fuckin’ night hearing to just one opera?? Which, in most cases goes infinitely -’into the wind’ for all time in any case, the moment it finishes.
Prune Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane ..as the singers and orchestra search for ‘that unattainable lost chord’?…..never! Shit it is a overwhelming sonic blockbuster to the ears.
Imaagine the MET with a 3800 seat capcity trying to mount the ‘impossible’. Thank God for recordings.
Zerbinetta…..She should have had both her ‘birdy’ and the ‘womanly’ aspects of her character, on display by the end of the Opera.
A little calmer….a little wiser, about life.
Too often it is cast as just a ’show-off’ role.
Shouldn’t he have been cast as Jabber in Star Wars who Princess Leia strangles.
Was he the same tenor that Gregiev used, in that video of La Forza from the Kirov? All I can vividly remember was, that the tenor and the baritone were yelling and way off key at times.
I was at the performance last night and have to say that Stemme was truly great. I remember loving her after the Dutchman years ago but the voice has grown since then into a richer and more “Wagnerian” sound. The bottom, middle and top were all secure. I can now understand that she would make a credible Isolde, esp in a smaller house.
Kim was fantastic too though I agree with those above that it was bordering on the overly cutesy/pip-squeaky end and I too prefer a somewhat fuller-voiced Zerbinetta.
Connolly has become a bit of a heroine here in the UK. I have only heard her on CD and, I agree, the sound has little character or real substance. Murray’s voice at least had a penetrative quality, though never much allure. Neither of them has a Composer voice to my ears.
Racette was a non-event as Heliane. They obviously couldn’t get either Brewer or Voigt that night — both have the right kind of voice for the role — so they just got another American soprano. And how about Andreas Schmidt’s attempt at a performance? Sad.
Connolly was a wonderful Octavian at ENO last year. She’s an incredibly intense stage performer- I think a lot of what makes her special would be lost on radio or record.
I heard Ryan as Erik in Fliegende Hollander in Stuttgart a couple of years ago. Clear, bright heldentenor quality – excellent control of dynamics. A bit of a “sob” effect at one point, but it passed quickly. An excellent, almost fierce actor (it was a Bieito production, so Erik was less of a milquetoast than usual).
Lance Ryan was excellent as the Siegfried-Siegfried in the Valencia but much less convincing in Götterdämmerung – he sounded exhausted, tight-voiced an nasal as if he had given everything he had three nights earlier and had little left to give. He’s a useful tenor – like Ian Storey, who learned Tristan in three months when Burkhard Fritz pulled out of the Scala production – but not the second coming. Of course, neither are a match for the unforgettable Alberto Remedios!
Oh God – I’d forgotten that Monty! I left at the intermission. That was a good advert no-one, especially Korngold. Poor Pat Racette made her London opera debut in that I think. The tenor was woefully bad, but at least Bacchus is a short part and can be sung by a lyric with stamina and firm high notes.
Hahaha @ love child of Welles and Borgnine
Hear, hear, Armerjacquino. Connolly’s voice is probably a bit small for the Met and she hasn’t been invited to sing the role at the ROH. And of course, we had Ms Jepson singing the Komponist at Covent Garden when Ms Garanca decided to drop the role from her repertoire. She didn’t look great in the part, but she sang very well and got very warm reviews.The best recent Komponist in London was surely Ms Graham in the infamous Not-the-Debbie-Voigt-Ariadne revival.