Comments on: Kam der neue Gott gegangen

By: Regina delle fate

Regina delle fate — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:44:32 +0000

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.

By: Regina delle fate

Regina delle fate — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:39:01 +0000

Hahaha @ love child of Welles and Borgnine

By: Regina delle fate

Regina delle fate — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:36:38 +0000

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.

By: Regina delle fate

Regina delle fate — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:33:54 +0000

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!

By: A. Poggia Turra

A. Poggia Turra — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:42:17 +0000

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).

By: armerjacquino

armerjacquino — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:36:03 +0000

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.

By: MontyNostry

MontyNostry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:41:51 +0000

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.

By: MontyNostry

MontyNostry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:38:27 +0000

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.

By: uwsinnyc

uwsinnyc — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:13:55 +0000

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.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:11:29 +0000

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.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:57:27 +0000

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.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:35:32 +0000

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.

By: manou

manou — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:40:34 +0000

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.

By: CL in DC

CL in DC — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:09:48 +0000

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.

By: bewilbered

bewilbered — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:03:00 +0000

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.

By: operaddict

operaddict — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:24:31 +0000

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.

By: manou

manou — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:44:13 +0000

Bashful Bacchus?

By: manou

manou — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:41:31 +0000

Great voice – pity he looks like the love child of Orson Welles and Ernest Borgnine (also like Mario Lanza on an overdose of cortisone).

By: Mrs Rance

Mrs Rance — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:54:59 +0000

And a subtle Bacchus is not alliterative, but it is surely an oxymoron.

By: Mrs Rance

Mrs Rance — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:50:37 +0000

No wonder Petrenko took the final duet quickly!

I was looking forward to a Bacchus named Lance!

By: Mrs Rance

Mrs Rance — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 11:45:22 +0000

Kim was only ok. Not much point or intent in her performance or singing. Back to the birdy type in the role. Another cutesy stage presence like Damrau. I like a more womanly Zerbinetta.

By: mandryka

mandryka — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:49:24 +0000

On a good night, Debbie V. really rocked this part. I don’t expect ever to be thrilled in quite that way at Ariadne. But Stemme was excellent, at times really sensational. Kim was OK, but not up to the level we have come to expect in the role at the Met. (Particularly drab in comparison to Damrau’s megawatt stage presence.)

The poor tenor. Just about everyone seemed very sympathetic. The booing was really ignorant and unforgivable. There were times he looked simply terrified. The Met owes him. (Some fat bitch was mouthing off in the elevator that she had the phone numbers of three tenors in New York who could have done better. She was lucky not to be smacked.)

The orchestra was wonderful. Spacious and luscious. Some rather daringly fast tempi, but I liked them.

I’m going back at least twice. Which shouldn’t be too hard, since there were close to a hundred empty seats in the balcony tonight, which is rather unusual. Such a wonderful opera! Hard to believe it’s been 48 years since those ravishing Rysanek/Bohm performances in its first season here.

By: lorenzo.venezia

lorenzo.venezia — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:31:35 +0000

Yes, at the Firenze Gotterdammerung he managed to sing whilst suspended upside down in gravity boots (act II) and then sound fresh and thrilling for act III.

By: operadent

operadent — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:59:55 +0000

I agree, Stemme was wonderful and Kim won me over.
I was in third row Balcony and all the booing I heard was coming from the upper parts of the Family Circle.
Idiots – booing a sick cover (who could also be called a sacrificial lamb) is a disgrace.

By: senti questa

senti questa — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:35:48 +0000

so delighted to hear positive things. i think that settles it. road trip!

By: Nerva Nelli

Nerva Nelli — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:23:48 +0000

Connolly has a nice sense of line but has neither the top nor the bottom for the role and it is a colorless instrument, as ineffective though less shrill in the music as Ann Murray was with the Philadelphia Orch back in the 90s.

Kristine Jepson last time out was FAR better. But she isn’t British, is she?

By: Nerva Nelli

Nerva Nelli — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:20:50 +0000

For the record, it was not Hendrick’s Met debut- it was to have been Ryan’s.

By: Nerva Nelli

Nerva Nelli — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:19:31 +0000

There was nothing amzaing about it. She was pretty adequate, which means to say that she should not have been asked to do her first Zerbinetta on the Met stage. She is a nice young talent and likeable but her top is not under complete control and she is not the mistress of the stage Zerbinetta needs to be. The pauses were sometimes unmsical. If you thought that– or what Pons provided- was great coloratura, NO WONDER you think Netrebko is so terrific.

By: Zerbinetta

Zerbinetta — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:19:28 +0000

I didn’t hear any booing in the orchestra. Poor guy, I hope he gets another shot under more favorable conditions.

Stemme was AWESOME. Kim is cute but was one-dimensional and had some trouble towards the end of that killer aria (which I, of course, know quite well).

By: Nerva Nelli

Nerva Nelli — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:15:35 +0000

“Dyke, ya know…”