Le Mot du Jour, extramural edition
Ordinarily La Cieca bestows the Wildean accolade upon a local cher pube. This time, though, she cannot resist praising one of the commentariat at Unpop!, Daniel Stephen Johnson‘s new project over at the New Haven Advocate.
The background is a discussion of a piece by (you guessed it) Anthony Tommasini, discussing “Boomer” composers. This one commenter reflects that
… this Tommasini article, and other things he’s written in this general vein, cannot be understood completely without reference to his hero, mentor, and sometime-object-of-study, Virgil Thomson. Both Thomson’s outlook and values a musician, and his beliefs about the proper role and responsibilities of the newspaper critic are mirrored in this piece. Seriously, A Composer on the Aisle is totally the Rosetta Stone for understanding Tommasini’s think pieces.
And then Another Greg says:
Except that the real Rosetta Stone was useful in unlocking something interesting and valuable.
On the evidence of the above quip, La Cieca (a Boomer herself) feels that it is not at all too soon to pass the baton to the next generation.
I am truly blessed, to have all these fantastic Gregs up in my comments!
Greg hit it on the nail – Virgil Thomsom rules in TT’s head. One wonders why TT was ever hired by the NYT in the first place.
..i’m in yer comments, bein’ yer gregz…
So what is the proper term for a group of Gregs?
Aggregate?
Gregarious?
Gregolo!
The Latin GREX (X = G+S) means “herd” or “flock” of cows or sheep. This seems un peu unfortunate, n’est-ce pas?
But wait: The Romans begin to use it for “troop,” “company” (of gladiators, par exemple, or charioteers) and then for “assembly,” “crowd” (of players, participants).
Pedantic yes, but you will forgive because it is just too parfait, non?
Can we have a post about the Met’s use of mics and amplification? I wouldn’t mind seeing some clarity on the subject.
At last Tuesday’s Fille, there were a couple of times that really stood out. Leah, as Marie, was near the front of the stage, L-R about 1/3 of the way from the right (audience’s right). Back turned to the audience, she’d speak, and the sound would come, crystal clear, from the far right. My initial thought was, “That’s an interesting acoustical property of the stage – that it would accentuate her voice like that and then reflect it from a different area.” After reading a few comments about singers being amplified, things made a lot more sense.
I’m not sure if it’s a question of singers themselves wearing mics either. I’ve been to a few performances where my companion has said, “That’s the sweet spot! I hope the performer sings from there! There’s a few different spots like that on the stage.” We had just assumed that those were places that accentuated a singer’s voice. Now I’m wondering if that’s just where the microphones are.
Of course, I could be off base entirely, and what I’m hearing is just the natural properties of the Met. I’d like to know though.
AFAIK, the Met has admitted to using amplification for dialogue (as you cite above) and offstage effects (Klytemnestra’s screams) but consistently denies using it for onstage singing.
Most theaters are known to have acoustical sweet spots.
The Met definitely has sweet spots. The area you are describing is precisely one. Experienced singers are aware of them. Other factors to think about are the acoustics of each specific production. I remember when Natalie sang il faut partir and her back was to the audience, her sound bounced off the back of the set and zoomed right to your ear. Another instance is in the last act of boheme… singers voices project very well because of the smallness of the set in that act. That being said….sometimes i wonder about amplification in productions with enormous sets that extend very far back. But then I wonder where the speakers would be and how people sitting right in front of them would not notice.
I remember seeing The Gambler from the Dress Circle and that particular sweet spot was very noticeable.
Many seasons ago I was told by someone who worked for the house that only one singer had ever worn a body mike at the Met. This chatty cathy relayed that because of her battle with a smallish voice and closeness with Maestro Levine the unnamed soprano was given the assist. I still don’t know if I believe it.
Years ago I had season tix in the front row of Dress Circle, just to the right of the center-left aisle, and there was definitely a strange acoustic there: any singer standing far downstage left (i.e., the other side from me) came through quite clear and loud from the top of the proscenium. I first heard it in Mentzer’s Komponist and wondered whether she was miked (she didn’t need it, of coruse), but when the effect occurred again with Voigt’s Ariadne it was obviously just something architectural (the effect, not Voigt’s Ariadne, although…). I noticed it several more times that season, and didn’t renew the seat. Mostly because I determined that I had stolen the seat from the dead husband of the widow sitting next to me. She also had a thing for noisy plastic bags and late seating….
Tony T’s key line: “No camp prevailed.”
(Says he!)