In my book ‘experimentation’ is a word used to suggest researching to find answers. Any director ‘worth his/her salt’ already has their ‘vision’ intact, in their head, prior to the start of rehearsals.
Are you suggesting that NYCO is a place for what amounts to ‘workshopping’? Rehearsals COST MONEY. Ever heard of performers disheartened and un-nerved by directors changing course during rehearals when they sense ‘directors frigging around’: who then blame performers when their ratty ideas hit a brick wall?
A company getting back on its financial feet needs careful nuture – uneventul smooth teamwork from all involved. Bringing in some ‘big name director with their naturally impatient ambitions to make a quick mark’ is not always in the best overall interests of a NYCO or similiar organization, in the position it finds itself in.

No Expert: I suggest you have given yourself a apt name. Your convoluted comment about ‘The Eighth Wonder’ does not haze me in the least. Yes I happen to have seen that bomb of an opera….’just another quickly forgotten bumped out show’ created by self indulged cretins, many years ago. I now suggest you now get ready for the premiere of ‘Bliss’ the next serve of pseudo new wave ‘opera shite’ from Opera Australia.
Based upon a boring book for the literary chattering classes by Peter Carey.

Isn’t that the deleted mad scene from Eighth Wonder?
If not, it should be!

What does that have to do with Mortier? He planned to do Death in Venice in the ENO production. I saw it at the Coliseum and a) it was totally not regie theatre and b) it’s easily one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen on stage, though admittedly that had something to do with the incredible choral singing and the choreography for Tadzio and his friends.

The St. Francis di Assisi was going to be done at the Park Avenue Armory, like the incredible production of Die Soldaten was, and it wasn’t going to be , it was a production from the Ruhrtriennale. A couple of the other productions were going to be borrowed, and they weren’t regie! regie! regie! either.

God, you’re as dense as a neutron star. A vision can’t encompass experimentation? Wow.

Might I further add : yes, probably Mortier’s first season would have been almost done, but not in the manner H.H may wish to assume.
More like NYCO being ‘done like a dinner’ A.K.A ‘Fucked and financially finished’.
And leaving the smoking ruins in such a case behind, what would we see….?. All those operatic anarchists that pervade some areas of Opera exclaiming “Regie for regie’s sake!”. Ask where they would be then heading? Probably swaning off to create some ‘conceptualised high performance art happening’ of which they are still vague about for some misguided Arts Festival, and a fat fee. Employed by bigger idiots so gullible, who do not see such others’ far greater refined skill ‘at self promoting their own bull shit’. Oh! the names that quickly come into one’s head! When they should really be employed in shopping plaza complexes at the level of putting on kiddie-face painting shows or pop rock family entertainment for the passing trogs shopping.

Why exactly would someone have better access….?
Singer go according to where a opportunity is,and someone is paying the fee they have set.. Perhaps the size of a fee equates with ‘access’ better quality to Henry Holland. But whether that singer ‘then delivers’ is another matter. We know that, the World over. As for so called ‘vision’ in the case as discussed here with Mortier, that was and remains an unquantifiable intangible. A biased ‘what might have’ point made to support what then becomes an emtpy argument.

As for putting forward words like “to experiment, controversy etc” as virtuous and pretentious words for praising how Mortier has ‘vision’ , is contradictory. If he had a clear and definite ‘vision’ there would be no need of your term for ‘experimenting’. And as for perhaps deliberating seeking also ‘controversy’: that is the lame duck excuse always trotted out by artistic dickheads and pretenders. When has ‘controversy’ in itself, become the sure fire box office seller of any production? It may be a by -product, accidential or otherwise: (but in your words) for a Mortier to deliberately seek it, as you suggested he would……is beyond belief. That is, for something to be produced – that wishes to divide opinion and then detract from the potential box offices takings. And you are touting Mortier would be ‘successful’ for that!! I prefer those people that seeks all round crowd pleasers. And that does not have to denote ‘playing to the lower levels of audience awareness’ either.

Vision, access to better singers, designers and directors than the NYCO currently has, a willingness to experiment, controversy etc. He left because he was lied to about the money he asked for upfront being available. If he’d had that money, his first season would be almost done.

I cannot imagine things (I.E) like Britten’s Turn of the Screw or Poulenc;s Le Voix Humaine ‘working in an 3800 seat cavernous space’. They would be lost. Like trying to stretching a film from 4/3 full screen ratio -out into some silly IMAX 3-D travesty. For NYCO to go head to head with the MET is lunacy. Leave the MET to its own devices. Always, there is a market for alternative fare. The motto ‘do what you can do better than your opposition’. It does not have to be a hostile stance but one in the best situation, of both forces complimenting each other in their own way. Could one imagine the MET with its big logistics ad demands considering this type of NYCO programming. NO!

Smaller operas HAVE A RIGHT TO BE CONSIDERED AND PRESENTED before a public, and not shot down in flames ….just because ‘they are not big enough (to attract 3800 people!)
I have seen a lovely performance of Copland’s The Tender Land done in a hall of 250 -300 people….in a performance that shamed the standards of a National Company! It included singers that have appeared in Vienna and SF. Done out of sheer love!

Familiar with Bernstein’s A Quiet Place (since its premiere in Austria -the following DG recording leading from it), why the ‘fright’ as expressed here by some. It is accessible. The rest of the NYCO future programming is not what I would call ‘insane and far out’. Strauss’ Intermezzo??? I cannot see eeither opera as ‘a deathwish’ as sterlingkay called it, at (20.1). Jeepers, just have a look at other countries and see the wild programming some of them ,commit to. The detactors would be grateful and give NYCO at the very least a give go at being a success.
What could the precious Gerard Mortier have added, to make NYCO a resounding success? Success mainly for himself maybe, with a extra big fat fee perhaps.
The MET has had enough flops and crisis changes of casting lately, now at least give NYCO the benefit of the doubt under the new regime to at least make a couple themseves…….then contributors here, may have a perfect right to scream, not before.

Now go back to some nice light Gilbert & Sullivan or Lehar and a nice romance book….. the rest of us will not disturb you.

The choice of A Quiet Place for revival by Harvard’s Lowell House Opera in 1991 (inexplicably billed as only the second production ever of the work? not counting La Scala, Washington DC, and Vienna then?) was rather quixotic if not for the occasion of Berntein’s recent passing (revival of a more popular work would have less value in terms of public exposure, I’d imagine). The opera is long and has many tedious stretches of clunky music and clumsy psycho-babble explorations of family dysfunctional dynamics, but it somehow ends its tortuous journey on an uplifting note (could it be that the audience felt such relief when the opera finally ended?). Nonetheless I really enjoyed the zany canibalized recycling of “Trouble in Tahiti” for the (dead/resurrected) Mother’s flashback scene in the middle of the opera. The great pity was that for all the hassle of aseembling a fine young cast and putting up a visually pleasing and effective set, not to mention a sizeable orchestra of over 50 players in neat black dress, the production yielded a paltry audience of barely two dozens (at best!) on the night I attended … talking about playing to an almost empty house … so the performers should be applauded for their effort and their heart in reviving somewhat of a lost cause against great odds … I hope NYCO’s attempt won’t meet too similar a fate.

“An evening with Christine Brewer”??!!??
Hope to God she doesn’t sing that dreadful dreck from ‘Carnival’ she always wants to drag out. I KNEW she wouldn’t have the stamina for Turandot. What a waste of a major voice when there is such a dearth of that type.

Well, at least Intermezzo, in which Flanagan distinguished herself ten years ago, will be back and I would like to hear “A Quiet Place” which a couple of peeps have tried to convince me of.

Good Luck, Man of Steel!

The underlying theme of he new season at City Opera can be summed up in one word: DYSFUNCTIONAL. I don’t have time to explain

oh no, we wouldn’t want you use up any of the time you spend on Youtube finding off-topic videos to post.

a catchall buzzword like ‘dysfunctional’ is a pretty meaningless tag in a context like this. You can grab a handful of operas from the current Met roster and slap the same label on them if you’re so inclined:

Lulu
Carmen
House of the Dead
Ariadne
Traviata

Dysfunctional all. There — so how easy it is when there’s no thinking involved?

But yeah, when IS New York going to get St François? GET ON IT, GELB.

[La Cieca appreciates Quanto's enthusiasm, but, as some other commenters have pointed out, a huge number of embedded videos does make for a slow-loading page.]

some might not like her heavy vibrato, but i think she uses it to exciting and good effect. the top is astounding.

here’s her wagner:

why isn’t she better known? what a fantabulous talent.

But hey, what do I know? For instance I never even knew that Schoenberg, Feldman and Zorn constituted a “delicious trio.” Poor George, that public speaking course can’t stop him from sounding like a twit.

nice painting, by the way