Lascivious wassails
If you feel like discussing the Sirius broadcast of Antony and Cleopatra, here’s the place.
That bit just now sounded a lot like “An American in Paris!”
Quiz question: Mardian is sung by Andrea Velis… but the part was written for someone else. Who?
A couple of misconceptions in this thread need repairing. First of all, Gian Carlo Menotti had little if anything to do with the world premiere of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. In fact, he was a bit put out that Barber and the MET had gone with Zefirelli as libretist, since one of the stronget points about the relative success of VANESSA had been Menotti’s libretto.
The turntable fiasco at the MET happened during rehearsals, and caused four new productions to be adapted for use on a stage that no longer rotated. Much of the set shifting had to be done by muscle power, and the turntable wasn’t totally repaird till 1970.
It is NOT Zeferelli’s fault that this happened. The specifications given to the scenery designers about the MET’s new equipment stated the wrong weight bearing statistics, so Sr. Z designed scenery and personnel far in excess of the unit’s actual capacity. And that actual capacity was the wrong figure in the first place. It’s like they built a turntable that held 5,000 pounds when it was intended to hold 50,000. And they told the designers that it DID hold 50,000.
The pyramid malfunctioned in a dress rehearsal, and Price had to be extricated from it. There were no mishaps in performace, as I recall.
Barber got Menotti to assist him in revising the opera about 5 years after the MET. They did indeed remove several characters, and reshaped the piece somewhat. All subsequent performances and the recording with Esther Hinds and Jeffrey Wells are of the revised version.
What Sirius just broadcast is the world premiere, from September of 1966, of the original version.
Thank you for clearing up the misconceptions especially the writer of the work–it was Sam Barber who Leontyne remained very devoted to through out her career. I remember the premiere of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA. (YES, I am that old) It was a very big deal in the neighborhood that I grew up in (inner city) Lee, a women of color, was opening the “new” mett–WOW!
as a side note to the above: Leontyne received numerous “death threats” because she dared open the “new” met!!
Wasn’t she completely eclipsed by the *other* Cleopatra in another building on the Plaza? That’s what I’ve always thought, although my source for that is admittedly Sills’ autobiography.
Ha, ha. Bev was always good as self promotion.
The whole Antony/Caesar thing was just a tiny bit before my time, actually all the press for the opening of the new Met sparked my interest in going to Lincoln Center to see a live opera.
From a year or so later, the buzz among fans was certainly that the Met bombed with their opening and the NYCO Caesar was a huge success, so I’m thinking Bev was pretty straight about this.
And we can look at it this way, too, in terms of box office. The Met did one run of Antony and that was that. The NYCO programmed just a few Caesar’s(4?) in the Fall of 1966. It must have been a really hot ticket because for following two seasons they put the opera on for more than a dozen additional performances.
I went to one in early 1968 and tickets were hard to get. The production was quite striking too, in a very mimimalist kind of way, a contrast to the Met’s reportedly overblown effort. The lighting was very atmospheric.
And NYCO programmed another long run of Caesars in the early 70s where Bev closed out her run of Cleopatras. The production had enough oomph behind it for another revival (late 70s/early 80s) without Sills. I remember seeing Gianna Rolandi giving an impressive performance and June Anderson also sang Cleopatra.
A lot of Sills performance detail comes from beverlysillsonlin.com which has Sills performance annals, videos, etc; a great site for Sills admirers.
I will now turn this broadcast off–well, if Stephen Boyd or Debra Paget were in it, I might listen!
There’s a great hour-long documentary about the opening of the new Met and ANTONY & CLEOPATRA. It shows Price getting stuck in the pyramid. It also says that the MET is a 44-story building laid on its side!
So, Menotti and Barber were life partners, right? Any tales about that?
chaka, what is this documentary? i need to see it!
This was around on video for a short while back around 1990, then was withdrawn for copyright reasons. Presumably the usual pirates would have a copy.
I can’t find that 1966 documentary. I believe it is a Bell Telephone Hour program. I did find this opening night notice of almost twenty years before that.
Sorry, I should have said almost thirty years. It would be nice to see one of 1966 with Imelda Marcos and Lady Bird chatting
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The reason that the Sills Handel Caesar also sold a bit of the limelight fijytrewqwas that RCA relesaedas 654321q
Sorry abouty my previous stuffed nonsensical comment I accidently hit the send button
What I intended to say was that the Sills NYCO version of the ‘Cleopatra’ opera by Handel outshone in popularity was RCA released that set co starrng Norman Treigle.
The best we got of the Barber version was acouple of excerptson a Leontyne Price album.
Which one harry?
Isn’t Handel nicer than Barber?
Shhhhuuuusssshhh!!!!! Henry Holand will get all riled up!
Funny how the “ancient” opera seems so much more alive than the “modern” one.
But if I had the choice of going back in time and hearing Leontyne or Bubbles, I know exactly which soprano legend I would choose!
I feel that this is a bit like comparing Massenet to Mozart. I like Barber (and I like Massenet), but I don’t think he’d match the genius of Handel.
It would be tough choosing between the two legendary sopranos, but not a tough choice for me to pick which Cleopatra I would want to experience. Hopefully by the time time travel technology is perfected we won’t have to choose!
I agree with you there, No E. Hopefully, the time machine will be bus sized and we can all go back to see Price and Sills together.
But what would happen to today’s Met, then? I mean, they wouldn’t sell many tickets, if one could chose between a Ghoul’s Turandot and one with Nilsson and Corelli….
Hmm. Great question. Perhaps another contest is in order…
I’d go for an Aida in, I think, 1968, with Price, Bumbry, Bergonzi and Merrill.
Won’t anyone join me in the Wayback Bus for the Met’s one-time only Lucrezia Borgia with Maria de Macchi and Caruso?
Ponselle’s debut in FORZA DEL DESTINO and Flagstad’s debut in WALKURE.