parterre box

43 comments

• Krunoslav says:

  Cruz:`”Kruno, please tell me that you went to those 3 Bohemes and 2 Rondines for reasons other than Gheorghiu. Otherwise, I don’t get why you would subject yourself to her so often when you dislike her so much.”

  If you read my post, I don’t find her performances worthless (it’s a lovely sound, what there is of it, and she has more style than many people around today) I just don’t think she is ever playing anything than herself and I don’t find her either a sympathetic or a convicing presence onstage. The reasons I went to those shows were named Jonas Kaufman, Marius Brenciu and Giuseppe Filianoti! But I would certainly have gone to see Gheorghiu once in each of the operas, which are certainly valid choices for her talents.

  Similarly, I was not a particular fan of Sutherland or Marton, but I could hear that they were very fine in some of what they did (indeed in some cases quite sensational, which I would *not* say of anything AG has done save for the Solti TRAVIATA) and would go along to hear them in anything I thought I could stand; I drew the line at Dame Joan in FLEDERMAUS and MERRY WIDOW and Marton in TROVATORE.

  on April 1, 2010 at 3:10 AM
• Harry says:

  ‘Get out your handkerchief’ no way! Looking at that Traviata photo.
  Caption….
  Violetta : “Alfredo, look no dandruff. I changed my shampoo today. Can’t you see the difference”
  Alfredo : “Shit forget that. I can still smell its pong from here and I am feeling allergic… I will be doing all the coughing by the 3rd Act”.

  on April 1, 2010 at 3:12 AM
• Harry says:

  Camille 27#: Just, you mind now…look at the true meaning of what you said (inadvertently, I hope!!!!)in that last paragraph of yours, about La Cieca possibly shutting down her ‘box’ to J.J. However could think up such a wicked thought. To your room and no dinner. We are shell shocked.

  on April 1, 2010 at 3:20 AM
• CruzSF says:

  Kruno@31: Fair enough. I suspect I too would have drawn the lines where you did.

  on April 1, 2010 at 3:29 AM
• sensibility says:

  This is news!Or maybe not.
  Angela said she hadn’t seen Roberto since last year(he said: everything is OK,they are not separated) and suggests she loves again.
  http://angelagheorghiu.blogspot.com/
  Great.Everybody has the right to be happy.

  on April 1, 2010 at 5:21 AM
• mandryka says:

  My experience attending the first Traviata was much closer to JJ than than to TT. It really was a bit silly of TT to spend so many of his allowed words to discussing the shortcomings of the conductor. I doubt that anyone there would have not agreed that it was a thrilling Traviata from top to bottom. Georghiu was superb overall; Valenti showed great promise with what seemed to be a beautifully trained voice and wonderful stage presence.

  The occasional contretemps between pit and stage we hardly worth mentioning in comparison to the overall effect of the performance. “The audience loved it,” sniffs TT. Well yeah, they did, and with good reason. It really IS because of evenings like this that people love opera. Unforgettable.

  on April 1, 2010 at 8:29 AM
• Camille says:

  @#33– my dear Harry

  Why, whatever could you mean?
  We are “shell shocked”? What? An attack of crabs?
  Crustaceans vs. Australians?

  OT: Any word from Sydney as to how well Dame Joan’s gams are knitting up?

  xxx ooo aus nyc

  on April 1, 2010 at 10:23 AM
• Harry says:

  Is not Leonard Slatkin the son of Felix Slatkin the famous conductor of all those Hollywood Bowl recordings of yesteryear? In any case I accept it is foolish for a conductor to put up on his website that he did not know La Travesty or was ‘less familiar’ with it, prior to the engagement.Things will survive. There is life after the MET. Being ‘replaced’ there (using every conceivable allusive term under the sun to explain it )is becoming a big fashion statement, in itself. Perhaps T-shirts with ‘You survived the Met’ should be handed out to each legitimate candidate, upon their departure.
  Gheorghiu continues on, doing her tired ‘flog the cat’ Travesty her way, not Verdi’s. She is, after all ‘getting a bit long in the tooth’ and just exactly where is her full extensive range of back -up roles she should be fully conversant with, at her age? Talk about postage stamp divas, not knowing roles and Operas???!! Perhaps Gelb is sucking up a bit too, and trying to impress the willful petulant A.G. He needs ‘staaars’ he can truck in: who will promenade, make fleeting appearances and open their gobs. It is Barnum & Baily opera at the MET, remember.
  I am rather puzzled about the fate of Simone Young at the MET. I saw her do a fabulous Berg Lulu where she was totally in control and absolutely sure footed throughout.

  on April 1, 2010 at 3:42 PM
• quoth the maven says:

  Harry—

  Where did you see Simone Young’s Lulu? It certainly wasn’t at the Met. I did hear her do a Cav & Pag there garbled from beginning to end—she seemed not to have the slightest notion of what the music should sound like.

  on April 1, 2010 at 4:32 PM
• Harry says:

  qouth the maven: I saw Simone Young do Lulu in Melbourne. At that time, before taking up her present position in Germany, she had rightfully asked Opera Australia for more funding to allow for a few more musicians to be employed back in Sydney by Opera Australia for the Sydney Opera House. Imagine the un-nerving situation she faced there. Faced with conducting some operas at times, where there was not enough instrumentalists present to cover requirements during an entire performance. I.E : Having stringed instrument players shift position at times, grab or take up a different stringed instrument essentially vital to that passage of the score in that pit under the puny narrow ‘antiquated’ Sydney Opera house stage. What a farcial situation.
  Melbourne does not suffer any of elitist Sydney’s silly cramped ‘looking very -narrow back lane’ problems. Instead Melbourne has a stage both big – deep and super-max wide. With every modern stage facility: room for full stage-sized off stage ‘trucks’ in three directions, scenary ‘flys’ galore, revolves and trapdoors, big orchestra pit, and… musicians.
  Melbourne at times tends to laugh, seeing some scenary built especially ‘to fit’ Sydney, looking all folorn and lonely when placed onstage in Melbourne. I remember vividly that Melbourne Lulu performance, Young did. At curtain call, she came on ,walked directly from middle upstage to downstage, wearing a long evening shocking- red silk dress with a slivery train. I think she actually conducted the opera in it! No doubt a personal in-joke : a ‘protest’… that here is the ‘notorious woman’ everybody was then chatting about. After that, the O.A got Richard Hickox and ‘all that uninteresting British influence’ plus the now famous ructions he personally created- before he finally ‘left the planet for good’.

  on April 1, 2010 at 6:13 PM