Regie within reach
That trio of delicious candy-covered ladies tempted you to all sorts of wrong guesses, cher public, but nobody could figure out their relationship to each other, which would surely have given the game away.
They’re cousins, you see, and the work in which they appear is Offenbach’s La Périchole as presented at the Komische Oper Berlin, directed by Nicolas Stemann.
Here’s a glimpse at the whole thing, wrappers and all, in action.
And now for this weeks quiz, which looks to be 100% sugar-free. Remember, cher public, if you actually recognize the production, mum’s the word.
Trovatore?
This HAS to be Hamlet.
1) Hamlet and Gertrude
2) Ophelia, possibly in a mad scene
3) Doute la lumiere w/ Hamlet and Ophelia
(Was the one from two weeks ago really Pique Dame? Or is our hostess refusing to tell us the answer?)
This one seems to be Fidelio.
1. Leonore (no need for a boy disguise) says something to Rocco in Act 1.
2. Leonore does something in the middle of Act 1.
3. Leonore is reunited with Florestan in Act 2.
Yes, that was Queen of Spades a couple of weeks ago: the last photo was of Anja Silja in the title role.
Just nicking pits again. Is Silja really playing “the title role”? The role is almost always listed as “The Old Countess.”
Well, let’s look at it this way. Who takes the final bow in a performance of Il trovatore? The title character, that’s who, even though his proper name is Manrico, and “The Troubador” is just his sobriquet. The Old Countess is nicknamed “The Queen of Spades,” and so she should count as the title character. (She certainly was when Leonie Rysanek sang the part and took the final curtain call!)
Or, to put it another way, if The Old Countess is not the title character in The Queen of Spades, then who is?
Just a little about that production; I saw it at the Komische Oper last summer. It’s set in a modern hotel with the Russian Mafia, lots of tacky shiny stuff. It doesn’t really work with the 18th-century pastiche bits of the score, the intermezzo intentionally loses all of its charm and the first half of the first scene with the children’s chorus is cut entirely. But the class elements are worked out nicely (you understand why Lisa wants to get away from Yeletsky, he’s just another part of the mob), and Ghermann’s transformation into the Old Countess (he actually dresses up as her–it was in the first set of quiz photos) was actually quite the coup de theatre. Overall I liked it.
The director is Thilo Reinhardt.
I’d always thought it was the card he turns over in the last game. I’m just being difficult because I’m bored and there’s nothing much else going on. The Old Countess doesn’t always get the last bow — just when Rysanek does her (maybe one or two others, and God help us if it ever becomes a tradition because we’d be up to our asses in superannuated contraltos strangling tenors with their boas to get what they feel is their rightful due.)
And Manrico is not his real name. His real name, according to scraps discarded from early drafts of the original play on which the libretto was based, was Delphinius and there were in addition a couple of sisters, Maria Elena Bonaventura and Maria Elena Santa Monica. No evidence has turned up to give us the real name of the character we know as the Count Di Luna; one assumes that he was simply referred to as “No Name” until his father died giving him the right to assume the title. Maria Elena Bonaventura and Maria Elen Santa Monica never married and to avoid shame were shipped off to South America where they opened a bed-and-breakfast in Montevideo.
Wozzeck?
Hmmm…Looks like the tenor goes for the soprano, and the mezzo’s pissed. A corporate Aida, maybe?
Turandot.
Dear me, something here screams Carmen.
#1 is Rufus Wainright’s new Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Funny, BB, I thought it was Thomas Adès’s new The Duchess of York.
1. The D of Y lights into the underling who didn’t vet that “potential client” before adding his name to the “Access List” on her cell. “I’m Back in My Hovel Again!”
2. The Queen, still remarkably fit at 95, sings “Who Will Rid Me of this Troublesome Sh*t!” as servants rush to refill her cuppa. Critics have called the coloratura on the asterisk “both obscene and hilarious.”
3. Andy, just returned from another Tour of Duty, greets his latest mistress: “How I Missed You, Honey, Remind Me, What’s Your Name.”
Note the remarkable job that makeup and costume did on the D of Y (1). Beneath that marvelous wig lurks, you guessed it, Ian Bostridge.
The first picture seems like it ought to give it all away but I really have no idea. Don Carlo, maybe?
OK – I actually know what opera this is. Just came across a review of it quite by accident. And in the spirit of keeping the thread going I’ll keep mum…