Step up to the Mike
“My goal is just to make as many people happy with my throat as I can.” [Time Out New York]
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I’m not sure this quote is talking about singing or anything musical at all! LOL
Too easy!
As a sympathetic but nonplussed Eileen Heckart once said to Marilyn Monroe, “Oh, honey….”
In a slightly different vain, The Huffington Post tells all that the L.A. Opera’s Ring has not made anyone too happy around L.A., or otherwise….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-katz-/how-do-you-lose-5960000-o_b_638092.html
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
Artery of arteries; al is artery.
Tells you which way the wind blows. NOT !
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.
Careful there. Lots of us were very happy with the LA Ring Cycle. Yes, it was a financial disaster, but artistically much of it was totally awesome. Like many of the people I saw it with, I absolutely loved it. Opera loses money. This one lost a lot of money. But the financial damage–as the article makes clear–is an economic and management issue, not an artistic failing.
If the national media and some of the other people crowing about the LA Opera’s debt had taken the trouble to actually see the thing, maybe it would have sold more tickets and not been quite such an economic catastrophe in the first place.
I agree with you, Zerbinetta. I attended the final Gotterdamerung a couple of weeks ago and it was an incredibly thrilling experience and when Achim Freyer, surprisingly, came out for a final bow, the audience went wild. It felt like an incredible success to me.
Opera: Twilight of the Funds. (or ‘The Financial Immolation’).
Music by Richard Wagner
Direction by Achim Freyer.
Production of the L.A Opera.
Whether lots of “you” were happy with the L.A. Ring or not doesn’t change the fact that it was a bomb, financially and otherwise, and has brought this great company to the brink of bankruptcy. I didn’t write that article, by the way. Two of the biggest principals in the cast had much to say about this debacle, if you recall.
Opera might lose money, but we’re talking Six million dollars here. Economic failing or managerial…what’s the difference? This financial disaster still stands to possibly put lots of people out of work at the L.A. Opera. This situation will hopefully be a big wake-up call to other companies who put “artistic” values over financial common sense…especially these days.
But one can be unhappy with what the Ring did to the LA Opera’s finances, not with Freyer and Conlon’s Ring itself. I didn’t imply that you wrote the article, nor that the article is unreasonable, nor even that the company isn’t in dire financial straits. Obviously, it is. I think that this production’s artistic qualities didn’t get nearly enough attention–attention that might have helped sell tickets–which speaks to the pathetic state of arts journalism in the US.
There is also an ugly schadenfreude side to many of the critics, who seem happy that the company has led itself to disaster with a production that they have deemed a ridiculous artistic failure without having even seen it.
“This situation will hopefully be a big wake-up call to other companies who put “artistic” values over financial common sense…especially these days.”
Why? So we get fiscally responsible seasons filled with revivals of Boheme, Carmen, Butterfly, Traviata, Barber? Zzzzz . . .
Like operaddict, I also disagree with your claim, the LA Ring “was a bomb, financially and otherwise.” Financial yes, artistic no. You may not have liked Freyer’s point of view, but it was intelligent and artistic. The fact that two over the hill singers, who by their participation in it could never experience the Ring, moaned and groaned does not justify your argument.
Yes, God forbid opera companies should do anything artistic, or, as you put it “artistic,” like the unadorned word doesn’t suffice to convey your sneering attitude toward art.
There are opera companies all over the world in big financial trouble, and many of them in fact have been for years practicing “common sense” to the point of artistic stultification. Just because you hate a production and therefore are gleeful when it fails doesn’t mean that you know anything about how artistic administration.
When Katz says that SFO “had ample experience cultivating Wagner audiences long before they attempted” their first Ring, he’s bending the facts to bolster his case that the L.A. project was foolhardy from the get-go.
When SFO mounted its first complete Ring cycle in 1935, the company was 12 years old, the War Memorial Opera House was 3 years old, and SFO hadn’t yet mounted even one of the Ring operas individually. Other than a single Tristan in 1927, there had been no consistent presentation of Wagner until the ’30′s, and this single ’35 cycle was spread over an allegedly unrealistic (according to Katz) eight days. No doubt there were a few naysayers calling it “hubris,” but Merola wanted the Company to grow and move forward, and felt it was time to take the plunge (admittedly cushioned with an all-star lineup that included Flagstad’s first Siegfried Brunnhilde).
Personally, if I’m pissed at L.A. for anything, it’s for not finding a way to preserve their Ring for posterity using the 3D technology we were discussing a couple of weeks ago. Now, that was bad planning for you…
Regarding the LA Ring, I’m struck by the fact that both LA Opera and Washington National Opera, both run by Placido Domingo, put on new Ring cycles at about the same time, and both have suffered major financial difficulties as a result. Was the possibility of sharing a production of the cycle ever discussed? It seems like that might have saved both companies a lot of trouble and money.
prunier–The Zambello “American” Ring is a co-production with SFO, so Washington wasn’t flying solo; I don’t believe their financial difficulties are as closely tied to their Ring presentation as is the case in L.A. I have no idea whether L.A. ever seriously considered a co-production; long before Freyer came on board, they were talking about cutting-edge special effects and hoping they could bring in someone along the lines of Steven Spielberg, which doesn’t suggest making it a cooperative venture.
BTW, SFO is picking up the tab for Gotterdammerung; it had its first technical rehearsals (sets/lighting etc) this past week, apparently without any hitches.
Thank you for that perspective. Leaving far from LA, and paying only partial attention (mostly through posts on this site), I got the impression that the Ring was a failure but it’s nice to know that the established narrative isn’t necessarily true. I agree that there seems to be a feeling of schadenfreude on the part of those who declare the whole enterprise a bomb.
Opera is always going to be a money-losing venture with fundraising making up the difference. It is possible to stage the Ring and not have the company go bankrupt. As an opera fundraiser, I believe strongly in fiscal responsibility. But hiding behind safe rep choices and acting all virtuous (“we’re being fiscally responsible”) isn’t the answer either. It’s about taking calculated risks — but the risks have to be taken. Season after season of mostly Boheme and Carmen will utlimately spell the death of a company. Companies need to strike a balance between the popular (the Puccini operas really do sell more tickets on average) and the artistically imaginative. If you build a trusting audience, they will take the risk with you.
I appreciate kashania what you are saying and I will not knock the fund-raisers.
But the important thing for opera companies, firstly : they have to, have the cast to pull off what is planned.
Too many opera companies plan things ‘hoping someone can do it’…. not a case of ‘having in hand, people that prove they can and do – do it’.
Opera companies are no different to a factory. If you do not have the right ‘casting’ merchandise and production machinery to start manufacture ….and enough ‘first grade quality back up parts, on hand (not promised from elsewhere)’ should the project run into difficulties :’don’t even think of attempting it!’
If only this, was the way opera companies were ran….if, only!.
Instead, too often: It is the scenario of ‘tragic- comic opera’ made in the company boardroom. With a collection of clots, clowns, dreamers, nincompoops, charlatans,business net-workers, social upstarts, wannabes and various wash-ups all with private agendas. Sitting together and forming silly supposed ‘consensus’ decisions.
We should be even remarkably surprised Opera has survived as long as it has, considering the business modeling, on which it sits..
Bohemes, Carmens and Traviatas will likely remain the mainstay operas of any company’s repertoire for the forseeable future. In well over 100 years, they haven’t spelled the death of opera yet! Sadly, even the more successful new opuses usually get only a brief, passing glance before being relegated to the operatic rubbish heap. There is no reason why even the most tried and true operas can’t be done in new, exciting and interesting ways.
Let’s not forget, either, that while older, seasoned operagoers tire of traditional productions, new audiences do not have those experiences to draw upon.
Last season, as the Bondy Tosca was being booed royally on opening night, astonished new opera audience members had no idea why others around them were booing! What was all the fuss about, they wondered? After all, this was their first Tosca, having never seen the opera before in any previous incarnation. If Tosca unfortunately was no longer the Tosca many had grown to know and expect, they were the last to know.
No, traditional, no-risk productions are not the answer either. But throwing 30 million at a controversial, oddball Ring during troubled financial times was obviously not a wise move. 70 or 80 years ago, productions such as Mr. Freyer’s weren’t needed. The singers and conductors carried the opera with their magnificent voices and interpretation. Flagstad, Traubel and Varnay would have had serious issues with what Brunnhilde’s are required to do these days. I would imagine Melchior, London and Schorr would not have been happy either. Today, singers are at the mercy of extremely raked stages, costumes which limit vision and movement, and stagings which are lightyears away from the original concept.
L.A.’s Ring didn’t suffer as a result of a lack of publicity. Ring lovers were well aware of what they might see should they decide to spend that $1,037 for the series. Advanced publicity made sure of it. They stayed away.
There is no Schadenfreude here. As a lifelong operalover, the last thing I, or anyone, wants to see is the failure of a great opera house.
I hope that L.A. will continue on and survive this horrible financial downturn.
As I said, the top ten operas are necessary and do sell lots of tickets. It’s true that new fans of opera flock to Tosca and Butterfly — and frankly, why not? But I said that if an opera company sticks to mostly top ten operas, it will be its death. A company can’t form an identity by presenting routine productions of the safe rep with the bottom line being the only priority.
Yes, have imaginative takes on the standards (as you said) but also take your audience on an adventure. Give them Boheme AND something off the beaten track. It depends on context as well. For some audiences, a Britten or Janacek opera may be as far as “off the beaten track” as they can go. Other companies’ audiences have been more developed and are ready to move beyond Britten or Janacek to something truly rare or adventurous.
The only thing I object to is the formula where it’s decided that top ten operas = good, and adventurous programming = bad.
Board members can’t do good programming. It’s up to artistic management to present the Board with a balanced vision for programming — calcuated risks combined with audience favourites. Save the big-name singers (if you can afford them) for the more adventurous programming. Guide you audience over a number years. Start them with Jenufa and then cultivate them to the point when you can take the risk of From the House of the Dead. Introduce them to contemporary works with an established Adams or Glass opera and work them up to a new comission. Do this alongside a Boheme with a cast of young singers and maybe take a chance on a talented director who doesn’t have a big resume.
“Flagstad, Traubel and Varnay would have had serious issues with what Brunnhilde’s are required to do these days.”
What hubris. How can you claim to intuit what dead singers of several generations back would think of today’s opera world, just because you would not want to be a performer in these productions? Perhaps Flagstad, Traubel, and Varnay would cherish being stimulated by a Christoph Loy rather than endure the ‘traffic direction’ they received at the Met 70 years ago. Look how Varnay flourished under Wieland Wagner, who was as radical in his day (if not more) as Loy is today. If the singers of the part were active today, they’d be accustomed to the theatrical demands which have been pretty common since the 70s.
Agreed Arianna, it’s nonsense. One reason Bing stopped casting Melchior was his aversion to rehearsals. He and Traubel were famous for pulling practical jokes on each other onstage. If you listen to his Walküre broadcast with Bampton, he’s constantly rushing the beat. The visceral excitement of the voice is amazing, but musicianship and dedication to the dramatic moment – huh. Hardly a paragon.
Nilsson surprised Wieland Wagner when she told him after all her Isoldes she was completely willing to rethink the role for him.
Varnay is wildly grotesque in the Elektra film (also very effective of course).
Etc. etc. Each of these artists was very different in approach and many of them did in fact show a willingness to try something adventurous.
But throwing 30 million at a controversial, oddball Ring during troubled financial times was obviously not a wise move.
Let’s put this canard to rest. When the money was “thrown,” i.e., several years ago, the economy was booming. New productions are planned at least that far in advance, and the money is committed early on. At some point, it’s like the LA Opera board was presented with a choice something like, “So, do we pull out now with $20 million already in sunk costs and have nothing to show for all that money spent, or do we continue on schedule?”
It’s child’s play to wait until after the roulette wheel has stopped turning and then sneer, “You should have bet on red, you idiot.”
According to you, “all” LA Opera had to do was to foresee years in advance a financial collapse that surprised most of the world’s smartest financial analysts, and, with that 100% accurate glimpse into the future in mind, hire a production team who could be guaranteed to deliver a staging of one of the world’s most complex theatrical works, on time, on budget, and in a form that would be universally liked by audiences and critics alike.
Child’s play, really. Almost as easy as using the corpses of great artists as sockpuppets for your reactionary aesthetic creed.
As I think I’ve posted before I would have gladly attended the whole of the LA Ring after seeing the Walküre but not over nine nights which was prohibitively expensive for most people living outside LA. The failure to bring in hordes of Ring-tourists from outside can, I think, be put down to this single-blunder. Loads of Americans came to Keith Warner’s Götter-awful Covent Garden Ring because it was performed, Bayreuth-style over six nights. The wonderfully zany Richard Jones production which got a mixed press but a lot of raves didn’t sell as well because the two cycles were spread over 11 and 14 nights – the only London Rings in recent memory not to have been oversubscribed.
I didn’t mean to abandon this discussion, I actually have occasional obligations that take me away from my computer, and am just catching up now. But reading it is very interesting.
No one every buys a ticket to see a production because of its amazing fiscal responsibility. “Wow! They really balanced the budget with this one!”
The LA Ring was challenging and didn’t try to make everyone happy, and I think it’s sad that so many people seem to discourage something with ambition just because they don’t want to be asked to think.
Unfaithful Zerbinetta; I believe the only way an opera company will survive to to have Artistic successes AND FINANCIAL SUCCESSES!
Now I will not argue that there are not enough people interested in seeing a Ring Cycle….but certainly more than enough to not go if they ‘get wind’ it is a production that is ‘totally alienating one’ or ‘a proper trouble -laden stinker’. Being as big as it is…if it nose-dives…..well it is certainly going to get more coverage than most other operas suffering the same fate.
I.E :So the blinded devotees jump up and down, screaming “we loved this or that- it is just unfortunate the majority hated it”.
Fine, let this go on and repeat for a while…..you do not have a opera company to go to’ That is noble ‘artistic success for you!
The easily achievable success called ‘failure’.
One particular opera company I have watched its ‘backward progression’ over the last 40 years coupled closely with its number of operas: increasingly giving ‘rat-shit’ directed productions with sub standard voices. Even simply looking at it on paper-comparing singers cast and then listening to the ‘general talk and mood ‘ last year, I predicted a disastrous season. So what happened, people unusually walking out mid performance ‘pissed off’. It is a funny thing with a lot of opera audiences. They also use going to one, as a conversation piece at a gathering, a dinner or a party. It is then in cross opinion that final opinions ‘SOLIDIFY’. Now surprise, surprise: I am hearing too many people saying they are not renewing their yearly subscriptions and that the particular Company I refer to -the Company hit a big deficit.
So to all those blind masochist loyalists out there that will plead that ‘artistic people’ can do no wrong in the long run……enjoy yourself while you can, as you dance ‘artistically of course’ on the 92 nd Floor of any of your own local Operatic Titanics! Flutter your fans and get ready to remember all those ‘Grand Failures’.
Out of curiousity, which companies in the US do you consider to currently have artistic and financial success? The only major in the black is Chicago (barely) which is hardly setting the world on fire with novel programming. I doubt there’s a single major company in the world meeting any of the common parameters of financial success.
To the earlier inquiry- I believe that the Freyer Ring was in discussion to be shipped out to a few European companies (Liceu? I may be imagining that). LA Opera confirmed in one of the recent won’t-anbody-think-of-the-money! articles that some of these had fallen through cos of the recession, but I don’t know if any alternatives have been lined up.
Mme Nasso, if I may address this comment to you: Hubris – maybe
not! If you read Varnay’s book, excellently written with her by Mr.
Arthur, whose book with Mansouri is just out, you will find that
Mme. Varnay devotes a whole chapter, titled “Why,” to the subject
of deconstructed opera productions. Before making too many
assumptions on your part, I respectfully suggest a visit to that
chapter by a Brunnhilde who was always creative and open.
mrmyster – I think you missed my point (sorry if it was not expressed clearly), which is that none of us – myself included – can know what a dead singer would say about a production today, even a singer who died as recently as Varnay and left behind one of the most intelligent singer biographies ever written. Unless Varnay experienced working on the Freyer Ring, we can’t know what she’d think of that specific experience. We can assume, but that’s neither accurate nor fair to her and in the end can serve no real purpose.
I have an allergic reaction to statements like “Renata Tebaldi would never stand for that today.” and operaddict’s comment set that off. If Tebaldi were singing today, she would have the Weltanschauung and theatrical training of someone raised in the 1960s/70s rather than the 1920s/30s. She would be a product of a different time in history and thus have different views that she actually did have.
E I ? A I ? O !
I saw the documentary this guy was in. Nice voice, nice musicianship. But not such a nice attitude. Rather cold and sullen. And in this article from Time Out he seems to be backpedaling a bit from the initial rather unlikeable impression that he made (at least trying to, not so sure he is being successful, it reads as sort of more of the same, and that video will be out there for all the world to see for the rest of his life).
Good to know he is trying out some new things in out of the way places in Europe. Certainly he is cute enough for the Duke in Rigoletto.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the documentary was edited in such a way to give a more one-dimensional portrayal of Fabiano as the bad guy to make it more ‘dramatic’ a la a reality show. Also, wasn’t he 22 at the time; who doesn’t say silly things at that age? And it’s not like he asked to have a documentary made about him. I’d cut him some slack. It would be interesting to hear from people who actually worked from him what he is like rather than those who form on opinion just from the video.
Fabiano seemed intense to me too in The Audition but not in a bad way. He was in an intense situation and he really wanted to do well. Nothing wrong with that.
Well, I’ve met Fabiano personally since that time and my impression was that he is serious, a bit reserved and what you might call “intense,” as opposed to the more bubbly, outgoing personalities presented by some singers. But just any singer’s public face is going to be in some way a “mask,” because he (any given singer, I mean) is under pressure to be liked, to be taken seriously as an artist, to avoid giving offense and so forth. In interviewing singers over the years, I find that most of what they say is in some way packaged, designed to make the interviewer want to like them or at least admire them, rather than to be absolutely true and honest to whatever their private self might be.
Plus I don’t know that I would describe Berlin as “out of the way.”
Plus, being interviewed and filmed DURING the Met Auditions, one has to cut the singers a LOT of slack, the pressure must have been intense.
This is exactly how opera fans get their balls tied up in a knot. On the one hand, some singer is ‘cute’,'hot;, ‘spunky’,whatever ……for their looks.
So enterprising companies grab hold of the ‘pretties’ and market them as well for clothes, perfumes, watches etc. To hell: what sounds are coming out of their ‘gob’! Why are you getting all those glam photo-shop pictures marketing these operatic ciphers? Whether Il Divo, The ten Tenors or ‘glory be’ The Three Priests!!! Ask who are the marketeers trying to get them to appeal to? The drooling tongue-lickers who happen to, like opera! Suddenly, the coin drops…..’everything is not what it seems’. Then it is time to start ‘pulling their wings off’. A reaction to those ‘little shameful impulse thrills’ that over-rode in the first instance: sound critical musical judgment of the artists. Motto: They happen to sing …it comes out of their mouth…..if anyone needs to be reminded.
He was an excellent Nemorino in Fort Worth recently. The cold, sullen demeanor vanished. He was actually quite funny and wholeheartedly and successfully performed the director’s ideas about the character. The tipsy scene was very well done and the scene where he was swamped by all the girls totally believable. They tore off part of his shirt revealing quite a rug for a 25 yr old. Not wasted on me, no sir, not a bit!
Harry @4.2.3.1, I agree it would be wonderful if opera companies could produce operas based on the cast on hand; after all, that was how most operas prior to the latter half of the 20th century were written. Certainly in the 18th and 19th centuries, composers new who they were writing for. Unfortunately, that can’t happen at most opera houses because productions are planned years in advance, as are singers’ schedules. So that wonderful opera featuring the fiendishly difficult dramatic soprano for the 2013/14 or 2014/15 season may be uncastable by the time performances come around. Why? Because that fabulous dramatic soprano you contracted for it may be pregnant/ill/requiring surgery/divorcing her husband/etc.
Why? Because that fabulous dramatic soprano you contracted for it may be pregnant/ill/requiring surgery/divorcing her husband/etc.
Or sang way too many Turandots and is now singing mezzo rep because she no longer has a high C, the high B comes on a wing and a prayer and the Bb is more muscle memory and sheer force of will than an actual note.
I’d rather hear a dramatic soprano sing mezzo than a contralto sing Ernani/Aida/Turandot/Tosca. I walked out on one of those Ernanis in the 80s at LOC.
But the issue is that both are wrong….
And by the way, Bumbry, as wrong as she was for Elvira, was a soprano.
Sanford, Bravo, bravissimo!!
Michael Fabbiano is mental
I’m a baritone, but I could sing Elvira tomorrow; it’s just a question of color and tessitura