Thud!
The Met’s press office has just announced that “Stephen Wadsworth will direct the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, replacing Peter Stein, who has withdrawn for personal reasons.”
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I always suspected that the prospect of Peter Stein at the Met was too good to be true.
Indeed! I saw Stein’s “The Demons” at Lincoln Center Festival – running time of half a day and what a great day it was. Could Stein be smarting over the review he got from that antichrist at the old grey lady? Genius – replaced with the director of the Met’s “Rondelinda” – and what low-brow crap that effort was.
Darn! I really love Stein’s Pelleas video.
All right: La Cieca is ready to hear guesses as to what “personal reasons” means in this context.
A piece of unrelated news. The English tenor Anthony Rolfe Johnson died today after a long battle with alzheimer’s. He was a fine artist, especially lovely in Bach and song repertoire.
That’s sad news. He was a very powerful Gustave von Aschenbach when I heard him at the Met in the early 90′s and his singing on the ENO video of Britten’s fab Gloriana is wonderful, especially in the two Lute Songs.
He was also a GLORIOUS Idomeneo in Tanglewood with the BSO. Luciano might have had the more gloriosu tone but Rolfe-Johnson had the notes in spades, the ornamentation in Fuor del Mar was breathtaking, and a very manly sound almost Vickers-like. A very great artist RIP.
Wow Alzheimers, he surely wasn’t that old, and Alzheimers seems to keep people alive longer than the normal span, despite the terrible brain damage. I’d be interested to know how old he was as in 1991 he seemed in his vocal prime.
I can’t think of a better tribute to the man’s art than this. He was taken far too young: only 69.
La Cieca, can we get a proper tribute page for him? He was truly a phenomenal singer.
Thank you for posting this audio clip. Absolutely fabulous! A sad day, indeed.
ARJ is the rare singer who demonstrated striking gifts in both Wagner and Gilbert & Sullivan.
Here’s a thought . Maybe there was some problem with Pape. He seems to be getting a bit squirrelly and there were reports of bizarre behavior during his engagement last season in LOC’s Faust.
Could Stein and Pape have had a runin?
Here’s a thought . Maybe there was some problem with Pape. He seems to be getting a bit squirrelly and there were reports of bizarre behavior during his engagement last season in LOC’s Faust.
Could Stein and Pape have had a runin?
Maybe Stein wanted to spare himself the agony of putting up with comments from Gelb during rehearsals or wanted the real conductor in place for all rehearsals.
Could it be to spare himself from the same the bullshit around Bondy’s Tosca to happen to him? Seems like the Met’s audience (at least on opening nights) make a point of just being rude for rudeness sake (in several cases) as opposed to behave like knowledgeable opera goers (I know, I know, it is no longer the 50′s).
Whatever personal reasons might be, I smell some serious conflict with the management. Maybe they do not want another round of boos on another opening night and they wanted to dictate/suggest to him what he “needed to do” in order to please the Met’s audience and he felt like he was not going to sell his artistic integrity for the cause.
Or maybe he is just needing to go see his husbear and he told the Met to stick it.
But it isn’t opening the season. Rheingold is.
But you are assuming that I am talking strictly about Opening night of the season and technically the Met has about 8-10 opening nights a season:
Opening night of the season
Opening night of each new production (8 this season?)
Opening night for each revival
Those are all opening nights, and some of them carry just as much pomp and circumstance as the season opening night.
I know that very well, but since you were talking solely about Tosca–instead of say, Hamlet and Attila, which were also booed on their respective opening nights–I assumed you meant the big one. The Tosca boos were the only ones that got wide press, which I could see the Met wanting to avoid, while no one seems to really remember the Attila or Hamlet booing.
Well, you are right, but once again, Attila was a company premiere, so there was no standard and the Hamlet was booed because people had a pineapple up their asses and that proves my point. It is not like no one had ever seen the production the met was getting, given the fact that it was released on DVD something like 2-3 years before it made it to the met.
Yeah, but Boris isn’t a sacred cow the way Tosca is.
And the production being replaced is over 35 years old
and there’s no great swell of affection for it.
You could be right of course but I wonder what the real issue is.
You have a point there.
Was the plan for an entirely new production, or for a mounting of Stein’s BORIS from Paris, which was recently seen in San Francisco. I know they’re performing a different edition of the score, but I thought the production would be basically the same with the addition of the Polish Act?
It’s true that BORIS isn’t TOSCA, etc., but the Everding staging that is being replaced was a fine one, which served the company very well during that 35 year span.
While I am sorry to lose it, I agree with the decision. Very few stagings indeed should be retained more than 25 years. But the really good ones should be memorialized and remembered after they are gone.
I cannot shed any light on the “real reason” for Stein’s departure. He once refused Wolfgang Wagner a RING at Bayreuth. He’s a tough cookie, and a fine director. It could be anything from an artistic matter to personal or family issues he doesn’t care to disclose.
“Seems like the Met’s audience (at least on opening nights) make a point of just being rude for rudeness sake …”
What is your evidence for this remarkable statement?
Well, let’s see:
1. Bondy Tosca. It was if nothing else just a boring production. There was no need for the hair on fire because the Zef was being replaced.
2. Hamlet. As I said before, it is not as if the audience was experiencing the production sight unseen, they only needed to go to the local Border’s, Met store or Amazon to get a copy of the DVD.
3. Armida. It might have not been the prettiest, but there was plenty to be happy about and the people who got booed were the pepole who did not screw up the singing of the title role, that one got an ovation.
4. The Wilson Lohengrin. After much-a-do about it, now is getting standing ovations. It is not as if the production changed, it is the same one that was booed on its opening night.
5. Lucia. All over a photographer on scene and to be honest, it might have been annoying at first, but the whole screaming and pulling of the hair was over the whole “how dare she do this!” point rather than looking at what was being tired to achieve (even if rather clumsily). I will bet that this year it will get ecstatic reviews.
You of all people know that there are plenty of people who attend opening nights to boo just because they believe it makes them look knowledgeable.
Lindoro, Your thoughts on those productions are interesting. But, they are YOUR thoughts. There’s a possibility, mind just a possibility, that other members of the Met audience had different thoughts. Some may have even booed for reasons that have not occurred to you.
I for one, for example, find the Bondy Tosca totally wrong but I didn’t care much for the previous production either.
Lindoro, I wasn’t at the opening nights of the Met’s Tosca or Attila, but anything howled at the directors was entirely merited.
I can’t recall in my 20 years of seeing operas at the MET a director being replaced this late in the game- any precedent?
Also, we can’t ignore the issue of the times giving ‘the demon’ a pretty negative review- maybe stein had just had it with NYC and Gelb isn’t to blame at all?
If I were Wadsworth (that should be a song title, by the by)- I would walk into the Met and say “RIGHT. Boris. Gloomy Russian crap. Ditch the peasants and tocsins, I’m doing it in Moscow, circa 2001, oil barons, the whole lot. I want a Maserati on stage, I want extensions, I want satin, satin, satin, a giant bottle of Cristal, leopard print up the woozie and I wanted it all yesterday. Who’s the lead? Who? No good. Someone get me Neil Patrick Harris on the twitter. He’s hot, right?”
I think I’ve seen that production in Germany already. With Pape. But it worked. (It was in Dresden, directed by Christian Pade, very smartly done if convoluted in a few places. It was the 1869 version, though.)
Odd isn’t it??
Technical rehearsals for all the new productions happen at the MET during July and August which means all the sets have already been built. So Wadsworth will be working on Stein’s sets.
Will we end up with a mishmash of opposing dramatic concepts because the technical part is already set in stone? That won’t be good.
Incidentally, I caught a few minutes of the Siepi Don Carlo on Sirius today and was blown away. Would love to capture this when it is replayed Saturday. Anybody know the best (free) downloadable recorder for it?
I can’t remember who suggested this toolbar first (about last year, I think during the Sonnambula chat) but I’ve been a happier queen since. Whoever it was, thanks!
http://www.applian.com/asktoolbar/download.php
I think it was me. I still use their products. So easy.
I have great respect for Wadsworth and his theatrical sensibility. He would not have taken this job if he thought he couldn’t make an artistic whole out of it. I’ve never seen a production of his that didn’t hold together and make sense, and singers who work with him adore him.
It was uncharacteristically practical of the Met to go next door to Juilliard to get a talented local person rather than dragging in somebody from Serbia or something who would have taken too long to get up to speed on how things are done there.
Baritenor @ 5.2.2.1 The recent Boris in San Francisco was by Stein Winge, not Peter Stein. This was to have been a brand new production. If it were a revival of an existing Peter Stein production, some assistant from that show would have been found to stage it.
DonCarloFanatic @9 Stein is a relatively conservative director visually speaking, and Wadsworth can be as well (Rodelinda, Seattle’s Ring). I’m sure it was made clear to Wadsworth that his concept would need to mesh with the existing sets and costumes. Also, are you sure the tech rehearsals for Boris have already happened? Perhaps they are scheduled for August? Even if they have, there surely must be time for some adjustments over the course of final rehearsals for a new production.
And, if memory serves me, from Brussels rather than Paris. The most recent Opéra production is surely by Mamzelle Zambelle, non? Stein (Peter) is a notoriously demanding director who requires usually a minimum of seven to eight weeks of rehearsals and I always thought that would be a tall order for the Met, especially with a conductor who might, if you’re lucky, turn up for the General. Stein-Gergiev doesn’t strike me as a marriage made in heaven. I doubt if Stein gives a monkey’s about past NY Times reviews – he gets trashed by German critics every time he does a show in his former homeland.
A tall order for the Met to be sure, but wouldn’t they have made him aware of that from the outset? I can’t imagine it has only recently come to light that he’d get less rehearsal time than he considers ideal, or that Gergiev has a rather hectic schedule. Unless of course he was kidding himself that it’d be ok for a while, and has finally realised that it just won’t be.
If we’re being encouraged to go down the wild speculation route, I think whoever suggested a clash with Pape could be on to something. He seems like a difficult man, increasingly so as the years go by. I don’t really understand his appeal to begin with – he seems like perfectly decent principal house bass material, but not an international star deserving of title roles in major new productions at the Met. I’ve heard performances by the Marijnsky on tour fielding 3 basses vocally superior to Pape in just one show.
Cocky:
I call BULLSHIT!
Pape is a GREAT singer. Perfectly decent house material? Baloney!