Old crypto-fascist yells at cloud
“The immitigable force of Italian melodrama and Mediterranean culture, which is loved throughout the world, today is worthy of a different fate and should become a means of new expressions, a national flag to be treasured. Instead, often great efforts are made to reject a culture, to massacre the work and stature of artists who have little more to look forward to. I love opera and seek deeply within to continue living up to the great Italian opera tradition, but today, only lower culture categories are promoted, causing us to miss an opportunity to assert the sheer force of Italian art. No one wants to admit this, but I am the only one to hold the banner high!” (Franco Zeffirelli, interviewed in the program book for this summer’s Arena di Verona for which he has directed and designed the entire season.)
Just so, Mrs Bob; but not only for the mise-en-scene,
but most especially for the singing — slim pickins’ !
Not to speak of conducting, whoever that may be.
Andre Rieu?
Oh settle down, children. His Rossignol, Renard & Petit Pieces was very good. (You can see the Aix-en-Provence performance here http://bit.ly/cgXNhd)
Lip-Synch, which had a wee bit of opera in its 9 hours, was an extraordinary experience. The chapter that happens in a bookshop was close to perfect.
Now, granted, I haven’t seen any of his Cirque-bombast…
But isn’t bombast entirely appropriate for Cirque du Soleil?
off topic, but speaking of Giancarlo Del Monaco: if you were buying tickets for Fanciulla this week, would you buy one of the performances with Voigt, or the single performance by Elisabete Matos?
Would you rather be sitting in your seat saying “Why the hell didn’t I listen to everybody warning me?” or “I wonder if Debbie would have been any better than this”?
Undoutedly Matos.
Zeffirelli may have had essentially one idea, and that 40 years ago, but at least he HAD ONE. We’d still be touting Bondy and Zimmerman had they had the talent and the skill to have actually done the same. The jury’s still out on Le Page, but we shall see what we shall see.
Can we be fair here? Bondy has had successful opera and theater productions elsewhere, even if the Tosca disappointed. “New York is the center of New York!”
Yes, let’s be fair. It’s not like this is a discussion about Renee Fleming.
Agree completely. His Don Carlos with Alagna/Mattila was excellent and as far as I’m concerned, his Tosca, while not a complete success, wasn’t a dud either.
Also, his Salome, which started in Salzburg and toured to London, Paris, and Chicago, was a hit production of the 90s. And given how Mattila went on about working with him on Giovanni in Vienna, that must have been a something special as well.
since we’re being fair, let’s also credit zimmerman’s many achievements in theater … i’ll concede she’s struggling in the realm of opera, but it is error to claim she’s never had an idea.
Interestingly, the MET rejected the designs for Ponnelle’s Aida, which was to have taken place in and around a huge reproduction The Great Sphinx of Giza – deemed too complicated for the MET at that time. That concept morphed into Ponnelle’s TURANDOT set in a huge Chinese head, seen in Munich, San Francisco and other venues.
Since FZ –no, not Frank Zappa– has shown no inclination to do productions for German, French or English operas, I couldn’t care less what he does.
I do think it odd, however, that he’s criticized for being a one-trick pony. In my experience, most opera directors are one-trick ponies, taking the same basic idea and tweaking a few things here and there, but still churning out a similar production every time. Robert Wilson anyone? Apart from a few details, is there anything different between his Lohengrin and Parsifal?
One of the negatives of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s reign in Los Angeles was that he became besotted with Der Zwerg Peter Sellars. The last performances E-PS did with the LAP were centered around Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms. He had Sellars direct and when the chorus started doing that annoying fucking semaphore thing AGAIN in Oedipus Rex –I always flash on the cover of The Beatles great Help! album– I wanted to scream.
Hi HenRy Holland — you sure goT thAt rigHt about WilSon’S Lohengrin and Parsifal. I didn’t hate the Lohengrin at all when it first debuted, but by the time I saw his ParsifAl in L.A., it was like – WHOA, I have done this way too mAny times before. (I saw the Lohengrin 8 times – 4 Debbies and 4 Karitas).
The real reason I wrote you is because you mentioned one of my greatest long ago long-lost loves: fabulous Frank Zappa. I’m still mad I coUldn’t see 200 Motels because I Was under age. Is there a recording — oh yes, Zubin musta made one.
So sorry I missed Gezeichneten this past spring, Too!
Seems I have a flying Caps problem – unintentional – I’m thummin’ it.
That’s hilarious, because I assumed you were aping Wilson’s signature handwriting, as seen here:
http://www.robertwilson.com/
I thought it was an artistic choice.
LMM — LOL. !!!
Must have been channeling Monsieur Big Bob! After those eigHt lOhenGRins, I have become his remoteLY conTRoLled mInion!!!
Now, anyone heard “200 Motels” by Zappa?
Oh yeah, now I remember — cIviL wArS.
By George, she’s got it.
have to adjust my blackberry. …
Lovely review, jj.
Robert Wilson is too extreme in his one-note opera sameness to be a yardstick for anything or anyone. How about Konwitschny, though. He has had some controversial, some horrible but aso some very successful ideas that show him to be a many-splendored pony.
‘Le piccole sfumature’.
Who translated this blurb??
This high-flown kind of verbiage doesn’t usually translate all that well into contemporary English–the subtext and tone don’t come across so easily or so well…
I’d like to read the original.
Italian tradition at its best can be heard ( thanks to A. Poggia Turra for the heads up) at
http://www.radio3.rai.it/dl/radio3/Page-ef2682c8-5a0e-4dc8-ad6c-acb75434fb86.html
2 pm today ( Eastern) for those of you who can “cheat” and listen while working. I’ve not tried the connection, but they seem to suggest that it can be heard on internet radio as well.
OT Verdi, Messa da Requiem from Met, 1982 on Sirius.
Domingo’s Ingemisco was pretty bad: poor phrasing, off-pitch singing, strained, white tops, lunging at notes with no legato. Great musician or crypto-musisican??
Not that Leontyne isn’t doing a little swooping around herself.
55 years old
Wait a minute, is it just me, or is this stage design vaguely reminiscent of Zefirrelli’s ’66 “Antony and Cleopatra”?? Colors, pyramid, sphinx.
You think?
…and at La Scala, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, and so on ad nauseam.