Muhly marvelous
A few spoilsport commentators have complained that the clever marketing video for Nico Muhly‘s Two Boys at the English National Opera doesn’t accurately represent the somewhat dark subject matter of the new opera. La Cieca won’t take sides on this matter of vital import, but she will reveal to you, the cher public, that a few moments of the hush-hush score and production of the opera have been leaked on video, and you can sample the piece after the jump.
One hates to question the invariably reliable sources of La Cieca, but, I don’t believe for one minute that those are “two boys.” I do like the Pacman ghost headpieces design, particular with room for a ponytail. Very sweet.
I think that it is a trouser role. Perhaps from the Liceu production in Spain? Or from South America? Maybe Gabriel Bermudez and Ismael Jordi in the leads?
looks like the Tellytubbies are hitting puberty……
“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.”
I have that as my ‘quote’ on Facebook. It’s a wonderful poem but I sometimes worry that it might make me look a little jaded.
If you want to look very jaded, how about the inevitable Oscar Wilde :
“The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling that I have always cultivated.”
That’s going straight to my facebook profile!
The lovely Tom Service over at the Grauniad also has a complaint about the video, but for rather more serious reasons than not-enough music. Worth a read. Convinced me it was a bit of a marketing mis-step.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2011/jun/10/nico-muhly-two-boys-facebook-opera
The lovely Tom give excellent service -- so good we read it twice!
Ha. I’m a twit. Whoops.
Never a twit -- only a premature expostulator.
Completely off-topic, but I wanted to share a recent performance I discovered on YouTube. This is an audio recording of Rita Gorr singing “Impitoyable Dieux!” from Spontini’s LA VESTALE, and I think it’s a splendid performance. This is the second part of Julia’s aria “Toi que j’emplore” (better known in Italian as “Tu che invoco” (sung memorably by Callas, of course). But try Rita Gorr in the original French. She doesn’t seem to have recorded the aria itself, which is a pity. The audio takes a while to begin.
Its magnificent, there is something “modern”, sumptuous in Spontini’s scores.
You’re right, I just listened to this opera again, prompted by the Gorr aria, and fell in love with it once more. It’s a pity there isn’t a good studio recording in French. The radio broadcast with Janowitz is decent, as is the live Norrington performance with Michele Le Bris. Neither of the commercial Italian versions is quite as exciting as the old Callas version, but the sound on that is wretched beyond belief.
I misspelled the title of the aria. Should be “Toi que j’implore” not “j’emplore.” Mea culpa!
SPONTINI?
I can’t believe it--for I love Spontini so much. It was Hector Berlioz’ enthusiasm in “Soirees d’Orchestre” that led me to him. Might I suggest you listen to his last work Angnese di Hohenstaufen, his final work, written for Berlin and following a very long gestation period, the second act of which is magnificent. Caballe yodeled her way through it in a representation of which I saw in the mid-eighties. No matter what she did, a great work. There is a recording on some cheap label. Spontini has been so completely forgotten.
You are right. AGNESE DI HOHENSTAUFEN is very fine. I haven’t listened to it in some years, and I learned it through recordings with Stella and Caballe. I’ve also listened to TESEO RICONOSCIUTO and OLYMPIE. I’ve never heard FERNAND CORTEZ however. VESTALE and AGNESE are both well worth hearing.
I own two recordings of “Agnese” in Italiano -- one with Caballé and Stella and Prevedi and the other from the 50′s Maggio Musicale Fiorentino with Corelli and Dorothy Dow and Lucille Udovick. Too bad they didn’t have this lady who did sing the opera in Italy:
Just noticed this danpatter, don’t feel badly, I did not spell Agnese correctly.
FYI
There is an early recording with la grande Renata of Fernand(o) Cortez on some label, MYTO? I can’t recall. I have heard an excerpt and she is in excellent voice. Fernand Cortez is generally considered, I believe, his number two work--tied with the Agnese--
For Ponselle fans Spontini is not completely forgotten!
Surely, Camille, you know the famous recordings from, I
suppose, the 1920s -- maybe very early ’30s.
I’ve heard it argued that if there were a Ponselle or
young Milanov voice around, revival of that opera might
work; others have called it a kind of weak-tea Norma. I am
not familiar with the whole score, but surely it is time for
further exploration of the early 19th C. romantic movement?
In any case, it is time for some fresh repertoire or revivals
of little-heard but valid works, and Spontini would fall into
the right category.
La vestale had a very unhappy exhumation in London a few years ago (2003??) at English National Opera,as a vehicle for a very subpar Jane Eaglen and a bargain basement production (a bit Carry-On) that no amount of viral marketing would be able to rescue. The score did not impinge in the least, it had to be said
2002, apparently. I’ve just been looking at some of the reviews. Ouch.
I was there -- it was a true nadir…..one of those evenings where you pray for someone to yell ‘fire’ in a not-so-crowded theatre
That’s sad, because a failed revival makes another revival less likely. I must look for those reviews. Thanks for the info, Belfagor and Armerjacquino.
There are lots of VESTALE clips on YouTube. I stumbled onto June Anderson’s “Toi que j’implore.” She’s a bit unsteady in the aria itself, and nowhere near as exciting as Gorr in the later section; she does sing a high C at the end, as Callas did on occasion. All in all, she gets through it honorably.
I have vivid recollections of the evening I spent watching that performance, which was the absolute worst live performance of anything I ever saw in my life, and I include school plays and local am dram societies. Instantly you realised they had no belief in the worth of the work itself as they cut the overture! Now why would anybody do that unless they don’t think the music is any good? And if they don’t like the music, why are they putting it on? As you say it appeared to be as a vehicle for Jane Eaglen who produced sounds that were painful to the ears and I do not wish to create bad karma for myself by attempting to describe her stage appearance or demeanour, nothing that could remotely be called acting or drama came anywhere near that theatre that night.
All the rest of the cast were boring.
It was truly dire.
And in my comment above I am of course referring to Belfagor’s remarks about ENO’s La Vestale, unfortunately my negative remarks appear just beneath a picture of the loveliest, most adored June Anderson, whose rendition of the big aria from that work is included on my fav recording of all time “French Opera Arias” which never leaves my side and has her autograph signed by her very own hand for me on it.
But she did leave a lovely portrait in the role-- or is that Smith from CELL BLOCK X?
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/arts/2002/04/04/kenton_eaglen3.jpg
Milles pardons:
CELL BLOCK **H**.
S’truth!
That’s not Smith from Cell Block H -- that IS Cell Block H!
That’s Ben Heppner, isn’t it?
I recently heard that recording of Agnese di Hohenstaufen, and the large amount of repetitious choral music makes the opera a really hard sell; Caballé, even if not at her best, is a relief.
I would love to hear some Méhul and even LeSueur; the only Méhul I’ve ever heard is the Joseph in Egypt, and only small bits of LeSueur (a teacher of Berlioz).
The new DVD of Grétry’s L’Amant Jaloux, by the way, is a real delight.
I’ll second that. Cherubini’s operas outside of Médée are heard with increasing frequency, but his contemporaries Méhul and especially LeSueur are badly neglected. And yes, time to give Spontini’s Agnese another go-round. To this list I would add Boieldieu, whose colorful Dame Blanche is done all-too-infrequently and who composed much else besides.
On the subject of little heard/seen works, on June 17 Mezzo TV will broadcast live to 37 countries the prima of Massenet’s Le Cid from the Marseille Opera, with Alagna in the title role (role debut).
Le Cid, now that’s an opera that the Met could cast these days. Alagna/Kauffman/Giordani/Janovich/Antonenko, Pape/Furlanetto/Abdrazakov, Zajick/Matos/Radvanovsky/Semenchuk
Are the sets of Esclarmonde still around? That could be an interesting choice for Diana Damrau.
Does Damrau still do a Tour Eiffel?
If so, I would be there in a New York minute.
The arrogance of the tenor and his management in broadcasting and doubtless marketing as a DVD his FIRST ATTEMPT at a difficult role says a lot about the opera world today.
Merci, oedipe, for the alert as I ADORE Le Cid and will desperately seek hearing this work. Pity that The-Tenor-Who-Sings-Everything-&-Refuses-To-Retire didn’t bring it to the Met, back in the day. There was a production of same in San Francisco, so one wonders-pourquoi pas???
Actually Domingo bailed on those three 1981 CONCERT (n.b.) performances of LE CID, leaving SFO to market William Lewis and Carol Neblett as best they could.
Was Marcia Baldwin unavailable?
After their FABULOUS Met Queen of Spades, no opera company would put William Lewis and Marcia Baldwin on the stage for the same performance. There was just too much star power going on and it was feared that the audiences would be overwhelmed.
It would be like Franco Corelli and Mario DelMonaco appearing in the same performance together. Just too, too much!!!!
OT- I notice that tomorrow’s HD cinema relay of the Covent Garden MACBETH is now listed as starring Martina Serafin rather than the much-praised Monastyrska.
Has Monastyrska pulled out of the whole run? And- I don’t know Serafin- is it still worth going?
I saw Serafin at the dress rehearsal of Tosca -- it would certainly be interesting to see her as Lady M. The Phyllida Lloyd production is not universally loved, but I like it very much (I am going next Wednesday).
By all means go -- there is Keenlyside, after all, and, distressingly, an American Banquo…
And although he styles himself as a Greek-American, the Macduff is a native of NYC.
Here in the US, I think the dangers of the “FB” things have PALED before “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming”
I have to say I think that Phyllida Lloyd Macbeth is pretty duff -- it doesn’t know what tone to strike, wavering between ‘verfremdet’ campery and lots of stage-school sincerity. The big scenes (notably the Banquet) are pretty messy. And that sodding tap (faucet) at the right of the stage …. Nearly as irritating as the dripping urinal in Act 1 of the ROH’s Werther. All the gold is quite jolly, though. And
having seen both Urmana and Monastyrska in the role, I can only assume that Lloyd wants Lady Macbeth to come over as some kind of 1980s Hollywood vamp – complete with Kathleen Turner hair.
Where specifically do you see that listed?
The cast list on the Odeon Website, which used to refer to Monastyrska.
Curiouser and curiouser- the Odeon website now names no soprano at all, whereas other sites name either soprano or both:
http://wozzon.com/url/event/macbeth@odeon-covent-garden/9000335222/13461/
Armerj -- it’s a mistake. Monastyrska is singing, but if you remember, when the season was announced Serafin was slated to sing Lady M and two Toscas at the end of a run headlined by Karita Mattila. When Mattila dropped the role from her rep, Serafin was bumped up to do all the Toscas, then she had a baby and told Covent Garden she wouldn’t have time to learn Lady M in time, or felt she wouldn’t have recovered from childbirth sufficiently to sing two demanding and quite different roles in quick succession (“Mr Pappano, my voice is not an elevator!”). At least that’s what I heard. Obviously whoever wrote the listing seems to have the original information lying around. Serafin seems a more stylish singer than Monastyrska, although her voice is less of a powerhouse instrument. I’d guess her Lady M would be a tad subtler.
Hurrah! I am pleased to hear this. Thanks all- the dangers and delights of the internet, really, isn’t it? Information, misinformation, clarification.
Well, God forbid you should ever try and find information on the ROH website. You would probably find yourself consigned to its virtual Waiting Room for the umpteenth time, even though all you wanted to do was find out what time tonight’s performance starts …
I agree that their website needs some attention. For example, on the Macbeth page, the only artists that get a link to their bios are Giuseppe Verdi (Thanks!! I’ve been looking for one…), and for the artists singing Malcolm, the Lady-in-Waiting and the Doctor.
My posts aren’t appearing! Testing, testing.
Ha, so of course that one did.
I’ve made a couple of attempts to post in reply to dallasuapace’s question- basically the odeon website first listed Monastyrska, then Serafin, then neither.
Other event websites are listing either soprano, or in some cases, both.
Thanks. I asked because I still see Monastyrska’s name for tomorrow on the ROH website. I hope she’ll be in the broadcast. I’m driving to Newport RI tomorrow to see it.
Monastyrska is singing tomorrow -- she replaced Serafin for the whole run. I assume the cinemas haven’t gotten around to changing the cast list. Enjoy -- she is just marvellous in the role despite the production being dull.
Thanks!
I’m going to drive to Phoenix which is two hours north. Hope it’s worth it.
I might have missed an earlier posting of this… but it is GREAT that “Dark Sisters” is gonna be premiered in NYC ,this Fall… I was already planning to see it in Philly, in 2012.. so --it saves me the trip !
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/151810-Stephen-Karam-Nico-Muhly-Opera-About-Fundamentalist-Latter-Day-Saints-Sect-Dark-Sisters-Sets-New-York-Dates