Mirror, mirror
La Cieca is just back from the HD of Don Giovanni from La Scala: excellent singing through the whole cast, strong conducting (if tending to the slow side) by Daniel Barenboim, and a smart, chic production from Robert Carsen that frankly makes Michael Grandage look like an utter bumpkin. The presentation will repeat here in New York (and elsewhere) in coming days.
Can’t wait for your review La C! I was too busy enjoying a deliriously wonderful Nutcracker.
Manou, je suis de votre avis au sujet de M. Filianoti. Meh. He was positively yelping. I didn’t find the singing exciting except except for Netrebko and Mr. Fabulous Terfel. Everyone started out sounding not quite there but the second act (with the exception of Filianoti) was much improved.
And, Manou, I thought I was seeing Hoffmann when the we saw the mirrored theater. Carsen’s Hoffmann stunned me in a good way: he was the first director (in my experience) to expand the DG subtext to extraordinary effect. He didn’t succeed as well with Tosca but Onegin was also devastating in its simplicity and the performances were equally powerful.
I’m glad to hear that the live experience was better than the audio and once again, let’s hear it for youtube.
BTW, I went to the Satyagraha encore tonight. Talk about extraordinary theater. Whew!
PS Advantage Luisi for sure. Barenboim’s reading had none of the fleetness or insouciance the score demands. No nuance to it.
The DG production at Prague’s Tyl Theatre uses the same theater as stage concept very effectively. And since DG premiered there, it has that frisson of being just right.
Was I the only one at the noon senior citizen screening at Symphony Space? No one has mentioned that the transmission was plagued with brief (1-3 second) but annoying audio cut-outs, and we almost lost the coda altogether (which would have been a pity as it turns out). Most of the live screenings I’ve seen haven’t been so choppy.
Wow…as occasionally unfocused and (according to comments on this thread) unoriginal for this director as this production may haven been, I found it to be miles better than the Grandage Met…and so much more entertaining! At first the Brechtian aspects of this production felt forced but would eventually fall for how it fit the Don G as director/manipulator persona.
Anna was on fire as was Mattei (he completely fit the part of an “everything-about-this-production-is-about-ME” Don G). Frittoli and Terfel were a mixed bag, but generally, musically exquisite. That said, I would take Luisi in the pit (oh, and the Met Orchestra) over Barenboim any day.
I cannot believe that not one person has filled us in on surely the most important part of the show- Netrebko’s trill on ‘sentira pieta di me’.
Not perfect by any means, and she was clearly showing effort, but overall the effect was pretty good. Throughout the “sentira” she was making her way around the stage (an incredible performance!), but a few moments before the trill and straight through, she paused as if to concentrate solely on her singing.
I admire the woman’s effort. Anna’s trill has much improved judging from both this and the Anna Bs…greatly improved compared to her Lucia a few years ago.
I watched the first act and then the interviews on ARTE. Carsen disappointed me after seeing his Ariadne and Rosenkavalier which I both liked very much. This was very traditional imo and a bit too safe for my taste. Mattei was amazing. Netrebko quite good. Zerlina nondescript. Frittoli a bit dull.
I actually think everything and everyone except Mattei was quite under the high level that should be expected from La Scala, especially when it comes to an event like the opening of the season which in Italy seems to be like one of the most important days of the year… Barenboim was slow, unprecise in the difficult ensembles of the first finale, Terfel is a good actor, but his voice has become dry, Netrebko had a tendency to screaming in the top register and was often off-pitch, Filanotti is vocally bankrupt, Elvira is too low for Frittoli, Zerlina talked instead of singing… Carsen’s direction was one of the most useless and visually unappealing things I’ve ever seen.
I am humbled by your astonishingly high standards.
Is it an “astonishingly high standard” to ask a world-famous conductor for not loosing the tempo and the concentration of the ensemble? or to ask world-famous singers to sing on pitch and not to take breath after each note? and to ask a world-famous director to do something new instead of recycling the same ideas and figures since decades?
How did all these world-famous people become world-famous?
And what wonders have you seen if this production is “the most useless and visually unappealing things I’ve ever seen”?
So, BECAUSE they’re world-famous they are always perfect and impeccable?
Frankly, I don’t understand what your irony is all about. You may have a different opinion, but I’d like to read more arguments that support your judgment…
It is not that I have seen the Epiphany of God, but Carsen’s present Don Giovanni seems to be repeating the same ideas the director has since the beginning of his career. Once again a very traditional pseudo-innovative direction…
I would always prefer the rational discussion of detailed and varied points of view over blanket dismissal or encomium. Your original post struck me as negative and high handed. I had by then read the following two reviews:
http://operaclick.com/recensioni/teatrale/milano-teatro-alla-scala-don-giovanni-0
and
http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2011/12/07/la-scala-ouvre-avec-un-don-giovanni-patelin_1614344_3246.html
again – disparate points of view, but neither of them as cutting and dismissive as your original post.
(See also La Cieca/JJ in “Behind The Red Curtain”).
Let us agree to disagree.
Well, I happen to have my own opinions, independently of what others (incl. critics) say.
I also read the articles from Le Monde, Operaclick, Corriere della Grisi, and some other Italian blogs, I agree with some of their opinions, I disagree with some others, but I still think I have my right to say whar I think without having to cite any critic as if were the Bible.
You find my opinion too dismissive? Fine. But please, lets discuss without cheap sarcasm.
Best,
Soletta
I did not see the Don Giovanni HD, just listened on the net,. I found the opera dull, especially because of the weird conducting (I am sure that it was exiting to watch, based on reports from friends who attended the HD). The singing, imo, varied from very good to poor, Filianoti being at the very bottom. He should not have been allowed to sing the part. I have opinions about the “Ladies” but will not say anything about them for fear of being attacked. I will only say that at times I wasn’t sure that it was Mozart they were singing.
Clita – don’t be so pusillanimous!
Someone who works at La Scala told me that this DG was actually born as Lucia for Netrebko, but when she decided to drop the role it was also thought that for the inauguration of La Scala it was perhaps wiser to have her appear in an opera where she wasn’t the only focus.
I think already one year ago half Milan knew about this “bargain”…
The most ironic thing is that both Netrebko and the directors of the theatre are still afraid of a public which in reality doesn’t exist anymore. That cruel, demoniac, aggressive, snobbish public of La Scala is kaputt. I guess there were some small fragmentary outbursts over the past years (Don Carlo, Pagliacci, Tosca…), but the general ambience seems to have changed radically. La Scala and the esthetics of the direction and of the public is conforming itself to the universal or “globalized” way of doing opera.
Milan is a very gossipy city (as regards opera anyway) and one problem with gossip (take it from one who’s in the field) is that it’s not generally verifiable and therefore cannot be assumed to be true.
Netrebko dropped Lucia from her repertoire after singing it at the Met and Vienna in winter and spring 2009 and has not performed it since, so far as I can tell. That’s almost three years ago. While I am confident that Netrebko and La Scala had agreed upon her appearances in December 2011 at that time, it’s not clear that Lucia was ever fixed as the vehicle. At any rate, when she put the part aside, it was obvious she would not sing it at La Scala. She has not a very vast repertoire and lately she has been more conservative in taking on new roles, allowing long preparation times. So it is possible she did not feel up to learning an entirely new role for La Scala.
Add to that Barenboim who would naturally be first in line to conduct the opening night and who just as naturally would want to choose repertoire that shows off the conductor. A Barenboim Lucia is a bizarre idea.
So the selection of opera, it seems to me, had to be narrowed down to a part Netrebko already knew (or would know by late 2011) in an opera Barenboim would want to conduct. That’s not much overlap.
That Don Giovanni was chosen fairly early is suggested by the excellent cast La Scala assembled: artists like Peter Mattei and Bryn Terfel aren’t available on short notice.
Of course, gossip being what it is, the worst possible interpretation has to be put on the whole affair: Netrebko was petrified of the loggione and so demanded an opera in which she could not be booed. Never mind that Donna Anna takes the last female bow in the opera (an easy opportunity for booing if the loggione were so determined) and that when she did take her call she got the biggest ovation of the night.
“Anna’s terror of the loggione” is an entertaining story, but it doesn’t seem to have much basis in fact. Not that mere lack of facts will keep the Milanese tongues from wagging.
yes dear Cieca, I was also skeptical about the Lucia affair, especially because of Barenboim, but this informant has a mid-level position inside La Scala, and swears that Netrebko was originally supposed to open La Scala this year with Lucia…
Well, no, I have no doubt that at one point the idea was for Netrebko to sing Lucia. My question is why the decision was made to offer a different opera, and I think that reason has to do with her decision not to sing Lucia anywhere, not specifically a fear of performing it at La Scala.
There were very strong rumors that the Scala loggione would boo Netrebko whatever the quality of her performance “because she had the effrontery to sing Anna Bolena.” But apparently that either was just talk or else her peformance in the Mozart won them over.
Here’s a concept I can live with:
httpv://youtu.be/PneV6_XC5rU
Trying again. I can still live with it.