parterre box

They want it. The career. They want it really bad. So we learn from Susan Froemke’s Metropolitan Opera-commissioned documentary about the participants in the final round of the 2007 MetNational Council Auditions, which is out on DVD this month. Our own doyenne reviewed the film when it was screened as an HD theatrical event, and by now many of us know the winners and their work. Since you are all wondering whether to rush out with $20 in your hands, perhaps a few remarks on the DVD release are in order. Read more »

Squirrel is using his Parterre Pulpit to make a pitch. If the Met wants to produce a work that has never been seen in New York, they could do worse than a new production of Carl Nielsen's excellent comic opera Maskarade. It's easy listening for sure, melodically akin to La boheme or Lehar, but marked by Nielsen's mature style - folk-song simplicity, and a love of cacophony and unlikely orchestration. Read more »

Siegfried Wagner 's 1903 opera Der Kobold  (The Goblin) is a fascinating yet infuriating work. It often seems as if both music and libretto were written by a committee that couldn’t come to agreement.   The plot structure careens wildly from realism to mysticism to symbolism; the music hops from style to style and influence to influence until S. Wagner’s own stamp is hard to find. The story is the journey of Verena, tormented by dreams of her illegitimate child who now appears to her as a goblin, searching for redemption. We learn that her own cruel mother killed Verena’s child, and there are dark hints of sexual abuse.   Read more »

There are several reasons to purchase the new DVD of Die Meistersinger from Vienna (EuroArts EUA 2072488), but the main one is Christian Thielemann. This production will most likely come to be known as “Thielemann’s Meistersinger," because his sense of the overall architecture of the work is, pardon the pun, masterful. Read more »