parterre box

You may remember, gentle readers, that last year about this time Peter Gelb decided to enter into an unholy alliance with Target to benefit their mountainous number of opera loving customers by pre-releasing two Met performances exclusively in their fine emporiums. A couple weeks ago, by sheer accident, I caught a posting on Facebook by the Met Gift Shop on a new release topic that was then withdrawn an hour later. When I asked for clarification I was pointed to my (not so local) Target for these performances of La fanciulla del West and Il trovatore.   Read more »

Certain opera productions become the stuff of legend as much for the circumstances surrounding the performance as for the musical results. Harry Kupfer’s 1992 Parsifal for the Berlin Staatsoper came at an epochal time, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and just after Daniel Barenboim was appointed the company’s music director. Putting an especially strong cast of under Kupfer’s direction was thought to portend a Renaissance for a house that had languished in the communist East, and hint at broader artistic possibilities for the reunified German republic.   Read more »

At first glance, Ivor Bolton, Chief Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, would seem an odd choice to lead Jenufa, Janacek’s grim tale of infanticide and oppressive village morality.  Remember the actor Tony Azito?  Bolton’s conducting persona reminds me of Azito’s amazingly flexible movement skills.  Bolton, he of the stiff trunk, sweetly doughy face, and arms and hands expressively rubbery, brings a marvelous ability to find the exquisite, emotional beauty in Janacek’s verismo score.

More than anything on this interesting DVD, I will remember the heart-wrenching violins.  From the tremolos that begin Act II to the fragile solo that emerges from the sturm und drang of Kostelnicka’s exit to murder the baby, Bolton uses these moments of surpassing delicacy and beauty to a deeply touching effect.  Perhaps it is actually due to his Mozart and baroque mainstays that he is able to find so much depth, variety, and moments of revelatory surprise in this rich music. Read more »