“Now that it has become apparent that Robert Lepage‘s production of the Ring at the Met is a fiasco (too soon? Nah.)… well, anyway, since arguably the production is a dreary, unworkable, overpriced mess whose primary (perhaps only) virtue is that it actually hasn’t killed anyone yet, and since, let’s face it, the Machinecentric show turned out to be so mind-bogglingly expensive (all those Sunday tech rehearsals with stagehands being paid, no doubt, in solid platinum ingots!), something has to be done. In this article, I intend to propose that ‘something’.” Our Own JJ gets prescriptive at Musical America. (Image based on photos by Ken Howard)
From the Met press office: “Jay Hunter Morris will sing the role of Siegfried in Siegfried on April 21 matinee and April 30, 2012, and in Götterdämmerung on May 3, 2012. He replaces Gary Lehman who has withdrawn due to illness.”
La Cieca (not pictured) was just leaked the information that the next planned revival of the Met’s Ring production (after next season) will be in the spring of 2017, i.e., about five years from now. That’s handy, because five years is the approximate lead time of casting big projects like these; the current crop of Wagnerians treading the Machine were selected circa 2007. A challenge for you, after the jump. Read more »
Stefan Herheim’s production of Parsifal for Bayreuth is the regie Holy Grail—a production that completely fulfills the promise and purpose of Regietheater.
Fertilization; birth; growth; decay. Eating; digestion; defecation; fermentation; biogas recovery; food production. Wagner’s Tannhäuser is a meditation on the relentless, repetition of cycles that define our existence and man’s insistence on the possibility salvation despite all the biochemical evidence to the contrary.
La Cieca has just heard that the acclaimed production of Parsifal by Stefan Herheim will be telecast and filmed for DVD release next summer in Bayreuth.
La Cieca (not pictured) dons her “early adopter” hat once again as she prepares to watch the live telecast of Lohengrin from the Bayreuth Festival on Sunday. It’s an online pay-per-view event (a ticket is €14.90), though the presenters promise it can alternatively be watched “on demand at a time of your own choice between the 15th and 30th of August 2011.”
The Bayreuth repertory continues today with a revival of the final triumph of the Wolfgang era, Parsifal in the production by Stefan Herheim, conducted by Daniele Gatti. The broadcast begins at 10:00 AM EDT on a variety of stations detailed at Operacast. Naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for comments and especially questions.
This morning, live from the Bayreuth Festival, you can hear the premiere of the Thomas Hengelbrock/Sebastian Baumgarten production of Tannhäuser. The broadcast proper begins at 10:00 AM EDT. For a list of web stations offering this program, go to Operacast, and naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for the Chat Contest. (Photo © Bayreuther Festspiele/Enrico Nawrath.)
Here goes with the End of the Gods and the End of these Ring reviews: Götterdämmerung was more of a mixed bag than the other operas, but still left a powerful impression. This was where Zambello’s choice to steer clear of heavy spectacle was most evident to me. The cost in grandeur was offset by an absence of dumb bombast and a gain in intimacy and character definition. I don’t know how well that last factor would hold up in a revival director’s hands, but on the whole she made the approach pay off handsomely.
Cher Public