Mounting dread
On this day in 1992 the Metropolitan Opera presented a [disastrous] new production of Elektra.
Deborah Voigt
59 pieces since 2007 — in 13 roles, at 5 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
59
pieces
13
roles
5
companies
20
years
By role
14 pieces as Metropolitan Opera — stats above show all coverage for Deborah Voigt.
View all
Not only with words, but with lively gestures
“I will never sing the role again. It was frightful. We were a set of madwomen…There is nothing beyond Elektra. We have lived and reached the furthest boundaries in dramatic writing for the voice with Wagner. But Richard Strauss goes beyond him. His singing voices are lost. We have come to a full stop.”
Must the finals come so soon?
Without fail, all nine finalists had nice clear ringing voices. Whether they develop into great artists is another question.
For the birds
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Full of beans
It’s been a bitterly cold winter in NY. When it’s bitterly cold, the air is dry.
Requiem for a dream
Last night, La Cieca finally got around to watching that documentary about the rocky road to the new Ring at the Met, and she has a thought or two about this whole brouhaha.
No place like Rome
Love grand opera but wary of a six o’clock curtain with five hours of music behind it? (And nothing is grander than Berlioz’s Les Troyens, eh?) Your dilemma has been solved. Show up at the Met at 7:30 or 8:00, whenever they have the first intermission.
Def Man Glance
Since 2010 I’ve been reading nothing but horror being heaped upon the Met’s new Ring. It’s been like a cross between a cruise ship size buffet spread of internet snarking and a slasher film re-cast with music critics.
Expect opera, pay less
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.
Hier bleibt Elektra
The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.
Royal Hunt
Les Troyens is one of those things, or often two of those things, that should be a big event or it practically needn’t happen at all.* The keynote is grandiosity in the best way, from the subject to the musical demands (let’s include the implicit challenge of one singer performing both Cassandre and Didon—not because […]
Desert island DVD
This is a performance I never thought I’d see. This 2003 Met performance of Ariadne auf Naxos was filmed, but got tied up in some kind of (legal?) dispute and never televised, and I had long written it off as being tucked away in a vault, doomed to be “the lost telecast.” So it is […]
Noch einmal!
Richard Strauss’s brilliantly disturbing Elektra was first performed at the Dresden State Opera in 1909, and arrived in America in 1910 at the Manhattan Opera House. A second American premiere, this time in the original German, was in Philadelphia in 1931 with – and this will kill you – Nelson Eddy as Orestes. Along with […]
i want to liveblog!
Tuesday morning: A further report from Lindoro Almaviva: Over all the night was a success d’estime. It was a Renee worship night and we got just that. I am sure you will be able to talk in better terms about the singing or lack thereof. My impression is that Renee had an “acting” night, as […]