General Opera News

Started by uffeviking, April 08, 2007, 06:49:51 PM

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Wendell_E

Quote from: knight66 on February 19, 2016, 05:52:31 AM
In which case, is it really Bizet's Carmen?

Mike

Is the version with Guiraud's recitatives really Bizet's Carmen,
"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ― Mark Twain

knight66

Quote from: Wendell_E on February 20, 2016, 10:55:01 AM
Is the version with Guiraud's recitatives really Bizet's Carmen,

Who uses those now? In any case changing the sex and voice register of the main characters is a whole lot different from adding recits instead of spoken words. In the latter, none of Bizet's music is being mucked about.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

Wendell_E

Quote from: knight66 on February 21, 2016, 09:34:32 AM
Who uses [the Guiraud recitatives] now?

The Met does, in its last two productions.  The two before that started out using dialogues, but eventually switched over to Guiraud.  Some of the regional companies I usually attend do, sometimes.  I can't believe those are the only ones.  I imagine most companies that do use them don't even mention Guiraud, so it's difficult to research.  I did find that last summer's Chorégies d'Orange production, with Kaufmann and Aldrich, used the recitatives.

I'm not defending the MODO, production and agree that the changes are quite different from Guiraud's, but I still think the Guiraud version really isn't Bizet's Carmen.  Closer than MODO, certainly.
"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ― Mark Twain

knight66

Thanks, I really thought the old recits had died a death. Perhaps they are easier for singers than rattling off some authentic sounding French. It all goes so much more dramatically with the spoken dialogue.

Mike

DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

Wendell_E

Quote from: knight66 on February 22, 2016, 07:53:41 AM
Thanks, I really thought the old recits had died a death. Perhaps they are easier for singers than rattling off some authentic sounding French. It all goes so much more dramatically with the spoken dialogue.

Mike

I've heard the spoken dialogues require extra rehearsal time, and particularly in a repertory house like the Met, often with changing casts throughout a run, it's just easier.  The first time Crespin did Carmen at the Met, they were still using the dialogues, and she did them wonderfully, but three years later when she sang it, it was back to Guiraud, and that really was a letdown.
"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ― Mark Twain

Spineur

For those interested, here is the program of the 2016-2017 season of the Dutch national opera

http://www.operaballet.nl/en/program?filter=179

betterthanfine

Quote from: Spineur on February 26, 2016, 07:06:33 AM
For those interested, here is the program of the 2016-2017 season of the Dutch national opera

http://www.operaballet.nl/en/program?filter=179
SO excited for Salome with Gatti and the RCO.

Spineur

Quote from: betterthanfine on March 01, 2016, 06:03:41 AM
SO excited for Salome with Gatti and the RCO.
+Parsifal and Dog Heart.  I think I am going to fly to Amsterdam for Salome and Parsifal.

Spineur

For the US GMG members: free broadcast of Simon Boccanegra by the MET:

Tune-in Alert! Opening of #SimonBoccanegra w @PlacidoDomingo @MalteseTenor 725pm ET online & @SIRIUSXM

https://t.co/Ul4BwtZUsO

Cato

In the May 17, 2016 Wall Street Journal, Heidi Waleson reviews two new operas based on books: The Shining by Paul Moravec and The Scarlet Letter by Lori Laitman.

Some excerpts:

Quote...Mr. Moravec's witty, evocative music strikes a good balance between the sincere and the creepy. Act I, though slowed by too much exposition, gives Jack and Wendy some heartfelt arias and duets that express their bond, while groans from the orchestra and glassy violins suggest the evil that threatens them. At first, the ghosts are just implied, but from the riotous Act I finale on, they are corporeal. In Act II, the music fragments and disintegrates, and piles on the sardonic darkness with some Kurt Weill-tinged party scenes, as Jack goes over the edge....

...Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"... has the kernel of an operatic plot: Secret lovers, trapped in a rigid Puritan community, are tormented by a malevolent enemy. But in Lori Laitman's relentlessly tuneful setting, which had its world premiere at Opera Colorado, the darkness of the story goes unplumbed. The tale is there, efficiently distilled into six scenes by the poet David Mason. But his verse libretto is both constraining and occasionally jarring ("scrimp / imp"; "myself / dear elf"), and the too-pretty music rarely breaks out of this rhythmic straitjacket...

...tenor Dominic Armstrong captured (Dimmesdale's) increasing guilt and torment with wide-eyed bewilderment and his public confession was the opera's one moment of real connection. With her high, slender soprano, Laura Claycomb's Hester was a secondary figure, never budging from her stoic acceptance of her fate. As Roger Chillingworth... baritone Malcolm MacKenzie was severely limited by the vocal writing, which was plodding and repetitive rather than poisonous. The repressive community also seemed under-characterized ("Repent, the world was born in sin" sounded positively sunny); the witchy Mistress Hibbons (mezzo Margaret Gawrysiak) gave voice to Dimmesdale's secret guilt in waltz time, supplying some welcome rhythmic variety. As with the voices, Ms. Laitman favored cheerful colors and lush timbres in the orchestra...


See:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-shining-and-the-scarlet-letter-reviews-1463432951
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Karl Henning

The phrase relentlessly tuneful can only be ambiguous, can't it?
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot


Spineur

Judging from the enthusiasm of a number of opera singers on their twitter threads,  he is extremely popular.  Quite a good start for an opera house musical director !!

knight66

Alex Ross was not overwhelmingly positive. I have heard the conductor live at the Met and in London in an orchestral concert. Both times I was impressed. He seems not to have any track record in German opera which is a bit odd. As much as his conducting it will be his artistic leadership that will be important.

As usual, social media exposed its nut-jobs. One Twitter thread I read had a point, repeated by said nutter, asking whether it was unusual for a music director to be as short as Yannick is.

Sigh.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

mc ukrneal

Quote from: knight66 on June 02, 2016, 09:41:03 PM
Alex Ross was not overwhelmingly positive. I have heard the conductor live at the Met and in London in an orchestral concert. Both times I was impressed. He seems not to have any track record in German opera which is a bit odd. As much as his conducting it will be his artistic leadership that will be important.

As usual, social media exposed its nut-jobs. One Twitter thread I read had a point, repeated by said nutter, asking whether it was unusual for a music director to be as short as Yannick is.

Sigh.

Mike
It seems positive to me as well. It is good to get someone a bit younger too...
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

ritter

#675
Andris Nelsons pulls out of the new parsifal production in Bayreuth, which is due to open July 25th:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/arts/music/andris-nelsons-parsifal-bayreuth-festival.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmusic&action=click&contentCollection=music&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Some German papers openly blame Christian Thielemann(the recently appointed Generalmiskdirektor of the festival--a superfluos post if there ever was one  ::) for Mr. Nelsons's sudden decision: http://www.welt.de/kultur/buehne-konzert/article156704933/Eklat-in-Bayreuth-Parsifal-ohne-Dirigent.html

No replacement for Mr. Nelsons has been announced (or found yet, I suppsoe). To complicate matters even more,. Mr. Nelsons is (was?) slated to conduct the new production of the Ring in 2020.

ritter

Quote from: ritter on July 01, 2016, 02:24:25 AM
Andris Nelsons pulls out of the new parsifal production in Bayreuth, which is due to open July 25th:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/arts/music/andris-nelsons-parsifal-bayreuth-festival.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmusic&action=click&contentCollection=music&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Some German papers openly blame Christian Thielemann(the recently appointed Generalmiskdirektor of the festival--a superfluos post if there ever was one  ::) for Mr. Nelsons's sudden decision: http://www.welt.de/kultur/buehne-konzert/article156704933/Eklat-in-Bayreuth-Parsifal-ohne-Dirigent.html

No replacement for Mr. Nelsons has been announced (or found yet, I suppsoe). To complicate matters even more,. Mr. Nelsons is (was?) slated to conduct the new production of the Ring in 2020.
Hartmut Haenchen has been appointed to replace Nelsons in this year's Parsifal production at Bayreuth. http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/news/171/details_44.htm

ritter

#677
Tenor Johan Botha has died today, aged 51, after a grave illness.

http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/klassik/5082034/Osterreichischsudafrikanischer-Startenor-Johan-Botha-gestorben

Mr. Botha was one of the leading tenors in the Wagnerian repertoire over the past couple of decades. I saw him as Siegmund in Die Walküre in Bayreuth in 2013, where he was one of the vocal highlights of that year's Ring (even if his acting abilities were rather limited) and sometime earlier in the tenor part in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde here in Madrid. R.I.P.

Mandryka

#678
Quote from: ritter on September 08, 2016, 01:23:00 AM
Tenor Johan Botha has died today, aged 51, after a grave illness.

http://diepresse.com/home/kultur/klassik/5082034/Osterreichischsudafrikanischer-Startenor-Johan-Botha-gestorben

Mr. Botha was one of the leading tenors in the Wagnerian repertoire over the past couple of decades. I saw him as Siegmund in Die Walküre in Bayreuth in 2013, where he was one of the vocal highlights of that year's Ring (even if his acting abilities were rather limited) and sometime earlier in the tenor part in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde here in Madrid. R.I.P.

Sad news. The first time I saw him was in a Robert Wilson  production of Aida for Covent Garden,  years ago now. It may have even been his premier at the Royal Opera, I can't remember.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Wendell_E

Quote from: Mandryka on September 08, 2016, 06:11:23 AM
Sad news. The first time I saw him was in a Robert Wilson  production of Aida for Covent Garden,  years ago now. It may have even been his premier at the Royal Opera, I can't remember.

According to the article on his death at the ROH website, he debut there was as Rodolfo in Bohème, in 1995, opposite Gheorghiu.  http://www.roh.org.uk/news/johan-botha-obituary
"Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." ― Mark Twain