king ubu Posted October 29, 2014 Report Share Posted October 29, 2014 "Don Carlos" is pretty darn great I'd say! Saw a pretty good one on TV (from Munich, I think?) with Anja Harteros (she's great!) and Jonas Kaufmann (so is he). Guess I'd try and catch it on stage if I could. Italian or French version? And I guess 4-act, rather than 5-act? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted October 29, 2014 Report Share Posted October 29, 2014 This season's fare: Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) Pagliacci (Ruggero Leoncavallo) Tosca (Puccini) The Golden Cockerel (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) Don Carlos (Verdi) No class to familiarize myself with the material this year. Will have to study up on my own. Have a ticket to Figaro. Not sure what to make of the rest of it, although I know Don Carlos is a marathon (5 hours, only two intermissions). I'll likely end up going to all five. By the way -- some talk upthread about how expensive attending the opera is. While I'm sure that's the case at the Met and other large outfits, I can snag a center seat in the balcony at the cozy Sarasota Opera House for $19. That's about half the price of the cheapest seats at the symphony. As far as being put off by the so-called elitism associated with the opera, I could care less. Most of the crowd here is of the blue-haired, Midwestern transplant variety -- they all made their gobs of money inventing stuff like paper clubs and animal crackers -- although I did see one long-haired dude in a colorful dress sitting front and center last season. He stood out for sure. Anyways, if anyone has any thoughts on the above schedule, feel free .... Well going to the opera is always great, even if most of the time it falls short in some way. You are surely right to go to see Le Nozze di Figaro, one of the greatest of all operas, even if productions are often a bit twee. My second pick would be Don Carlos, which is very hard to cast - they will struggle - and which will also require good production and direction to keep it alive. I strongly suggest that you go and see it, it is a huge undertaking for them, and you can be certain that it will fall short by international standards, but it is the company's big venture of the season and I'd say you should be in the best seats supporting them, appreciating their guts, and hoping for some real magic and a triumph. Thank you for the insights. I'm encouraged by both you and king ubu concerning Don Carlos. I'll go to each of these, in all likelihood. As for the level of the production itself -- I should say that as a general proposition, I'm rarely disappointed at just about any performance I'm interested enough in to go see. I basically go to these things, set the receptors to wide open, sit back and enjoy the performance on its own terms. Unless the stage collapses or someone falls into the front row, I'll have a swell time. And even in those cases, I'd have a swell time (as long as I'm not sitting in the front row -- which there's no chance of that!) "Don Carlos" is pretty darn great I'd say! Saw a pretty good one on TV (from Munich, I think?) with Anja Harteros (she's great!) and Jonas Kaufmann (so is he). Guess I'd try and catch it on stage if I could. Italian or French version? And I guess 4-act, rather than 5-act? Original French version. Not sure about how many acts, but the box office said it was 5-plus hours with two intermissions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
king ubu Posted October 30, 2014 Report Share Posted October 30, 2014 Okay, 5-hours-plus sounds like a pretty long version ... I just bought the Abbado 4-disc-set which allows you to put together your own version, I think ... there's a lot to read in the booklet, but haven't started exploring that or listening. The more common (I guess) italian 4-act-version only needs 3 discs and I think the version I mentioned seeing on telly was a four hour thing (including a lenghty break in which they conducted some short interviews with a few singers etc). Quite a treat, I guess, but only if you can take the day off and sleep long and be wide awake all evening! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsMobley Posted November 5, 2014 Report Share Posted November 5, 2014 go down moses woodchoppers ballo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted November 12, 2014 Report Share Posted November 12, 2014 (edited) Went to a performance of "Pagliacci" last night; enjoyed it from a forward balcony seat where the music from the orchestra and stage is wonderful. (I find myself especially attentive to the overtures played prior to the curtain rise). "Pagliacci" was Ruggero Leoncavallo's one and only big hit, apparently, premiering in early 1890s to enthusiastic audiences across Europe and the United States. (Leoncavello was a rival of Puccini). It's a snappy little production that zips along in under 2 hours -- your typical love triangle / tragedy about a traveling theater company, so some of the characters become other characters, but it's not hard to follow along. The tenor (Michael Robert Hendrick) who played the head of the theater company was to my ear quite clearly the strongest voice; the soprano lead female role was less compelling. A couple of roles were played by a studio artist and an apprentice, and both acquitted themselves quite well, I thought. There's not a lot of action in this one as far as people running around on stage, so I just sat back, closed my eyes and listened for stretches. Wonderful. The only drawback was someone in the row right behind me -- a German woman I think -- who kept picking away at some sort of plastic-wrapped snacks the whole time, but I managed to tune her out. All in all, a great time. Not a terribly involved production, but musically thrilling for me. Edited November 12, 2014 by papsrus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ligeti Posted November 18, 2014 Report Share Posted November 18, 2014 Much to my own surprise, I am slowly developing an interest in Opera. I come to it from perhaps strange avenues. There is an electronic music guru by the name of Klaus Schulze, and my favorite album of his is Blackdance. One of the tracks begins with this haunting analog synth, with an operatic voice overlaid. Yeah, not your usual path, I suppose. My love of electronic music led my to electro-acoustic music, and my enjoyment of it led to Alejandro Vinao, whose Hildegard's Dream has Frances Lynch (Soprano) on it. From there I found my way to other vocal works (such as Stockhausen's Stimmung) and more opera from Unsuk Chin, whose Alice in Wonderland is something else. From there into Berio and the awesome Song from the Uproar written by Missi Mazolli (if you buy directly from her, as opposed to from say, Amazon, she has a wonderful package as opposed to the usual jewelcase. I have only sampled what is considered the classic Opera's, perhaps I'll develop a taste for it, but I'm not there yet. However, the more contemporary stuff has certainly got me hooked. I don't call myself an Opera fan only because I've heard so little, and understood even less. But I'm growing into it, and am definitely open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigshot Posted November 18, 2014 Report Share Posted November 18, 2014 Get some blu-rays or DVDs and dedicate an evening to it. You'll discover a whole new medium for drama and music and the arts all wrapped up in one package. You are lucky because it seems you appreciate modernism. Check out Mehta's Ring of the Nibelung at Valencia. It is a devastatingly good performance, but the staging is too modern for a lot of the stuffed shirt Wagnerphiles who want helmets with horns, not mad scientist's labs and industrial cranes. You will definitely like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted November 18, 2014 Report Share Posted November 18, 2014 FYI, Ligeti, the BBCSO is performing Alice in Wonderland in March, in a multimedia staging. Not sure what that means. It might interest you. http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/eb3g9r Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffcrom Posted November 18, 2014 Report Share Posted November 18, 2014 Went to a performance of "Pagliacci" last night; enjoyed it from a forward balcony seat where the music from the orchestra and stage is wonderful. (I find myself especially attentive to the overtures played prior to the curtain rise). "Pagliacci" was Ruggero Leoncavallo's one and only big hit, apparently, premiering in early 1890s to enthusiastic audiences across Europe and the United States. (Leoncavello was a rival of Puccini). It's a snappy little production that zips along in under 2 hours -- your typical love triangle / tragedy about a traveling theater company, so some of the characters become other characters, but it's not hard to follow along. The tenor (Michael Robert Hendrick) who played the head of the theater company was to my ear quite clearly the strongest voice; the soprano lead female role was less compelling. A couple of roles were played by a studio artist and an apprentice, and both acquitted themselves quite well, I thought. There's not a lot of action in this one as far as people running around on stage, so I just sat back, closed my eyes and listened for stretches. Wonderful. The only drawback was someone in the row right behind me -- a German woman I think -- who kept picking away at some sort of plastic-wrapped snacks the whole time, but I managed to tune her out. All in all, a great time. Not a terribly involved production, but musically thrilling for me. Thanks for the report. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ligeti Posted November 22, 2014 Report Share Posted November 22, 2014 Get some blu-rays or DVDs and dedicate an evening to it. You'll discover a whole new medium for drama and music and the arts all wrapped up in one package. You are lucky because it seems you appreciate modernism. Check out Mehta's Ring of the Nibelung at Valencia. It is a devastatingly good performance, but the staging is too modern for a lot of the stuffed shirt Wagnerphiles who want helmets with horns, not mad scientist's labs and industrial cranes. You will definitely like. Holy cow - that looks awesome! Not cheap mind. Still, wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bogdan101 Posted November 22, 2014 Report Share Posted November 22, 2014 Went to the opera last night here at the University: Ravel double header with "L'heure espagnole" and "L'enfant et les sortileges". Student performers mostly and it was a lot of fun; they're going to do "La boheme" in a couple of months, looking forward to that one too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarThrower Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Current listening: Schnittke-Life With An idiot on Sony Hindemith-Mathis Der Maler on EMI Mussorgsky-Khovanshchina Abbado DVD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted November 24, 2014 Report Share Posted November 24, 2014 Proper operas. Apart from Schnittke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarThrower Posted November 30, 2014 Report Share Posted November 30, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 Nice article in today's paper taking the pulse of my local Sarasota Opera. LINK Things seem to be on reasonably firm footing here; elsewhere across the hinterlands, there are some issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarThrower Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 Snagged a used copy of this one for 3 dollars! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StarThrower Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 Jenufa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 Has anybody actually been to the opera recently? I used to go frequently, then occasionally, but the last couple of seasons I haven't been at all. Wozzeck last season is the last one I went to... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 Starting next week I've got three weeks in a row: Marriage of Figaro, Golden Cockerel and Tosca. Then Don Carlos in March. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 Nice one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted February 12, 2015 Report Share Posted February 12, 2015 Grigory Soloviov as King Dodon in the Golden Cockerel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted February 25, 2015 Report Share Posted February 25, 2015 Decided to put this little review in the opera thread rather than concert reviews thread, where I dumped a previous opera review. Seems more appropriate here. Apologies for the muddled posting. Just returned from a Sarasota Opera performance of "The Golden Cockerel," Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. For those unfamiliar (as I was going in) the story is a fantasy / fairy tale about an aging king faced with encroaching enemies. A wizard offers him a golden cockerel who will warn the king whenever danger is near. King sends sons off to fight as danger approaches. They get killed. King goes to battlefield, discovers sons' bodies and is met by the Queen of Shemakha. She seduces him, they return back to his castle to marry but the wizard suddenly wants the queen for himself as repayment for the cockerel. King kills wizard. Golden cockerel kills king. The end. The highlights: The orchestration was beautiful. This was Rimsky-Korsakov's last work, apparently, and it is filled with folk-ish, rich melodies and sumptuous strings. Alexandra Batsios as The Queen of Shemakha was the clear standout voice. Hit a couple of those white-hot, glass-shattering high notes with piercing clarity. She was to my ear head and shoulders above the other singers. The townspeople broke into chorus a few times and delivered with fullness and assurance. Very nice. But while Grigory Soloviov as King Dodon was fine, he was a little underwhelming with his projection at times. The wizard was frankly weak. Others in the cast unremarkable, to my ear. According to the program, this opera hasn't been staged by a U.S. company since 1967. The touring St. Petersburg Opera did stage it in the U.S. in 1991. But that was the last time. It has also been performed as a ballet -- in Paris in 1914 -- and I can see how this could work quite well as ballet. The stage direction here came off a little clumsy, frankly, with lots of stilted shuffling here and there. By design, perhaps, but didn't really work for me. And while there's certainly a comedic pulse to the whole thing, it came off almost as self-parody at times, with mugging to the audience, etc., at least what I saw of it (I spent long stretches with eyes closed listening, although peeking every now and then. I don't think I missed much visually.) The libretto is certainly filled with sarcasm, so I'm sure the comedic tone is all intended, but it somehow didn't dovetail with the lush orchestration. You'd get these gorgeous orchestral passages and the queen would sing, quite beautifully, something like, "I look even better with my clothes off," or "the king's beard is disgusting" and of course the audience would giggle and I'd be locked into the music and it was all just a bit disjointed that way. Not bothersome at all, just ... hm, that libretto and mugging on stage doesn't fit with this gorgeous music. Anyways, I will say the costumes were fantastic, and fantastical. There's a procession back into the king's castle with queen in tow that is filled with a cast of colorful, bizarre characters that look as though they stepped straight out of a Hieronymous Bosch painting. Wild. Colorful. Dancing and spinning (ballet-like). In the end, the first two acts fell flat, to me. Not until the queen shows up (and dead sons, enemies, war, etc., are abruptly tossed aside and replaced by king falling for the queen) does the music really take off. Acts III and IV were very enjoyable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted February 25, 2015 Report Share Posted February 25, 2015 Thanks for the review. I did see a production of that some years ago by the Royal Opera at Sadlers Wells. It left me cold and when it came up again recently with a Russian touring company I skipped it. But why? Once you get used to the cod orientalism of the whole thing and (evidently) the humor and OTT orchestration I guess it's fine, though as you say only the Queen has anything to do, and by the time she does it you have already given up... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
papsrus Posted February 25, 2015 Report Share Posted February 25, 2015 OTT orchestration? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Ayers Posted February 25, 2015 Report Share Posted February 25, 2015 I just mean all the orientalist coloring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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