richard53dog

It's legal terminology. It doesn't mean someone was offended.

Actually, Pav did a run of Turandots at the Met in the late 90s. I saw one and though he had been panned by some critics, I didn't think he was half bad. He was pretty immobile at that point and was wearing sneakers doctored into looking like Calaf's boots but he was playing against Jane Eaglen's Turandot which wasn't exactly a bundle of energy on stage either. Vocally he was respectable although he skimmed some of it. And it was unfortunate that when the moment came to ring the gong at the climax of act 1, Luciano wasn't up to running across the stage with a stick and so it fell to a super to run up to the gong and strike it while Pav sang "Turandot, Turandot, Turandot" while leaning against a banister. But I think a far better solution for the Pav/Turandot issue was for him to sing Nessun Dorma in concerts. He started that back in the 70s and that truly was something to hear back then.

I'm not by nature a tenor person, I tend to listen more to sopranos but I love Puccini's tenor music. People say Puccini was obsessed with women and I suppose it's true but he also gave some wonderful opportunities to his tenors. I love it when tenors show a sensitive side and Puccini used this. Rodolfo's narrative is beautiful, I just love Cavaradosi's E lucevan le stelle . Even Calaf, an obnoxious arrogant guy unbends to console Liu in Act 1 Non piangere Liu. But the one that gets the prize from me is Dick Johnson's Ch'ella mi creda from the last act of Fanciulla del West. Puccini wrote an opera with the theme of redemption to it, probably his most ambitious (successful) undertaking. Johnson is about the most sensitive, noble outlaw you can imagine. The posse is about to hang him but he begs them to lie about it to Minnie. He doesn't grovel for his own life but rather than have her find out he was hung (after the sheriff reneged on a "plea bargain" ala poker) he implores them to tell her that he has gone far away and is living a new, reformed life of a respectable person. He feels this will hurt her less than knowing that the crew that she schooled had hung the man she loved. It's a difficult aria to sing because it starts low and build up to a double climax but it is without question my favorite tenor piece. It's a beautiful melody, Puccini uses some of the angular harmonics that evidently spelled "exotic" to him. I suppose to him the California goldrush territory was in a way as foreign as Japan or ancient China! I'm a Fanciulla nut anyway. This scene always gets to me but Puccini tops it when Minnie comes running onto the scene at the last moment. She SHAMES the miners into letting Johnson go. One by one she reminds them how she taught them to read, and cared for them, and introduced them to the Bible. HOW can they not give her the first thing she has ever asked for in return, the man she loves. The miners are reduced to sobs. Dynamite stuff!

I hadn't heard that but it would certainly be nice if that was the case. A problem though is that none of these theatrical properties last forever. They are subject to hard use being trucked in and out of the theater. And all kinds of things seem to happen in the warehouses. As I had mentioned, the Met revived Adriana Lecouvrer last season but when they took the sets out of storage some of them were deteriorated beyond the point of refurbishing/repainting. They usesd the ones that were able to be salvaged and used projections for the rest. Still, it would be great if they still had the Chagall. It's really something a bit beyond a typical group of theatrical sets.

True. And his production of Shakepeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' was revolutionary at the time. I remember thinking at the time that his Romeo and Juliet was just a gorgeous film. I haven't seen it in many years though. Even his Taming of the Shrew film with Liz and Dick turned out to have a lot of fun to it. Move ahead 20 years though and see his Otello film where he sees fit to eliminate the great Council scene in Act 3 and then Desdemona's Willow Song and you have to wonder what happened. And this is the man who is now giving interviews to any media that will not hang up on his phone calls that only he honors the composers' intentions. Yeah, right. Frengo.

It smacks of feuding over the body of an alleged loved-one right at a crucial stage of life-or-death surgery. According to the article, the Board rebels failed to get their funding. Are they surprised? Serious philanthropists and foundations must be running away from the NYCO Board -- both sides -- as from a plague. "With friends like this, who needs ... (etc.)? It's miserable that this has been dredged up. It's six month old news but being aired close the the NYCO's Opening Night which is just about three weeks away. The focus at this point should be on the season that Steel has been able to pull together against great odds; and they need all the encouragement they can get right now. "With friends like this..." Exactly! (I had heard a rumor from an opera board last spring that Volpe was being considered as GM of the NYCO but thought, "no......they wouldn't". Evidently the rumor had some substance to it)

Hans, it interesting that you bring this up. I believe it might be possible. Last March the Met held it's 125 Anniversary Gala. It was a collection of scenes and arias and the twist was that all the numbers were presented as being "staged". And they went almost all the way back in their history for the settings and costumes. They didn't use actual sets, they recreated them using projections. The costumes were recreations from photographs. So the Siegfried final scene was done with projections from the 1899 sets and costumes that went with them. The Rosenkavalier trio was sung against a projected backdrop recreation of the 1912 Roller sets with the costumes (and cottony looking white wigs). And a selection from the Magic Flute was sung in front of a projection of one of the Chagall drops! To add some fizz, Waltraud Meier sing a number from Carmen wearing a recreation of the costume Valentina created for Rosa Ponselle. Stunning I wasn't at the gala so I don't know how effective all of this was but some of the photos looked striking. To bring this all back to your question, last season the MEt revived it's 1963 production of Adriana Lecouvrer and found some of the sets were disintegrated. So they patched the ones up that were salvageable and set the other scenes against projections with an odd chair or sofa as a prop to add some dimension. So maybe a recreation via projections could be done if not an actual recreation of the Chagall hangings. For the Met part the Chagall Flute was a procession of drops.

I don't want to come off as totally disposing of Zeffirelli as a creative force. He was a dynamo when he started out in the 50s and his early opera productions were striking and innovative. His first Met production, Falstaff, was a masterpiece; I think the term is totally deserved here. And many aspects were NON-tradtional and had conservative audiences on edge. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Certain things really resonated with him, the grubby Pagliacci is one. It really compliments the opera. His first version of La Boheme was another home run (the version the Met has is similar but it's been bloated up a bit). But as Dirac said, the quality declined. Artists often run out of things to say and they repeat themselves. Or they try to throw in everything but the kitchen sink to mask the thinness of the content.

It's a personal thing but I don't "get" the greatness of Zeffirelli's productions, at least the stuff he's put on stage the last 25 years or so. The two worst are the latest Traviata with an Act2 scene2 that looks like a New Orleans bordello, it's gross. And the other is his unbelievably garish Turandot which looks to me like a Chinatown souvenir shop on steroids. I just don't see it. They are not works of art in any way in my book. Do you know what WAS a tragedy? the Met discarded the sets for Chagall's Magic Flute. Chagall actually did a lot of the painting himself. And that was trashed and we have to keep's Zeff's gaudy treasures?

A new Martins ballet!!! What a surprise!!!!!

SanderO, I believe I read Gelb saying the Tosca was going to be stored. I think they also are storing the Schenk Ring sets but the normal course is that they are sold or trashed.

It's my understanding that the properties are either discarded or sold when one theater is finished with them. Sometimes a production plan will be sold or loaned to another opera house but the sets themselves may need to be adapted or reconstructed to fit the stage as they are often different. Lyric Opera of Chicago is sort of implying that the Tosca they are now putting on stage is the Zefferelli production from Covent Garden. Yes and no. Covent Garden sold the production to Chicago when they decided to replace it about five years ago. It dated from 1964 and Zefferelli staged it for Callas and Gobbi. But he didn't do the sets or the costumes he just did the stage direction which has long since vaporized. Chicago bought 40 year old Mongiardino sets and some of the old Escoffier costumes although Voigt is pictured in a different out fit for the photos of act 2. I don't see that there is much trace of Zefferelli left here! The Bondy Tosca is already scheduled to be seen in one or two opera houses in Europe. It's possible it will be revived next season, as it is on the schedule and then not seen again for a while or at all. Some of the productions that will be replaced have already been filmed. The Zeff Tosca was filmed back in the mid 80s with the first cast and shows Zeff's actually direction of the singers which has mostly vanished with all the revivals over the years. It also shows the elevator in the third act to change the scene, which I thought at the time was sort of silly. It' absolutely nothing new for directors of opera house to replace productions of the classics; I'ven been seeing in for my forty years of opera going back to the days when Rudolph Bing was trying to bring theatrical influence to the productions of old favorites. And lots of people yelled then too, I remember the Barrault Carmen from 1967 which had people upset and then a few years later the Gentele Carmen that also had people upset.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. The Met has been plagued with singer cancellations lately, especially the high profile singers that are, ...ah..., let me say "stretching the boundaries of their repertoire". There are a number of singer that list that I would rate as only so-so likely to actually show up and be able to sing. Peter Gelb needs to really, really, really line up alternates for Siegfried, Brunnhilde, and Wotan. OK, this is off topic for the thread. And I think San Francisco's cast isn't so starry but is MUCH more realistic.

Venus, no? I agree that it's a brilliant condensation. Makes me wonder why Shakespeare bothered with an entire act. Opening with the storm is so much more dramatic. Yes, "Venere splende" means "Venus is shining", a romanticism. In his opening Venetian act, I think Shakespeare was aiming to stress Othello's different (and, I suppose, inferior background) The idea is that Desdemona is making a non traditional marriage and this is supposed to add to Othello's feelings of inferiority which the later plot elements add to. Venice was simply not his world however much a name he had made for himself .Even Cyprus is a low rent district compared to Venice. All this is mirrored a bit in the opera's Act 3 , scene 2 the big court scene where Otello is disgraced before the Venetian ambassador. His humiliation is just about complete. But operas can't support the amount of text that plays can and I think it was a brilliant idea for Boito to simply eliminate the first act. By the late 19th century the idea of a Moor marrying a European noblewoman had plenty of connotations of it's own. And the opening of Otello is stunning with the storm music. edited to add: Oops, posted at the same time as Bart. Didn't mean to beat the Venere splende to death!

Thanks Helene and Bart for the writeups on the Tosca HD. I've been following this for the last few weeks since I listened to the opening night performance so I was looking to hear some posters' takes on the performance. Perhaps I will get to see the production in April with one of the alternate casts (Dessi or Kaufmann/Terfel ) It's rule of thumb of mine that if you get swept along with a performance, then it's a success for you. I personally get a charge out of realizing that I'm seeing something in a new way and it sounds like both of you came to that conclusion with the Tosca performance.

Bingham, assuming that they are able to continue their performance schedule at something like their past years, the NYCO opens in September and runs to mid November, not much of a gap where the house is dark. Of course right now the NYCO is in an iffy position, their 2009-10 seasons are much abbreviated. Only the future will show just how long their upcoming seasons will be.

Oh my, I watched the first few minutes of this clip. It looks like it was filmed underwater. And people were commenting on Part's and Murphy suitability for Giselle??????????????????

When I first read of the award I had some thoughts along the same lines. I suspect there is something to what you said.

What a lot of fun!

Although it was a number of "renovations" ago, I saw a program that included some ballet in the early 70s at the then Philharmonic Hall. It was one of the old Philharmonic Promenades Concerts. And it sure didn't work too well then. (Villella and McBride in some Gayaneh excerpts) But then AFH isn't even ideal for orchestral concerts! Agree things are not well if we are missing City Center!

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has been doing this conductor-less thing for many years now. A section leader leads the rehearsals and the responsibilty is rotated througout the different sections. Of course they are a small group, not a full symphony orchestra but they do manage this even with guest soloists. So on some level it can be done, but I think pretty limited. Not in an opera certainly and not in a ballet, although look at it this way, an orchestra without a conductor would be hard put to accomodate performance adjustments to accomodate dancers' needs but would STILL be more flexible than pre-recorded music!

This is indeed odd! Strange that a player would say that . I'm not a musician so I can't comment too much on the technical aspect of this but just from my experience I would think that in fact a conductor would be pretty much a necessity. I think your point about rehearsals is a good one. As far as opera, hmm, I don't see how that would work. Some opera houses still use prompters and I suppose they could give the singers cues based on tempi established in rehearsals but I could see how that could fall apart real fast! And a lot of opera houses have done away with prompter boxes anyway. And a conductor also can be involved in "building" the orchestra. Maybe James Levine's greatest legacy at the Met Opera is how he has improved the quality of the orchestra's playing. They play well for him and this quality is also evident with other conductors that come in to lead performances. But maybe going back to the point made in the article, it's sometimes said that when say a conductor is thrown in at the last minute, the orchestra manages to play "on their own" We do have the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra here in NYC which performs without a conductor but even they admit that there are "leadership" roles which are rotated. I imagine that's how they organize rehearsals. As far a salaries, that's a loaded question, isn't it? But a name conductor will get a salary based on supply and demand. And of course marketing and promotion, ever present in the arts (as elsewhere!) today. We are seeing a huge amount of this kind of promotion here in the US with the arrival of Gustavo Dudamel to take over the reins of the Los Angeles Orchestra. There was an absolute frenzy to get tickets for his "welcome" performances of the Verdi Requiem. He has become an instant "star" Mashinka, you used the word "odd" in your post twice, I can certainly see why, it seemed a very odd article to me too! But interesting, certainly.

Do you mean some of this YMCA activity was with adults? Counselors, teachers and such? "Crushes" are one thing and romances and all their variations between teens are another. I would agree both those are part of growing up. But serious teen-adult romances, with or without physical activity seem pretty much beyond the pale.

That's all very true but what goes along with it is that a society sets up laws based on a specific postition , whether it is something (supposedly) straitforward such as murder or something that different segments of the population feel differently about, such as abortion. And those laws are as far as possible, lines in the sand. It's simple, if you live under a certain legal system, you abide by the laws or you find yourself in conflict with that system. If you disagree with a law, you don't ignore it, you work to get it changed. To simplify, what a person may THINK about a law really doesn't matter. You follow it or else work to change it.

And even if it were, the adult is the one with the responsibilty to act as an adult, i.e. to act in the interest of the child. I think this is a very important point. And what goes hand in hand with it is the concept that IT DOESN'T MATTER what the person under the legal age of consent thinks or wants, part of the CONCEPT of age of consent is the idea that the child isn't at an age where they understand the ramifications of certain actions. And so we have the idea of "statutory rape", which isn't a consideration in the Polanski case anyway, sorry Whoppi, according the the testimony of the trial it WAS "rape, rape" And also the actions were committed is a specific time and place and the legal considerations are those that where in place there and then.