canbelto Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 This production will be in HD. It's a really powerful production of one of the most powerful operas of all time. Really recommend people see this in cinema if they can't see it live. https://humbledandoverwhelmed.blogspot.com/2019/12/mets-new-wozzeck-waltzing-into-misery.html Link to comment
cubanmiamiboy Posted December 30, 2019 Share Posted December 30, 2019 I went to the premiere out of pure curiosity. Very few times have I walked out of a performance in my entire life. This was the case. I excruciatingly endured 1:25 minutes out of the 1:30 it lasts. My previous walk out was at Reimann's "Lear", this November at the Garnier in Paris. Link to comment
canbelto Posted December 31, 2019 Author Share Posted December 31, 2019 The opera is definitely a bit "difficult" but it's one of the greatest operas in the canon, IMO. Absolutely devastating emotional impact and the music maybe the most famous representation of German Expressionism. Link to comment
cubanmiamiboy Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 6 hours ago, canbelto said: The opera is definitely a bit "difficult" but it's one of the greatest operas in the canon, IMO. Absolutely devastating emotional impact and the music maybe the most famous representation of German Expressionism. ...very tied with Lear! 😂 At least way shorter than Reimann's, but tricky, because in Lear one can elope right after a shorter act I than the longer one act's Wozzeck! I would had eloped early on Wozzeck, but I was seated in the middle of a row, and would had hated to wake up the three men an a woman I counted were dozing off/sleeping in between me and freedom. Link to comment
canbelto Posted January 1, 2020 Author Share Posted January 1, 2020 1 hour ago, cubanmiamiboy said: ...very tied with Lear! 😂 At least way shorter than Reimann's, but tricky, because in Lear one can elope right after a shorter act I than the longer one act's Wozzeck! I would had eloped early on Wozzeck, but I was seated in the middle of a row, and would had hated to wake up the three men an a woman I counted were dozing off/sleeping in between me and freedom. Well not everything can be Puccini ... Link to comment
cubanmiamiboy Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 44 minutes ago, canbelto said: Well not everything can be Puccini ... I know! Everything has an audience, for sure. And I accept it is my limitation in finding beauty in Rubens, but not in Duchamp, in Puccini but not in Reimann or in Petipa but not in Cunningham. Link to comment
Birdsall Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 Ivy, thank you for your wonderful review! I loved Wozzeck! When I first became an opera lover maybe some 28 years ago Wozzeck interested me somewhat b/c I studied the Georg Büchner play Woyzeck. The play was left unfinished and is actually fragments, but it matches the fragmented and deteriorating state of the character. It is a prime example of Naturalism that showed the plight of the working class and showed how environment can influence an individual. Alban Berg did what no one else could have done. He created an opera based on the play. Well, having studied the play and knowing Wozzeck was one of the few modern operas that is in the standard repertoire I tried for years to like it. I just didn't for the longest time. But when I saw it was playing this season at a time when I could also see the Anna Netrebko New Year's Eve Gala, I decided to go. In preparation for Wozzeck I listened to the opera over and over and over again. Maybe 15 times in the last month. I suddenly found myself humming portions of it. I fell in love with the opera. It basically underscores how the masses are really screwed by the people in power and they can't get out of the endless cycle of misery. There are a lot of metaphors of circles in the libretto and even the end of the opera could reattach musically to the first few bars of the beginning. So there is this circular nature to the music and the themes of the libretto. Ongoing cycle of misery (story). However, it is an opera that requires study or you do not "get" the opera. Once you "get" it you absolutely love it. That's why so many important conductors around the world want to conduct it over and over even though they know it is not a crowd pleaser. It is definitely not an opera for a beginner. Omg! The Netrebko Gala was everything I had hoped it would be. Her Mimi is looking back at her past as a more lyric singer, her Tosca is in her current spinto repertoire, and her Turandot was her first staged debut in the role (even if not the whole opera), so that role is looking to her future. Most Turandots I have heard are screamers. This was a lovely toned Turandot which is highly unusual. I was worried her Mimi would sound matronly at this point since she has taken on so many "Big Girl" roles. Well, she did a wonderful job lightening her voice and using piano singing, in my opinion. She was believable as the young Mimi. Her Tosca was super jealous and fun. But her first foray in a staged Turandot was so exciting. And confetti rained down us in the audience at the end. I saw Angela Gheorghiu during intermissions. I hope the Met is planning to stage something for her soon! Link to comment
Helene Posted January 1, 2020 Share Posted January 1, 2020 Wozzeck is one of my favorite operas, having first heard and studied it in an opera class at college. (The other four were Fidelio, Tristan und Isolde, Pelleas et Melisande, and Falstaff, the latter two also among my favorites since then.) It sounded wonderful over Sirius, as did the New Year's Eve gala, where Netrebko had a fabulous colleagues in each of the excerpts. She sang In questa reggia beautifully and lyrically, and the people in Munich who will be lucky enough to hear her debut in the full role in 2020 are in for a treat. Sadly, it's not going to be one of the Bavarian State Opera performances live-streamed on Staatsoper-TV, like the November 2019 Wozzeck, or broadcast over BR-Klassik But Alexei Ratmansky's Pictures at an Exhibition will be live streamed on May 23, 2020 as part of a triple bill with a David Dawson' world premiere and Sharon Eyal's Bedroom Folk, and then be available on demand for 30 days starting May 25, 2020 starting at noon CEST. During the first intermission of the Met's New Year's Eve Gala, which was also available via the Met's free stream from their website, they broadcast a taped interview between John Bischoff and Yannick Nezet-Seguin on Wozzeck, and it was really great. I don't see it up on the Met's Wozzeck website page, at least yet, but perhaps they will air it again during intermission on the Saturday broadcast on January 11, 2020 and/or the Met in HD that day; the latter might be aired on Public TV at some point. (Chances are it will be re-aired on Sirius between archival broadcasts.) The only other broadcast of Wozzeck this season is exclusive to Sirius, on January 22. Link to comment
canbelto Posted January 2, 2020 Author Share Posted January 2, 2020 I think Wozzeck is more easily enjoyed if you think of it as a play with musical accompaniment. The text and action are really just as important as the singing. Much of the opera is in that medium of sing-speech. The orchestral accompaniment can be thought of as a horrific musical commentary. If you want arias or even lush easy to hum melodies it's not there. But if you think of it as a complicated play with musical accompaniment it's such a tightly organized drama. Over and out in 1 hour 35 minutes. Has to be the shortest opera in the repertoire? Even Elektra and Salome are a good 10-15 minutes longer. Link to comment
cubanmiamiboy Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 On 1/1/2020 at 8:09 PM, canbelto said: I think Wozzeck is more easily enjoyed if you think of it as a play with musical accompaniment. That sounds like a good plan to go see this. Yes. It has the length of a theater play, and the whole thing sounds like a big recitative set to music. Can't stand all that screaming, through....😆 Link to comment
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