Tag Archives: methd

Girard’s Parsifal on Blu-ray

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François Girard’s production of Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera was much written about at the time of the HD broadcast in March 2013.  My review of that broadcast is here.I don’t think my opinion has changed very much.  It’s a powerful and intensely beautiful production and there are some wonderful performances, especially that of René Pape.  I’m not going to rehash the previous review but there were a few things I noticed second time around.  In Act 1, for instance, the gendering of the scene is mirrored in other ways to emphasize the polarity.  The knights are in white, the women in black.  The men are in orderly circles, the women are just a crowd.  Also the final scene is almost overwhelmingly intense.  Kaufmann sings quite beautifully with fine diction, gravitas and simply gorgeous high notes.  Pape caps off a performance of great pathpos and humanity with the gentle gesture with which he closes Kundry’s eyes in death.  It’s compelling stuff.

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MetHD line up for 2014/15

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joyceThe Metropolitan Opera has announced its 2014/15 season both in-house and the HD broadcasts.  The HD line up seems to continue this season’s approach of mainstream works with big name casts.  That said, John Adams’ Death of Klinghoffer and the double bill of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle in a production by Polish director both get a cinecast. Three of the ten productions have previously been seen in the HD series and a fourth is available on DVD.  All five new productions this season get a broadcast which is to be welcomed.

Here’s the full line up with comments.

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Renée and her frocks

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John Cox’s production of Massenet’s Thaïs at the Metropolitan Opera is probably most remembered for the rather extraordinary collection of Christian Lacroix frocks that Met perennial Renée Fleming gets to wear.  It’s rather more than that.  In fact it’s a pretty good example of what the Met does best.  It’s sumptuous and spectacular and has a pretty much ideal cast which, together, go a long way toward making this curious piece rather enjoyable.

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On The Nose

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Today’s MetHD broadcast was Shostakovich’s absurdist opera The Nose based on a short story by Gogol.  It’s about a bureaucrat whose nose falls off.  The nose then gallivants around town impersonating a state councillor while the bureaucrat tries desperately to get it back.  It’s a lovely Shostakovich score but honestly the one joke wears a bit thin when played out over two hours without an interval.  Where’s a Soviet censor when one needs one?

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Upcoming events

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amiciNext Sunday the Amici Ensemble have an interesting looking concert of works all transcribed for forces not originally intended by the composer.  It’s called, appropriately enough, Transfigured Transcribed.  The highlight for me is Verklärte Nacht transcribed for piano trio but there’s also some Berg, some Brahms and some Bartok.  The concert is at 3pm at Mazzoleni Hall.  More details and tickets.

This weekend also sees the opening of Opera Atelier’s Abduction from the Seraglio and Opera 5’s Poe themed show Requiescat in Pace.  If that wasn’t enough, this afternoon the MetHD broadcast is Shostakovich’s The Nose in William Kentridge’s well reviewed production.  It’s surely the highlight of this season’s line up and the only one I will be bothering with.

Straightforward but effective Il Trovatore

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Verdi’s Il Trovatore really is a peculiar piece.  It’s a bit of a musical hybrid with huge, rousing choruses interspersed with bel canto arias which I suppose is fairly typical of middle period Verdi.  It has a truly silly plot (perhaps based on Blackadder’s lost novel) with gypsies, dead babies and  improbable coincidences galore.  It’s also notoriously hard to cast with five very demanding roles combining a need for flawless bel canto technique with lots of power.  David McVicar’s production at the Metropolitan Opera was broadcast in HD in April 2011 and subsequently released on Blu-ray and DVD.  I saw the HD broadcast and enjoyed it enough to buy the Blu-ray.

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Sher ham

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Bartlett Sher’s concept for his production of Rossini’s Le Comte Ory is a theatre within a theatre setting with scruffy bewigged footmen types operating old fashioned stage machinery.  Throw in costume design that seems to cross the slutty middle ages with My Little Pony and one gets a production that would probably appeal to the average seven year old girl.  Fortunately the singing and acting is really rather fine with splendid vocal contributions from Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato and Diana Damrau well backed up by the likes of Stéphane Degout and Susanne Resmark and it’s Maurizio Benini and the Met orchestra so no problems there either.  To be honest they are hamming it up for all its worth but that doesn’t seem unreasonable in this very silly piece.  The second act trio which features some mind boggling gender bending with the three principals swapping partners faster than Liz Taylor swapped husbands is hilarious.

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Finding the Holy Grail

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Yesterday’s Met Live in HD broadcast of Parsifal was one of the best I’ve seen.  The production is highly effective, the starry cast lived up to the hype and the video direction was sensitive and true to the staging.  Any reservations I have about the experience are due to the work itself but that may be matter for another day.  It certainly reinforced my belief, consolidated by seeing Tristan und Isolde twice recently that these big Wagner operas are high risk, high reward.  When they come off they are incredible.  When they don’t it’s six hours of one’s life gone missing.

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Cannibals!

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Apparently Peter Gelb made a statement yesterday that the “Live in HD” broadcasts were “cannibalising” the in-house audience at the Met.  I’d love to see the data on which that statement was based.  I’d also love to see what data the Met has on how other companies are being impacted.  My guess is that, if the statement about the Met audience is true, it will show other companies suffering too.  So much for attracting a new audience for live opera.

I’m not sure I’d want to go down in opera history as the guy who killed the live audience with a second rate ersatz product…

ETA: Do not Google “cannibal cartoons”.  It’s a bit like watching Puccini.

Dull MetHD line up

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The Metropolitan Opera has announced the line up of HD broadcasts for 2013/14.  My first observation is that there are only ten versus twelve last year (and even more some years if I recall correctly).  Is the gloss coming off this initiative?

Frankly, too, it looks pretty dull unless one’s taste is for starry casts in unchallenging productions.  My comments follow each listing.

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