Facebook challenge: An aria you think is sexy
Keep your Carmen, your Dalila, your Don Giovanni. It's Semele for me.
An Acquired Taste: Favourite comic role
Depending on who's singing, pretty much anyone from Fledermaus.
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- I love opera, bluegrass, burger joints and fictional detectives. Mostly, but not always, in that order. Formerly of Dunedin, formerly of Sydney, now travelling the world with the tenor in my life (Stuart Skelton) and blogging as I go.
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June 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Opening Night
And ninety-eight years later, Parsifal in Zürich is still a Very Good Idea. Opening night was a huge success. I loved it more than even the very best of the performances in London — which is saying something. Well done to all concerned. I'm looking forward to the next four.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
More postcards
Colonial Opera House, Big Rapids, MI. I really hope that's somebody's house next door to it. That's where I'd want to live too.
City Hall and Opera House (what a nice combination) in Derby, CT. Still standing! And may even have ghosts.
Exterior and interior of Piper's Opera House in Virginia City, NV. Built in 1885, abandoned by 1940, but subsequently restored and now back in active service. I want to see what would happen if the Met had advertising like that in its auditorium.
The Detroit Opera House. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's still there. Michigan Opera lives elsewhere now.
The Arcade Opera House Block in Kankakee, IL. It's still standing, after a fashion, though its present day state is depressingly dull.
That'll do for tonight. I still wish I could step, Mary Poppins-like, into these images.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
From the House of the Dead
Finally, after three weeks in Zürich, we actually went to the opera. I must be getting jaded: I looked at what was on and frankly, Parsifal aside, From the House of the Dead was the only prospect that really grabbed me. I had been half-tempted by the Anna Bolena, but then Elina Garanca pulled out of the last three shows and they replaced it with La bohème, one of my least favourite operas. So this was our first trip. Led by me, it has to be said, as I am definitely the Janáček groupie in this household. (Even though it's the other person in said household who actually sings the stuff.)
Peter Konwitschny's production is, well, weird. The reviews I've read seem divided as to whether it's good-weird or bad-weird. I'm pretty sure it's making some kind of point about the nature of exile or loneliness or isolation or something along those lines. No doubt it's all terribly Brechtian and clever, but I have to confess it passed me by.
Briefly: Siberian prison is replaced with a gentlemen's club, run by the Mafia and lit like a school cafeteria. The play-within-a-play involves writhing by strippers of both genders. The chorus leaves the stage and enters the auditorium at one point, as does a soloist who shouts "lies!" from various boxes, and there's a planted couple in the front row who leave in mock-disgust after playing out some enforced audience participation. There's no wounded eagle; Goryanchikov isn't really released; Shishkov doesn't really recognise Filka. And by the end, all the men are embracing various parts of a giant matryoshka doll. As you do.
The novelty of the weirdness was intermittently entertaining, at least; Sydney doesn't really do productions like this, although I half suspect that Patrick Nolan's Acis and Galatea was aspiring to the style of this show. Evidently some of the critics were quite struck by Konwitschny's take on it, but personally, I fear I missed the pathos of the only other production I've seen (Chéreau's, on DVD). There, the exiles were, in their shabby way, ultimately sympathetic (or at least pitiable) and there was a glimmer of hope and camaraderie amidst the misery. Call me unimaginative but for me, the self-imposed exile of a cocktail lounge just isn't as touching.
No matter. There's the music, and I'm a Janáček freak, so I was happy. I'd forgotten how much like Makropulos it sounds – and in particular, how much like the glorious final twenty minutes of Makropulos it sounds. You can, as my companion pointed out, play "Janáček Bingo" with it, but that doesn't trouble me; on the contrary, I love the recognisable-yet-different world of this score, with all the tics, tricks and motifs I love, bent to the will of a new story. Soprano fanatic that I am, I'll never love House of the Dead as much as his Kamila operas, but then again, it's not the kind of opera that's asking to be loved, is it? The singing was all good, sometimes very very good indeed. Don't ask me to single out soloists, because I've no idea: it's one of the ensembliest ensemble pieces out there, and not the opera for a baritone or tenor who wants to make a star turn. The Zürich Opera House orchestra played magnificently under Ingo Metzmacher, all shiny strings and creeping percussion.
Musically at least, I was in Janáček-groupie heaven. Drier-eyed than I might have liked (which was not the case with Chéreau) but satisfied just the same. Next stop: Parsifal, of course.
Photo: Suzanne Schwiertz
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Tosca Day
Parterre helpfully points out that today is Tosca Day, the day in 1800 on which the events of Sardou's play take place. I'd never have known otherwise. I know May 20th is Eliza Doolittle Day and that yesterday was Bloomsday, but Tosca trivia is not really my strong point. Maybe it would be if I'd known it longer, but I was late coming to Tosca. I mean, I knew the basic contours of the opera — they're hard to avoid, once you're living the operatic life — but it's only been in the last eighteen months or so that I've really got to know it properly.
Most of that was the crash course I underwent towards the end of 2009. Reason? Cheryl Barker. She's the reason for quite a lot of my operatic choices. I moved to Sydney just a little bit too late to see her previous Tosca for Opera Australia, so when they announced her for the 2010 season, I had to prepare myself. And since I knew I'd be unwilling, in the immediate wake of her Tosca, to listen to anybody else's, I figured I'd better listen to plenty of them beforehand. So I did. I was buying (or acquiring) a new Tosca every week or so, listening to it constantly, getting to know that thing inside out — and then she cancelled on me.
For those of you who used to read my previous blog (is that most of you?) this is ancient history, of course. Cheryl pulled out of the show and was replaced by Takesha Meshé Kizart. Christopher Alden's modern, plot-altering production divided audiences; I liked it a lot on first and second viewings, but after five shows and two casts, never really need to see it ever again. I'd immersed myself in Tosca for the sake of Cheryl, but as it turned out, it was immersion for its own sake — and a good thing too. Soprano devotion might not be the loftiest, most intellectual incentive for study ever, but it's sure as hell an effective one.
When all's said and done, though, the sting of missing out on Cheryl's Tosca has never fully faded. To be fair, I've been spoilt rotten with opportunities to hear my favourite soprano — nearly sixty times now, I think — so I can hardly complain — but every time I listen to some Tosca, I remember. Which is why I'm oh so happy to have been given a second chance. Cheryl stars in Opera Queensland's Tosca in October this year, and despite my having made the curious decision to leave the country in which my Number One Diva resided, I won't miss this one. I have tickets for two performances, October 20th and 22nd. The production is John Copley's much-loved and very traditional staging — the one Opera Australia shunted out in favour of the Alden, and the kind of show which ought to be a wonderfully blank canvas for Cheryl's towering gift for characterisation.
Colour me happy. This doesn't entirely blot out the pain of missing her Capriccio, which opens in Sydney in just a few weeks — I still hate pretty much everyone who's going to see her as Madeleine — but given a choice between the two, it had to be Tosca, right? Of course it did.
Happy Tosca Day, everyone. If you've made it this far, here's some Corelli for you.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Monday, June 06, 2011
The Century
I knew those opera house postcards would take over my life. Trawling for more images, I ran into the Century Opera House, aka the Century Theatre, aka the New Theatre. And the internet being what it is, one link led to another led to a Wikipedia article led to Flickr led to various online archives and so on and so on, until the number of tabs open in my browser window became almost obscene.
Construction on the New Theatre started in 1906 It was the project of one Heinrich Conried, a director of the Metropolitan Opera House, who liked the idea of a New York equivalent of the Comédie Française. The theatre opened in late 1909, at Central Park West and 62nd Street. Its Wikipedia article has a wonderful selection of photos published in The New York Architect that year.
The exterior:
The auditorium:
The main foyer:
And particularly noteworthy, from an operatic point of view, this poster:
And sure enough, the Met's performance database lists a whole series of performances at the New Theatre. Its inaugural production was Massenet's Werther, evidently produced under pressure, judging by this note, which was included in the program:
Owing to unforeseen delay in having the lighting apparatus, other stage mechanism and needed facilities completed, and the consequent impossibility to secure for this first presentation adequate stage rehearsals, the opera Werther cannot be presented this evening in full accordance with the standards of this company. The Metropolitan Opera Company and The New Theatre management, however, believe they are meeting the wishes of their patrons in not postponing the performance, but respectfully request the indulgence of the audience for unavoidable shortcomings.
You don't see those sorts of notes these days, do you? Perhaps part of the problem was that the conductor, director and most of the cast were all making their débuts. Only the Charlotte was an established Met star: Miss Geraldine Farrar. A wealth of performances followed: The Barber of Seville, The Bartered Bride (with Emmy Destinn), Manon (with Frances Alda, just two months before she married the Met's director, Giulio Gatti-Cassazza) and a number of shortish works which were paired with ballets. Pavlova danced Act I of Coppélia there, on various double bills, including a Sonnambula with Elvira de Hidalgo, who would go on to teach Maria Callas, and a Cavalleria Rusticana with Olive Fremstad as Santuzza. 1909 also saw the theatre host the world première of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 3, played by the composer himself.
But the relationship with the Met was shortlived — there's nothing in the database beyond 1910. The theatre's poor acoustics and less-than-brilliant location, a mile away from the theatre district, did it no favours, and by 1911 the building was being leased to various other managers — Ziegfeld among them — who changed its name. It was the Century Theatre, then the Century Opera House, then the Century Theatre again. Musical performances continued: the Internet Broadway Database lists a variety of musicals and operettas right up until the late 20's. And they evidently persisted with meaty opera too: I did find this 1913 program for Cavalleria Rusticana and Hansel & Gretel.
The theatre gods, however, were not on the Century's side. It failed, and in 1930 the building was demolished. In its place rose a building which shares its name, and which is still a distinctive part of the Manhattan skyline, the Century Apartments:
Sunday, June 05, 2011
Postcards
Furthering my addiction to CardCow by collecting images of opera house postcards...
Central City Opera, in Colorado. The fifth oldest opera company in the US. The theatre was built in 1878.
The Opera House and Eagles Lodge Hall in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. A 1912 history of the county says: "Sheboygan has an opera house in which her citizens take a great pride. It is a beautiful building, both from an exterior and interior view-point, and cost the subscribers to stock issued $45,000. It is conveniently located, on the corner of New York avenue and Seventh street. This play house was opened November 3, 1903, under the management of W. H. Stoddard, who presented to an admiring public "The Burgomaster," in one of the prettiest theaters in Wisconsin." Is it still there? Google Maps is too fuzzy for me to tell.
The opera house in Sun Valley, Idaho.
White's Opera House in Concord, New Haven. Sadly destroyed by fire in 1920.
Park Opera House in Erie, Pennsylvania. Demolished in 1939.
This could get (has already got) addictive. I'll stop there for tonight.
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