For those of you don't always read comments, Nonie has posted a report on her trip to Berlin to Simon Boccanegra.
I took my
teenage daughter to the Staatsoper last Tuesday night, having explained
the rather complicated plot and reminded her that Plácido would not be
the tenor I was met with a bored blank expression.
You can imagine this was just a teensy weensy bit irritating given the
cost of transport & accommodation from Cyprus to Germany &tickets
...
At the end of the Prologue she leaned over and whispered "Bastard!" ,
who is darling ? "that oriental-looking guy who just shafted Simon out
of his baby daughters life. Bastard!"
Likewise the unfortunately over-ambitious Paulo, his parents marital status being questioned.
The father-daughter recognition climax had tears streaming down her face, and in the last act she could barely contain herself, actually she didn't.
Which was pretty much the moment I absolutely understood the term "total theater" as used by His Maj in reference to Opera.
Watching my teenage daughter jumping to her feet yelling her head off
during the applause ( nearly 30 mins according to the numbness in our
hands and arms),it occurred to me that while we have every right to
demand top notch performances from people who call themselves
'professional' and take our money for their performances it's easy to
get side-tracked by musical- dramatic intellectual analyses .
The bottom line is not wether the tenor was inconsistent ( yes he was a
little), or the costumes boring ( conservative to put it mildly) ,or
the projected calm/stormy sea imagery works ( it doesn't it looks
ridiculous since instead of being at Plácidos feet the images are level
with his nose with the crashing waves sending spray well above his
head!)etc etc.
Really what counts is wether or not the audience connects with the
characters and their experiences through the music... for us it was a
resounding 'YES'!
The cast were amazing, they were perfect.
I believe Daniel Barenboim plays a large part in that in the sense that
he is the only conductor I know who connects so completely with the
music he becomes a bridge between composer/orchestra/singers/sound, he
literally completes the circle.
There was wild rapturous applause for all the principals , especially
Anja ~Harteros who was Maria/Amelia and Placido, many people were calling
out their names.
However it was no coincidence that the name the audience was calling out loudest and for the longest time was " Danny " .
When the daughter saw the whole marine thing her whispered response was
;" Oh God it's a Tsunami, should we throw him a life jacket and call
out the coast guard ??" she was convinced there was a guy right at the
very front who flinched, " maybe he can't swim".
I'd like to say thanks to Nonie for that, and also congratulations on bringing the teenage daughter into the fold!
