Gertsamtkunstwerk

links 12/25/2010

• SFist Reviews: Cyrano at SF Opera - SFist

  Added to my round up blogpost

  tags: placi

• Placido Domingo/Cyrano de Bergerac Bows and Cast Party

  From 24 October. Photos. Lots of them

  tags: placi

• Domingo Still Soars

  Blog Review of Cyrano in San Francisco, added to my October round up!

  tags: placi

• Placido Domingo - Plácido Domingo, Gustavo Dudamel together for the first time - Los Angeles Times

  Article from October

  tags: placi

• Les Pêcheurs de Perles | Opera review | Music | The Guardian

  3 stars

  tags: Pecheurs de perles gerald

• Gerald Finley interviewed

  Janet from geraldfinley.info publishes a delightfully long and wide-ranging interview she carried out with Gerald

  tags: gerald

• Il Postino, Starring Plácido Domingo, at the Los Angeles Opera | When Postman and Poet Meet | Opera Review by Heidi Waleson - WSJ.com

  A belated review, added to my September round-up post

  tags: placi

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

links 12/24/2010

• CLASSICAL ICONOCLAST: Bizet Pearl Fishers in concert ROH

  tags: Pecheurs de perles gerald

• Les Pêcheurs de Perles needs to catch more drama | Music

  Evening Standard 3 stars

  tags: Pecheurs de perles gerald

• Les Pêcheurs de Perles in concert, Royal Opera House - The Arts Desk - Arts Reviews, Features and News

  tags: Pecheurs de perles gerald

• Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Royal Opera House, review - Telegraph

  3 stars

  tags: Pecheurs de perles gerald

• Bizet Les Pecheurs de Perles, Royal Opera House - Reviews, Classical - The Independent

  From the Independent 3 stars

  tags: Pecheurs de perles gerald

• A conversation with composer Daniel Catán | Crescenta Valley Weekly

  (I'm catching up with my links from October!) Daniel Catan is of course the composer of Il Postino

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Tannhauser - Wow!

I feel as though I have been on a pilgrimage and emerged at the end as a changed person.

I spent an amazing evening at the Royal Opera House, a true red-letter day which will be forever etched in my memory, right from the first two notes when I gasped - and thought 'all the other notes have a lot to live up to after that' - until the final climax where I gripped the handrail in front of me, my body in convulsions as the tears ran down my face.

For a long time, I have owned a CD of Tannhauser highlights - I'm sure you know the one - and the work has frightened me. Even in highlights, the emotional intensity of the music is something I find daunting. I vowed not to get a complete CD, nor to seek out a DVD. This awesome work needed to be approached on its own terms. It was like I had made a pact with the devil or a vow with myself. I can't now remember how my logic went, but, call it intuition, it made last night a truly special occasion.

Finally, the Royal Opera House announced they would be staging a new production. I looked at the cast. Not exactly starry but attractive enough. Well, let's be honest, other than the Angie/Jonas/Bryn Toscas at year-end, nothing in the ROH season appeals like this.

There was a logic to choosing the night, which escapes me now, but it turned out to be the right night. No more work until after Christmas. Take a deep breath, sit back and relax. Only, I can't relax because the music is so powerful, so emotionally gut-wrenching, so able to overcome me.

If Pikova Dama, Lohengrin and Don Carlo weren't already enough, last night's Tannhauser was the absolute proof that Semyon Bichkov is a truly remarkable conductor who turns already amazing scores to gold. There were three outstanding principles in Johan Botha,  Eva-Maria Westbroek and Christian Gerhaher. An orchestra that was singing and a chorus that was on fire. It may get better than that, but not often and not by much.

I'm not sure how to judge the production. It worked, in as much as it generally helped and rarely hindered the delivery of the story. Most of the 'production' - apart from the ballet - lay in the sets. Based on the proscenium actually at yer actual Royal Opera House Covent Garden, I suspect their impact were lessened by my having read about them previously. As many people have commented, it was largely a static production, with considerable amounts of standing about. It has been suggested that the production was deliberately static, in order to accommodate Johan Botha. Not to mince words, he is enormous, and seems to have expanded sideways since I last saw in him Lohengrin a year and a half ago. He's a leaden lump, with almost zero acting skills, who moves awkwardly round stage, and has as much eroticism as a sack of potatoes. For a production to be designed around someone like that, Pavarotti-style, he has to have a very special voice.

And oh boy, what.a.voice. I truly burst into tears in the first act when his voice hit my 'T-spot', and I actually panicked that I wouldn't hear it again. I could listen to him for hours. At one stage, for a few phrases, he sounded strained and wavery, but taken in the context of the lead role in a long Wagnerian opera, that was fluff. A friend commented that she doesn't usually much like heldentenors. I started saying something about bottoms, and we started sniggering, but my point was going to be that he is an exceptionally lyric heldentenor, as far as can be imagined from a Bayreuth Barker.

I simply don't think that the production would seem so impressive at a fourth revival with a leaden conductor and strainy/wobbly/squawky singers.

Christian Gerhaher was outstanding: I've only heard him once before, over five years ago in Creation, and I recorded that he was 'very special'. An exquisitely beautiful voice: during O Du, Mein Holder Abendstern time stood still for me, and each beat of the ceaseless chorus of coughs from around the house was painful, as this astounding singing was almost ruined by the inconsiderate philistines.

I haven't got a lot to say about Eva-Maria Westbroek. I think I just took her for granted. In retrospect, this may have been because she fitted the part so well and it all seemed so effortless and pleasing.

The first half hour to forty minutes is orchestral, with the curtain rising after about ten minutes, when a ballet begins. This could well be a recipe for awfulness, but was in fact just one of the many awesome elements. The ballet depicts the debauchery of the Venusberg, and if handled badly could have been an exercise in 'OMG are they trying to shock us, if so how lame, or are they trying to avoid shocking us, if so why!'. It was fantastically choreographed for about a dozen dancers, male and female who never stopped moving in vibrant flowing movements, an ensemble entirely comfortable in their bodies and oozing with barely restrained erotica. I was almost disappointed when the ballet ended and the singing began. A useful lesson in how an emphasis on the sensual can be more powerful than the crudely sexual. A lot of people are scared of sensuality, much more so than sexuality. Sexuality can be avoided by lifelong dull abstention, or by making lame schoolgirl jokes, or by taking dogmatic religious/political positions, but sensuality happens when we're least expecting it, in awkward places, and is difficult to avoid. And is so powerful.

My overwhelming memory of the evening will be of an amazing powerful sensual interpretation of emotionally gripping music. Using words like 'visceral' is easy; claiming to have been on the verge of orgasm is a literary conceit. But I really was gripping the handrail and I was not really sure what my body was doing, except that I wanted to lie back, stretch and maybe even scream with ecstasy. I suspect that of all operas I have ever seen, this will lose least (except for the ballet) by translation to radio. And I believe this actual performance will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Christmas Day, and no doubt available afterwards on iplayer and the usual other internet archives! I think I will record it and turn it into real tangible CDs!

Picture taken from Telegraph: Dramatic whole: Johan Botha (Tannhauser) and Michaela Schuster (Venus) Photo: Alastair Muir

 

 

Overheard

Last night I was at Tannhauser at the Royal Opera House. I am currently in the middle of writing about the substantive matter, including several utterances of words like 'amazing' and 'awesome'. Even though the effect was partly the result of the cumulative awesomeness of three acts, nevertheless I emerged from Act I in a heightened emotional state, somewhat akin to tripping. Just about everyone I have discussed this with, in person or online, is full of praise.

Within inches of the auditorium, moments after the curtain descended on a stunning Act I, I heard a conversation between two people. Their accents were those of people who seem to think that mangled vowels makes them sound grander than could be achieved by use of mere thoughts or vocabulary.

Woman: "Must dry clean your green jacket sometime"

Man: "What"

Woman: "Your green jacket sometime"

Man: "What"

Woman: "Green jacket before Christmas."

It sent my brain reeling. The quotidien can always seem like a comedown, but I fully accept that comments along the line of "I'm going to the loo/we must pick up our drinks/I'm meeting Fred on the terrace" are part and parcel of interval life in any cultural event.

Not only did she sit there during the incredible music thinking about the dry-cleaning, but at the first opportunity she felt compelled to share the results of her wandering mind.

I know that people get frazzled at Christmas. Maybe I can even imagine a situation where the wife is there under sufferance at the husband's behest, when she would rather be at home stuffing mushrooms.

But if you can't compartmentalise and insist on thinking about the dry-cleaning during Wagner, I'd really rather you didn't share. And if you have to share, please not in such stentorian tones. Is it showing off? Trying to prove to those around you that you are so marvellous? Because it really doesn't work!

Rush Common

I like this. If you didn't know, you couldn't guess that Rush Common is just a thin strip of land that runs alongside Brixton Hill! It looks much better full screen on the PC, but I'm not that daft: I only publish massively compressed photos.

Messiah at the Barbican

I decided I would condescend to the inexorable call of Christmas by attending one of the great Passiontide musical works, entirely consistent with my total indifference to the veracity of the story it tells.

I booked my seat only 48 hours beforehand, but in between my booking and the performance, the main attraction, Carolyn Sampson, cancelled due to illness. If I had been in a different mood, I might have decided not to go after all, but I thought 'It's Messiah. What could possibly go wrong?'

These days, when you someone says or writes 'What could possibly go wrong?', it's usually a wise-after-the-event knowing warning of tales of doom and disaster. And, certainly, when I was unable to get into Victoria underground station and was wandering Victoria Street in the sleet, with less than an hour before the overture, I did wonder whether it was meant to be.

But I got there with sufficient time, and it turned out to be an enjoyable evening. Not a classic, not something I'll remember for ever. But a good, dependable Messiah from the ever-excellent Sixteen under Harry Christophers. I do like the Sixteen but I do wonder about their recruitment policy. All the women, choir and orchestra, are thin and almost all of them are young. There may be rational reasons - connected with touring perhaps - that explains their youth, but I do wonder if body-fascism is at play.

I am a sucker for the interpretation given by an early music ensemble such as The Sixteen. I love the delicate touches that are brought out, and I'm not really sure that I could bear the large scale symphony orchestra-style Messiah I grew up on.

Of course, if you attend a Messiah in December, even in London, you're not going to get a star-studded cast, and we didn't! A good solid reliable set of regular Messiah singers. Sophie Bevan was the stand-in soprano. I've heard her a few times now. She's good and possibly she could go a long way. I first heard her about five years ago when she was still at college, so I guess she's still in her twenties. It was a shame for me that Carolyn couldn't make it; in her absence Sophie was fine.

I was pleasantly surprised by James Gilchrist. I like him in several recordings I have, but he's never just done it for me live, so it was delightful to hear such a convincing and powerful performance. I also thought Christopher Purves gave a good performance.

I simply don't like Catherine Wyn Rogers . I don't want to spoil other people's pleasure and I certainly don't want to be to cruel to a singer who is clearly a committed and presumably hard-working performer. I simply don't like the way she emphasises her words; it makes me think she doesn't really know what they're about, and so I don't care. And she bored me during He was despiséd, which is not good. Thankfully, the orchestra was sublime!

 It was a pleasant Messiah and the highlight of the evening was seeing Ian McKellen in the audience. I know it's a bit silly getting so excited at a celeb-spot-from-a-distance. But when it's a legend! Well!

The future of the blog

I'm thinking about closing this blog down. It's become more of a burden than a joy in recent months, anyway.

I don't like being bossed around. It really puts my back up when people tell me what to do or have unreasonable expectations of me.

And I  certainly don't like being told that 'many people' are complaining about me on Skype, because I haven't been updating the blog as often as they want. I don't know who these people are: it's not like they've contacted me to say 'Are you okay? We noticed you haven't been updating the blog as frequently.'

Yes, I am okay as it happens, thanks for your concern. I haven't been updating the blog because I've been made to feel that I have a duty and obligation to do so, and that stops things being a pleasure.

I gain nothing out of writing this blog except personal pleasure and goodwill from nice people. I don't get free tickets to performances. I can't remember the last time I received any pay out from Google ads or Amazon links, and they were never enough to cover the basic hosting costs.

I receive the occasional comment from a small number of people, for which I am very grateful, but I feel I would be be better off scrapping the blog and collecting things into a paper journal or cuttings book, for my own pleasure.

If I do a blogpost bringing in several links and copying and pasting quotes from articles and uploading photos, it can take a couple of hours, a couple of hours that I could better spend doing something else.

So I just want to say a big 'thank you' to the individual who not only bores me stupid as soon as she starts talking about Plácido Domingo, but has managed to make me averse to reading about him. You really should be proud of yourself!

BTW, this is is definitely one of those blogposts where I shall delete hostile or confrontational comments.

Snow!

 

St John's Gardens, Horseferry Road