tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post124951683148933067..comments2024-03-26T07:58:59.761+00:00Comments on I'll think of something later: The primrose pathDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-2777979063662564202012-12-26T17:49:37.379+00:002012-12-26T17:49:37.379+00:00I imagine La Scala is like anywhere else on a gran...I imagine La Scala is like anywhere else on a grand scale - it depends on the visiting artists (I was lucky enough to see Domingo on top form in La fanciulla del West opposite the demented Mara Zampieri and FLott in Arabella, very idiomatically conducted by Sawallisch). And what a line-up that is, Will: I'll put the box set (with the tenor who is generally excoriated) to one side.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-55432395021668359172012-12-26T17:36:16.026+00:002012-12-26T17:36:16.026+00:00The late Sir Ian Hunter, having discovered that I ...The late Sir Ian Hunter, having discovered that I had never visited Naples, said that I should certainly attend the Italian repertory at the opera there, since it is performed in Naples without the inhibitions that one experiences in the performances at - I expected him to say, at the ROH, or at the MET but no - at La Scala.....!!!!!Can anyone confirm this?David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-51894491883586331622012-12-25T14:26:39.992+00:002012-12-25T14:26:39.992+00:00David, for real thrills, abandon the French langua...David, for real thrills, abandon the French language and style and go for the La Scala with Sutherland, Corelli, Smionato, Ganzarolli, Bastianini, Tozzi, Ghiaurov and Cossotto. If you don't know it, it's staggering. Vrenios (sp?) on the Sutherland isn't all that; Corelli is stupendous. Arroyo is really something, though!<br /><br />A very Happy Christmas to you both!!Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-41600106302142329372012-12-24T10:14:15.118+00:002012-12-24T10:14:15.118+00:00I must dust off my Sutherland/Bonynge Huguenots LP...I must dust off my Sutherland/Bonynge Huguenots LPs and listen again. Marguerite de Valois's aria is certainly more memorable than any of its counterparts in Robert.<br /><br />What fun to be involved with Merrily. I'd love to have done it in my student days. But as Sondheim points out in Finishing the Hat, which I'm now reading from cover to cover, the young people originally cast didn't 'get' the disillusionment of their older selves, while singing actors approaching their middle years can at least recreate a sense of youthful optimism.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-23439177930460739332012-12-24T00:26:44.615+00:002012-12-24T00:26:44.615+00:00Meyerbeer is not exactly clinging even to the unde...Meyerbeer is not exactly clinging even to the underside of the repertory here, but the MET did one season only of Le Prophete several decades ago that I didn't see. Then Opera Orchestra of New York did a very fine concert Huguenots that inspired Bard College to mount a really tremendous fully staged production, both of which I did see, against any expectation that it could happen in the US in my lifetime. There's no question in my mind that Huguenots, at least, is a completely viable and at times very powerful work.<br /><br />So is Merrily, which I had the great pleasure of designing with a really good director. I think Sondheim has stopped trying to revise it (a year before we did it, the boys at Harvard were given the rights to do it on the understanding that Sondheim and George Furth would come into residence and work on the show in rehearsal); whatever changes they may have made did not show up in the edition we were sent to perform. But Merrily is being performed with some frequency all over the country -- and it is really a good piece of material.<br /><br />Willhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14279473113628377106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-55114863270840296832012-12-23T14:15:02.551+00:002012-12-23T14:15:02.551+00:00More or less agreed - though I'd argue there a...More or less agreed - though I'd argue there are just the tiniest traces of genius, if originality is genius - though possibly it isn't. I can't find the quotation in the Prokofiev diaries where a pundit says of a quirky work 'it is important to the history of music, but not to music'.<br /><br />Maybe substitute Victorians with 'bourgeois Parisians' - though of course it went down all too well here.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-40007633048065714422012-12-23T08:23:02.204+00:002012-12-23T08:23:02.204+00:00Robert the Devil has everything a grand opera need...Robert the Devil has everything a grand opera needs except that it has not the tiniest trace of genius. One note after another, in sequence, but nothing else. As for the plot, it is no more bizarre than The Magic Flute but one phrase of Mozart etc etc<br /><br />Yet in the nineteenth century the Meyerbeer operas were played hundreds of times. So this opera was very worth seeing to try to work out what the Victorians (OK OK I know she did not come to the throne until 1837) were like. Whether it will ever be possible to get them in perspective I cannot sayDavid Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-35526530494961471252012-12-22T10:04:12.743+00:002012-12-22T10:04:12.743+00:00Well, Paul, I wouldn't say it was a complete w...Well, Paul, I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of time, for the few reasons I've given. But I'm not the sort of operagoer for whom vocal prowess triumphs over substance (though if you've got a true stylist like, say, Nelly Miricioiu in Donizetti, there can be exceptions to that too).Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-85982333949103533262012-12-22T09:55:14.546+00:002012-12-22T09:55:14.546+00:00Like you, David, I got little out of Robert le Dia...Like you, David, I got little out of Robert le Diable, and before I went I thought this is exactly the sort of thing the Royal Opera should be doing. Unfortunately I'm not a Sondheim fan but you make a good case for Merrily We Roll Along. And I wish I'd been to the Dutchman.Paul Richardsonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-21215998006655218852012-12-21T10:39:48.242+00:002012-12-21T10:39:48.242+00:00No need to apologise for enjoyment. For myself, I ...No need to apologise for enjoyment. For myself, I can only say it was not in the hair-tearing category of boredom and I was fitfully intrigued. And if that's the kind of thing you like - I'm not averse to French grand opera, as the remark on Le Cid should have indicated - why not give La Juive a try? It went down not terribly well in concert here a couple of years ago.<br /><br />Me, I'm looking forward to catching the early Wagners (Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot) next year...Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-49429051309417853862012-12-20T23:58:31.876+00:002012-12-20T23:58:31.876+00:00I'm sorry but I still enjoyed the Robert for a...I'm sorry but I still enjoyed the Robert for all its unfulfilled promise but I understand several of the cast members like you would have been just as glad if it had been a concert performance also.<br /><br />I'm am still undecided as to an extra day should be spent in Dresden in May to catch La Juive????<br />Willymhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03652532356102638621noreply@blogger.com