tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post7003210772831057445..comments2024-03-26T07:58:59.761+00:00Comments on I'll think of something later: Parsifal all autumn, Fidelio anewDavidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-26098875032423912162013-10-08T12:38:51.168+01:002013-10-08T12:38:51.168+01:00Gosh, La Musica in person! Well, at least you know...Gosh, La Musica in person! Well, at least you know I genuinely think you 'excellent' and haven't visited enough since you brought the Sydney Grimes so vividly to life. Wish I'd seen that, and that we'd had Sue Gritton the other Sunday.<br /><br />Regards to the Teurer Held. Can I ask what HE thinks of the Bieito Fidelio? If negative, you simply don't have to respond. But I hope he found the string quartet moving, as I did.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-29214561756572751332013-10-08T12:05:38.338+01:002013-10-08T12:05:38.338+01:00Well, OTT is my specialty, especially when in mark...Well, OTT is my specialty, especially when in marketing mode! If it sells a few tickets then I've done my job. Thanks for the plug, Wanderer.Sarahhttp://primalamusica.typepad.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-40757706175113109402013-10-08T08:38:05.941+01:002013-10-08T08:38:05.941+01:00I was wrong: the fundraiser's on Thursday. I s...I was wrong: the fundraiser's on Thursday. I still can't go as am pledged to an Irish thingy at J's. Hearing Skelton sing the Preislied would be quite something, but I fancy the excellent Prima La Musica's 21 reasons are a bit OTT. I mean, Sarah Tynan and Leigh Melrose are fine singers and good stage animals, but would I go out of my way to hear them in the concert hall?<br /><br />But ENO does need supporting. It's running up a huge deficit and I fear could go the way of New York City Opera, even if I like to think Londoners wouldn't allow it. There's a lot of bad feeling about its choice of directors at the moment. I still support John Berry as far as Bieito goes. The UK still doesn't get Regietheater at its best; Robert Wilson was laughed out of town, again IMO wrongly, for an Aida of mixed fortunes. Again, when it worked, as in the final duet, it was unlike anything else we'd seen.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-87110881860700787342013-10-08T08:29:05.500+01:002013-10-08T08:29:05.500+01:00I know how fond you are of SS, wanderer, and I now...I know how fond you are of SS, wanderer, and I now agree - I didn't a couple of years ago - that he is the Grimes of choice. I may yet go back to see Act 2 with him in it. The production is pitifully undersold - loads of empty seats the night I went. People have 'bought' the reviews, which is a shame as when the show is good, it's astounding.<br /><br />Will check your links, but I believe the fundraiser is on Wednesday, when I'm talking on Fledermaus and braving another barrage of negative reviews to see it afterwards. I actually believe it's unstageable these days, so I'll be lucky if I'm pleasantly surprised.<br /><br />Like the 'Lynchy' reference to Parsifal. Just read a fascinating article by Nike Wagner on the sanctification vs wider import issue. <br /><br />For yesterday's class I turned to Hotter for Knappertsbusch, the famous 1962 Bayreuth recording, re the Gurnemanz narrative in Act 1, and - though past his best then - he blew us all away. Blow me if that recording, with its fabulous sound, isn't going to figure at least very high on the list...but I have many, many more to go.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-10679475270838716492013-10-08T07:08:01.562+01:002013-10-08T07:08:01.562+01:00A shame you missed Mr Skelton who was in splendid ...A shame you missed Mr Skelton who was in splendid form I gather, and singing Florestan interspersed with Grimes no less. He's a jolly good fellow, jolly and good, and organising a <a href="http://www.cadoganhall.com/event/an-evening-with-stuart-skelton-and-friends-131010/" rel="nofollow">fund raiser</a> for ENO young talent programmes along with, amongst others, Iain Patterson and for which there are at least <a href="http://primalamusica.typepad.com/primalamusica/2013/10/21-reasons.html" rel="nofollow">Twenty One Reasons</a> to go.<br /><br />If I were half literate in music I might be able to construct my thoughts about Fidelio into something meaningful, but all I can manage is that there is some structural awkwardness about it that leaves me quite unsatisfied in a rare case of the great master making something less than the sum of its parts. Shoot me.<br /><br />Parsifal is another one of Skelton's big trump cards. I hope you let us in one the insights, as they come. It is endless and intoxicating and as David Lynchy as any plot could be, and I wonder sometimes if it's better less studied and more through a looking glass.wandererhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08196036534397389760noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-30176029862745127992013-10-05T15:08:51.936+01:002013-10-05T15:08:51.936+01:00Thanks so much for that, Sue; I forget that Facebo...Thanks so much for that, Sue; I forget that Facebook, for all that I spit and fume when I look over J's shoulder at it, has its uses. So from heiligen Richard and Ludwig to Fred and Galina...Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-24787135873443119922013-10-05T14:48:08.451+01:002013-10-05T14:48:08.451+01:00David: The Mahler talk looks wonderful! I posted i...David: The Mahler talk looks wonderful! I posted it on FB, in case any Londoners are looking in . . . (On other fronts, yes, I remember that appalling Gergiev statement.) And on still other fronts, I sort of love how the comments have wended their way from Beethoven to Fred Astaire.Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-16490446316477376252013-10-05T12:02:38.143+01:002013-10-05T12:02:38.143+01:00In her website Galina Gorchakova claims decent fro...In her website Galina Gorchakova claims decent from the princely family, though one can never be quite sure how these names originate. It would be interesting to check somehow. <br /><br />If the descent is not from Rurik, the name could have occurred if there were a Jewish link somewhere. Some aristocratic names were taken by Jews when they were required to take surnames, not having had them before, and the local big name ( family or place) was quite popular. Thus I would guess that the family of Fred Austerlitz (aka Fred Astaire) came from the village of Austerlitz in Moravia ( where the battle was fought)David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-52487791308328764322013-10-05T11:27:22.276+01:002013-10-05T11:27:22.276+01:00Now that really is a tangent to a tangent. I doubt...Now that really is a tangent to a tangent. I doubt it: she's a Siberian girl...Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-35072058869978706562013-10-05T11:24:30.010+01:002013-10-05T11:24:30.010+01:00I wonder if Galina Gorchakova is related to the pr...I wonder if Galina Gorchakova is related to the princely house of Gorchakov? They are ( there is one in London at the moment) descendants of Rurik ( 862-879)the first of 52 rulers of Russia and vastly more splendid than the Romanovs ( from 1613 only, poor things... rather new). After the fall of communism the Russians added a plaque to the wall of their embassy in Berlin, commemorating the Prince Gorchakov who was a school fellow of Pushkin and Chancellor of Russia - a contemporary of Bismarck. with whom he was sometimes friendly David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-4616133719204204392013-10-05T10:59:53.042+01:002013-10-05T10:59:53.042+01:00You can say that again - and the killer Missa Sole...You can say that again - and the killer Missa Solemnis (I've sung tenor in the choruses of both, and it's exhausting). Argument goes he wanted that sense of strain in Florestan's vision of Leonora, but I've never heard it flawlessly done (by all accounts Skelton manages). On the other hand, I've never heard 'Gott! Welch Dunkel hier' more spine-tingingly executed than by a certain diplo-mate in his Helden guise.<br /><br />Original version of 'O namenlose Freude' - very different - is in my books preferable. The quartet-epilogue to it was so moving, for me, not for everyone (see Fiona Maddocks in The Observer).<br /><br />Now THAT's what I call an anecdote. Laugh out loud.<br /><br />And Laurent, sorry, I forgot to add a response - which is that I know you've been to Fussen. Ludwig II - love it that you've frenchified him - doesn't much appeal, though my childhood self craves to see the swan grotto at Lindehof. More to my touristic instincts is the Wartburg Caste of Tannhauser fame, with the added bonus of its Luther room. Many German candidates in the romances for Montsalvat, though Wagner is clear it's in Spain. And I've been to Ravello, of course, where the lower floral exuberance is candidate for Klingsor's magic garden (I still have a postcard with a quotation from the score at the bottom!) Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-87789718852307645462013-10-05T10:50:07.048+01:002013-10-05T10:50:07.048+01:00I am not sure that Beethoven, in Fidelio and the N...<br />I am not sure that Beethoven, in Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony, really understood how to write for the voice. Some sense of strain. Sensational outcomes of course. I would like O namenlose Freude to last and last ( as it does in one's head)<br /><br />When a famous performer was moving from one opera house to another the new intendant asked the former intendant for a reference. Glowing, but there was a sting in the tail. Look at such and such an edition of the libretto for Fidelio, page X line Y....."First kill his wife"David Damantnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-21773243213982357352013-10-05T10:38:56.646+01:002013-10-05T10:38:56.646+01:00Fidelio has always been a sometime blind spot amon...Fidelio has always been a sometime blind spot among operas for me, Sue: probably the only one I didn't often warm to in 25 years of the City Lit Opera in Focus course. Its opening numbers are so sub-Mozart, tho' the canon, 'Abscheulicher!', the Prisoners' Chorus and a few bits of the second act go beyond Mozart's realm. <br /><br />I also usually don't believe in the parade-ground ending of the famous revision - original Leonore much better - and find it verging on the totalitarian if too hard-hit, which is why I liked Mackerras's approach to it. Only worked properly in Deborah Warner's Glyndebourne production. So this one had good ideas at least.<br /><br />Goodness knows how Beethoven-Biss led to The Fiery Angel but yes, that production is famous for causing a stir in Russia in 1991 (naked nuns!) It's absolutely compelling, with Gorchakova at her short-lived peak and the excellent Leiferkus. Wish I'd got to see Richard Jones's production at the Monnaie - I was poised to go, and had food poisoning. Right up his street. Don't think it was filmed.<br /><br />Well, Joyce, lovely woman and all that, excellent in Rossini, but still I'm not a fan of the voice per se. <br /><br />Mum or worse - just to clarify, because it doesn't seem to have been picked up much, Gergiev told a Dutch journalist that Putin's laws weren't about homosexuality, they were about paedophilia. So there, sadly, we have it.<br /><br />Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14506881804082382739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-15707088488376990782013-10-05T05:09:07.547+01:002013-10-05T05:09:07.547+01:00Have you visited the Castles in Fussen. Louis II o...Have you visited the Castles in Fussen. Louis II of Bavaria thought himself to be Parsifal. Laurenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03297393116796129135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1248503935075362425.post-22615473017857062692013-10-05T02:57:06.623+01:002013-10-05T02:57:06.623+01:00This is so absolutely packed with gems I don’t kno...This is so absolutely packed with gems I don’t know where to begin! I take that back, I do, reiterating again that I hope, hope, hope you one day find a means by which to take the City Lit show “on the road,” as it were. Mark Wigglesworth might visit? That is too marvelous to imagine! (I love the way you’ve woven in Don Quixote, too.)<br /><br />The Fidelio production looks so interesting, based on your reports and photographs. I don’t know this opera. Though I own it in CDs, I never really got to it. I think one really does need a DVD or live performance as the first introduction to any opera. This really got to me: “a string quartet descends in cages to play the slow movement from Beethoven's Op. 132 Quartet,” and how you describe its effect. <br /><br />These are asides, but relevant at least to past exchanges and posts over here and my way. First, I had noted to me today, in a lively discussion at the Biss-Beethoven course, a DVD of Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel that looks enticing (I know, we got off point over there, too!). Kirov Opera Orchestra, Valery Gergiev, Galina Gorchakova. I suspect you know it, and wondered what you think? Secondly, Alex Ross posted DiDonato’s Proms performance of tanti, affetti (I put it up Over There in the sidebar). While I know you’ve have concerns about her voice, I have to say I found it hard to fault a thing here. If I’d heard that quality of performance at the Met performances I attended last year, I would have been floating on air. But my ear is uneducated, that’s for sure. And I know we both think the world of her: so right-minded and willing to speak out while others stay mum (or worse—e.g., Petrenko).<br />Susan Scheidhttp://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com