OperaNow! #151: The Good News Is...

Deutsche Oper called out for staging Hitler's favorite on opera on his birthday...Fremont Opera closes down...Opera Charleston is now in business...Ft. Worth Opera extends Darren Keith Woods contract...San Francisco Opera releases financial results...Better head voice today...how to ROCK...San Franciso bullying opera...Met audience member vents to the internets.

Oliver's Corner looks at Norma with recordings by Elinor Ross, Maria Callas, Rosa Ponselle, Anita Cerquetti, and Christina Deutekom.

This week features Michael, The OC, Jenny Rivera, and Matt Garrett.

Comments

[jeanniebeannie]

a friend of mine jumped in as ismene in that production of rienzi at the deutsche oper. i am very curious to see the production now...we perform rienzi as well here in leipzig. i will check it out, but obv not on 4/20!

i literally said barber of seville just as jenny did. jinks.

[jeanniebeannie]

i recognized prof. verrett's voice immediately :). great to hear her this morning!

[Oliver]

So that you are not confused, dear listeners, I excerpted two different Callas performances.

The Casta Diva came from a 1949 concert for the RAI
link for the mp3 download
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001232NOA/ref=sr_1_album_51_rd?ie=UTF8&child=B00122YZ4C&qid=1328769599&sr=1-51

But why not buy the whole recital for $5.44?
http://www.amazon.com/Wagner-Bellini-Verdi-Donizetti-Rai-Recitals/dp/B000ECHXRW/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1328770130&sr=1-3

The OC

[Molly]

OC, after hearing such great things about Angela Meade in Ernani at the Met, I looked her up on YouTube and heard her singing Casta Diva. Have you heard her sing it? I'm interested in your opinion. I found that her rendition could be easly placed at the same level as any that you played on this episode, although I didn't hear her sing the full roll which is something else entirely.

This was one of the best Olliver's Corners I've heard. Thanks for the great recordings, and the guessing game which I had fun with in spite of getting them all wrong. Something about the diction on the second recording (which I think you said was Jane Eaglen?) made me just say "she's an American," although I didn't specifically recognize the voice. Surely that counds for something as Eaglen is a native English speaker?

[CruzSF]

I'll echo Molly's statement that this was one of the best Corners ever. You turned me on to an opera I've resisted for years, mostly because almost everyone says that good Normas are rare, the good ones are from the olden days, I don't care for mono recordings, etc, etc. But ...

And here I must second and thank Oliver: the RAI 1949 recital recordings are fantastic. Despite the mono sound, you feel like Callas and Basile were captured singing just yesterday in the next room, the performances are so vivid and intimate. And it's cheap as a download.

I'm now looking for a Norma to see live, but they don't seem to be so common in the US. I missed the one here in San Francisco in 2005 (an acquaintance warned me off it because he himself didn't like the opera). Kicking. Myself.

I'll have more re: SFO deficit, but want to do some research first.

Thanks for a great episode, everyone!

[Sam]

Oliver, thanks to you I am finally coming around to Maria Callas. I always thought she sounded sort of bird like and out of tune!! I have listened to her Norma before but I must say that for some reason something clicked and I found her voice absolutely beautiful during this podcast. Thanks for all the back to backs. Now I am going back listening to her in Barber of Seville...it's great! BTW good show to all.

[CruzSF]

Re: SFO's deficit: first the good news. The company's endowment has nearly doubled in the 5 years that Gockley has been GD (I'm not including the sixth year of his tenure that lies beyond the period of the article you discussed). Also, revenue from ticket sales had increased 32% in the year covered in the article. Both of these developments must be viewed as positive.

Now the good intentions: Gockley has a definite plan to continue reducing costs, including fewer operas a season (but not fewer performances -- for example, a traditionally very popular opera that would receive 9 performances in the past will not have 12 performances; if repeated for 3 operas a season, that would allow the elimination of one work will maintaining the 9 performances of that lost work), a consolidation of the company's far-flung workshops and storage spaces into a single "campus," and the move toward a stagione system (in order to reduce costs associated with switching sets on stage if two or more operas are being performed in a single week or period).

Now the bad news: I simply couldn't find any information about whether the deficits accumulate year upon year, as Garrett suggested/wondered. I did find an article from the San Francisco Chronicle (2010) in which Gockley said that previous budget gaps have been covered by begging big donors to redirect their contributions from the endowment to operating costs. So my hope is that these deficits don't accumulate but are dealt with each season. (Last season's deficit was $1.8 million, as you said, and the previous season's was $1.5 million. Ouch. I have GOT to think that the bigger deficit last year was associated with the Ring. During last year's Annual Meeting, which I attended, Gockley said that the Ring costs added up to $1.5 million beyond expectations because of a "surprise," but he declined to specify what that surprise involved.)

Anyway, I hope these extra details are useful to your continued discussions on the state of opera in America today. I remain hopeful that Gockley is moving the company onto the right track. At the very least, I appreciate the candor he shows in his program essays, in interviews, and in person about the company's finances and his approach to scheduling operas. Thank the goddess he isn't George Steel.

[Mary]

Ok, you jokers, I'll have you know that I wasn't drunk, alas, but just very, very sleep-deprived! Why I'm trying this again after that I'll never know, but it must be testament to my guilt over not commenting before on Oliver's Most Excellent Corner.

I wanted to thank Oliver in particular for his Norma analysis, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I know very little about bel canto, as I've been strangely obsessed with Wagner and Strauss for far too long. But Norma is different somehow - utterly compelling. I have really appreciated learning more about bel canto style, and it somehow all came together for me in Norma. I was so hoping it would be in the upcoming Met season, but no.

I've been listening to a lot of Normas now, and it's Montserrat Caballé's vocal quality that really stays in my mind's ear, so to speak. I'm really curious to hear what Oliver thinks of Renée Fleming's Casta Diva here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg4L5tcxFcA&feature=related - I have a feeling her stylistic mannerisms might be controversial, but for me, there's just something about her groundedness in the drama of the piece - her connection to her emotions and to the audience - that really moves me. In others I might find this smarmy or schmalzy and false, but it somehow isn't - do you agree? Is it something about the greatness of Bellini?

As for Rienzi on Hitler's birthday: the work the German opera audience must do in coming to terms with their specific cultural heritage is difficult and ongoing. And yet many times they make the Met audience seem especially complacent and oblivious to the difficulties of its cultural history. The best of opera serves both ends: musical and humanist.