Tuesday
Oct152013
OperaNow! #201: Peter Gelb's Sexxxy Office Key Party
Tuesday, October 15, 2013 at 10:47AM 
Metropolitan Opera composer program finally producing show(s)...Breaking Bad: The (Possible) Opera...Peter Gelb's office is a secret swinger's pad...NYCO's financial meltdown in more detail...Richard Bonynge and that bel canto sound.
This week Oliver's Corner celebrates Verdi's birthday by trying to wrap his tiny mind around Otello.
Plus Guess Who Died?
This week features Michael, The OC, Doug Dodson, Jenny Rivera and the spoken-word return of Texapolitan Opera Road Show's Michael Mayes.
Reader Comments (6)
Ok, I know I'm an annoying fangirl, but this is possibly the best show you guys have ever done. Doug is in rare form, it's AMAZING to hear Mike Mayes again, Otello! and Jenny's exhasperated outbursts are perfect.
Thanks for MAKING my wednesday morning at the most boring job ever.
Oliver - you're right, there are lots of examples of Iago-esque characters in other works. They even have their own name!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcontent
Also, you might be interested to know that Mahler shared your opinion about Otello and Verdi in general - he thought there were lots of good little bits, but that they were spread too thinly. Personally I find Verdi a bit hit-and-miss. I love Aida, Don Carlos, Nabucco in terms of plot, I like the three famous middle period operas for the music, but I'm still undecided about the other late works... Perhaps I'll take your current choice to feature Otello as a sign that I should listen to them again more carefully. I see the Met are also doing Falstaff, so I might go and see that at the cinema too...
I have no idea if any of you are interested in this but I recently saw The Wasp Factory (yet another opera based on a book) at the Linbury Studio Theatre (underneath the Royal Opera House) and was really impressed. Lots of reviewers were questioning whether it was even an opera, but I thought the style of singing was really interesting. If you ever get the chance to see it, it's well worth having a look!
Also did any of you see this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVN4dShaZWk
"Wasp Factory"? Based on the Iain Banks novel? Boy, I can't imagine how you could make an opera out of that. Did Banks have a chance to see it before he died?
Great show as always, and it was great to hear Michael Mayes. I have to say that the New York Times article on the NYCO wasting of their endowment was shocking, even if I had heard some of the details before. How could I, a petty bureaucrat in St. Paul, have known that 2008-2009 was the time to buy stock, and that high-powered board was buffaloed into panic selling?
I saw the Met broadcast of Евгений Онегин (take that, Doug!) and while we had good sound, the picture was below par. I don't understand how that can happen with digital -- isn't it all or nothing? Oliver's discussion of how the ultra-realism worked against the production might have to do with seeing it in the movie theater. I saw the last Met production of Onegin (with Fleming and Hvorostovsky both in the theater (in the family circle) and in HD, and Fleming was far more believable as a 16 year old live from a distance than in close-up in the HD broadcast. I don't mean that in a catty way, but rather that she was acting broadly for us, up in the cheap seats, and that didn't always translate well in closeup. Perhaps the same is true with Netrebko.
Looking forward to Baden Baden 1927 next weekend (where should be go, Katz's or the Carnegie Deli), and looking forward to the next podcast.
"Wasp Factory"? Based on the Iain Banks novel? Boy, I can't imagine how you could make an opera out of that. Did Banks have a chance to see it before he died?
Great show as always, and it was great to hear Michael Mayes. I have to say that the New York Times article on the NYCO wasting of their endowment was shocking, even if I had heard some of the details before. How could I, a petty bureaucrat in St. Paul, have known that 2008-2009 was the time to buy stock, and that high-powered board was buffaloed into panic selling?
I saw the Met broadcast of Евгений Онегин (take that, Doug!) and while we had good sound, the picture was below par. I don't understand how that can happen with digital -- isn't it all or nothing? Oliver's discussion of how the ultra-realism worked against the production might have to do with seeing it in the movie theater. I saw the last Met production of Onegin (with Fleming and Hvorostovsky both in the theater (in the family circle) and in HD, and Fleming was far more believable as a 16 year old live from a distance than in close-up in the HD broadcast. I don't mean that in a catty way, but rather that she was acting broadly for us, up in the cheap seats, and that didn't always translate well in closeup. Perhaps the same is true with Netrebko.
Looking forward to Baden Baden 1927 next weekend (where should be go, Katz's or the Carnegie Deli), and looking forward to the next podcast.
Hooper - sadly Banks passed away some months before the opening. Apparently he made a couple of slight amendments to the libretto. It was more like a confession or almost like an oratorio, rather than a conventional narrative.
Doug is right: Chereau directed the "House of the Dead" production that the Met co-produced.