OperaNow! #217: God Bless 'Merica

Opera Australia PR Nightmare...Chicago Festival Can't Pay for Beethoven...Klinghoffer and other problems at The Met.

This week in Oliver's Corner: I came here to give you a kiss.  From your mother.

Set your phasers to OPERA.

Plus Guess Who Died?

Comments

[Menuet alla Zoppa]

If I can continue the film analogy from last week - imagine if cinemas has stopped showing new films 50 or 60 years ago, and just screened the same classics over and over again. Now matter how good the old material is, any art form would die if it didn't have an injection of new repertoire every once in a while. Old works are great, and can still have a lot of resonances for contemporary audiences because they deal with timeless issues, but there's just no subsitute for contemporary works which deal with contemporary issues. If an artwork speaks to someone directly about something they can understand and relate to, then all of the potentially alienating aspects of that artform become unimportant - this has been the case with contemporary art over the past 20 or 30 years. From my perspective over in the UK, I really admire a company like Houston Grand Opera and their tradition (if that's quite the right word...) of commissioning and staging so many new works. Opera isn't dying - grand opera in grand opera HOUSES is dying. Opera as a whole seems to be thriving. Peter Gelb seems like a man who has his moment about 20 years ago, and has since been discredited. This is the man who, when at Sony, was famous for saying "I’d rather lose a million on a movie score than make $10,000 on a small shit", something which he has evidently had plenty of opportunities to do at the Met.

The whole Klinghoffer debate seems like a lot of nonsense really... as you said, there seems to be an assumption that opera audiences are incapable of distinguishing between the voice and opinions a CHARACTER in a work of fiction, and the voice and opinions of the AUTHOR of that work of fiction. But, as usual, the Met has played it safe.

As for Carmen - it was nice to hear some bits of this again. I haven't listened to it in a while, and with such a warhorse of a piece, it's easy to forget how GOOD it actually is, and how fresh. As ever, it was really nice to hear a bit of the historical background to the genre of opera comique, and it made me wonder if Bizet was deliberately subverting the genre for dramatic effect, setting up the conventional forms, only to twist them into something unexpected. And maybe that's why it didn't succeed initially in Paris, because French audiences has a clear set of expectations for such a work, and those expectations were not met. If this is the case, I think it makes sense to restore the original dialogue, without recits. On the other hand, I wonder if it is really SO bad to sing it in a verismo way, since Carmen was so influential on the development of that genre.

The Star Trek Entführung looks hilarious, and makes a surprising amount of sense when you think about it.... will there will be any element of critique though, I wonder.... I had a weird idea for staging this a while ago myself - you could set it on the Baghdad Railway, a much later encounter between Turkey and Germany. Like Il Turco in Italia and other similar works, there's some really great music in there, but its trapped within a slightly offensive Orientalist narrative.

I had not seen Le Wrath di Khan before - it is excellent :D I'm assuming you've all seen the clips of the Klingon opera?

(P.S. - Pears is pronounced like "Peter peers over the fence" rather than "Pierce Brosnan")

[Menuet alla Zoppa]

Also congratulations to Doug! I have been looking for an excuse to go out to Suffolk, so maybe I will come and see Poppea!

[gianmarco]

I like the way you're connecting Carmen back to the origins of opera comique. I have to say I prefer hearing it with the spoken dialogue vs the recits - the orchestrated recits never seem to fit everything else that's around it, which as you point out (Oliver) is mostly songs vs. grand arias. I'm gonna try and guess the three Micaelas but honestly, I didn't really recognize any of them (maybe the first)
1. Eleanor Steber
2. Anna Moffo
3. no idea - Corinne Winters ???
And...while I concur that Freni's tone and display of vocal virtuosity is to be admired, I always have a very hard time listening to her in French opera (Juliette, Mireille etc.) given how unidiomatic her French pronunciation is. It sets up a wall for me and I have a hard time enjoying it, no matter how beautiful the sound. I admire her hugely in general but...

[Shannon Gilmore]

Great opera podcast
i in joyed Olive's Corner
Carmen Micaela's Aria is vary
beaut-full and vary difficult to sing
with the High C
i all so in joyed Micheal sing about what
Die Fledermaus is about vary funny
Great Podcast!!!

[Matt]

1. Beverly sills
2. Anna Moffo?
3. Nicole cabell?
Looking forward to the live show! Really enjoyed this episode

[zach]

hey, guys. guess who died?