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David M. Wagner Profile picture
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23 Oct, 4 tweets, 1 min read
1/ Same production as was shown during Bel Canto week, but an earlier iteration. Elina Haranča was an excellent Cenerentola but Cecilia Baroli is perfect, and she doesn’t mess things up here, unlike in NOZZE DI FIGARO, for three reasons:
2/ Cenerentola, unlike Susanna, is a mezzo part, and she’s a mezzo, so that’s sorted; she doesn’t swap in any unfamiliar “alternative” arias, or if she does it doesn’t matter bc tbh not many fans rly know CENERENTOLA the way they know NOZZE; and her tendency to make faces, ...
3/ out of place amid the jewel-like achievement of NOZZE, is just fine in Rossini comedy. I mean right now she’s making googly eyes at the Prince-in-disguise, and he’s making moogly eyes at her, and it’s all really cute. - Forgot to note, this is the Cinderella story, except...
4/ a pompous and social-climbing stepfather instead of a wicked stepmother, and a fairy godfather named Goldwings - “Alidoro” - instead of etc.

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More from @david_m_wagner

David M. Wagner Profile picture
21 Oct
1/ Or COSÌ TOOT FANNY, as we used the call the aftermath of a bean-intensive dinner w lots of little boys at home. Yeah this is COSÌ, but not only updated to C18 Naples to C20 Coney Island, but accompanied by carny action whose relevance to the action is debatable at best.
I’m tentatively labeling this *bad* Regie, qualifying it for entry in the Castorf Crocodile Competition, or, World Cup of Bad Productions. OTOH Amanda Majeski, who ruled absolutely as the Countess in MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, shd be a good Fiordiligi.
Ok gonna revise my estimation of this production upward. The carny stuff does not interrupt the main action. What we’ve got is a defensible updating: from C18 Naoles w two independent sisters whose honeybuns, on a bet, disguised themselves as “Albanians” (actually Turks)...
Read 8 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
23 Sep
1/ THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST! Just listen to the Act 1 prelude - ~70 seconds - it’s your emo-man Puccini bringin the swoon-tune but also the rootnest, tootnest, shoot-em-firstiest, doggone-worstiest six-shooter that ever sat on the hip of any girl in the Gold Rush West -
2/ - that’d be Minnie, booze-pourin & Bible teachin, ain’t got time for “il sheriffo” Jack Rance, but maybe she’ll find true love w this stranger, got a dark secret but calls hisself Dick Johnson so....
3/ Any y’all remember Scarpia, the corrupt and priapic police chief in TOSCA? I think Rance is Puccini trying to re-do Scarpia w a softer touch. Oh he’ll hang’em outlaws high as Haman, Rance will, & he’ll drink and gamble - even over the fate of an outlaw. But not rape, nossir...
Read 4 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
19 Sep
Appropriate for this evening, since it’s about reconciliation of political enemies mediated by a woman’s love for a guy in the other side. Granted, she’s a very young woman whose sanity goes and returns depending on whether bubelah has been condemned to death or reprieved....
2/ but her Mad Scene - a beloved device of bel canto composers and sopranos - is what compels her uncle to tell the rejected suitor “You must save your rival,” leading to the greatest baritone-bass duet in Italian opera, “Suoni le trombe,” “Let the trumpets sound”; cf....
3/ cf. Hampson/Ramey duet album, “No Tenors Allowed.” - Star is Anna Netrebko, to whom we wish quick recovery: she recently got a pos ‘rona test while rehearsing DON CARLO at the Bolshoi. Elvira in PURITANI was a long-ago role for her, but it shows off her voice well....
Read 4 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
14 Sep
1/ Tellya what, I own a copy of the Met Opera Record Club version of this, starring the great buffo Salvatore Baccaloni ("Some enchanted evening/I will look like Pinza/And my double chinza/Will surely disappear...") and then-young comprimario Charles Anthony as the tenor lead....
2/ and also the great baritone Frank Guarrera, and I'll always value that recording. As to the opera, tho - I saw it @MetOpera starring Fernando Corena and (our reason for being there) Beverly Sills. At the famous "slap moment," Corena showed such poignant humiliation that...
3/ I immediately sympathized with silly old Pasquale and hated all the other characters. Since we're supposed to sympathize with those others and consider Pasquale nothing but an example of "no fool like an old fool," I'm outta here. That said, that evening was not a loss...
Read 6 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
12 Sep
Aah, good French 19thc opera! It’s odd of me but I like PEARL FISHERS even better than CARMEN. This production keeps the action in Ceylon/Sri Lanka but places it vaguely in 1940s, so Zurga has a combination govt office and campaign HQ, not just a tent, in which to brood in Act 3.
2/ (Clearly his elevation in Act 1 to be the fishermen’s king for the year had a build-up and is not as spontaneous as the libretto makes it seem.)

This production cuts down a little on the inevitable “orientalism”
of this show, for those who care about that.
3/ And yes, PEARL FISHERS has THE duet (Act 1), the great tenor-baritone number recalling that beautiful priestess at the Gates of Kandi:

Son voile se soulève-
O vision, o rêve-
La foule est à genoux!

Oui c’est elle
C’est la déesse
Plus charmante et plus belle...!

@virgil_30
Read 6 tweets
David M. Wagner Profile picture
9 Sep
1/ This is DAMNATION DE FAUST as well staged as it can be. Musically, Berlioz remains as much a mystery to me as Massenet. And the weird dramaturgy: two rounds of Faust contemplating Nature and the Simple Peasants -2 reliable 19thc tourist attractions. After 1st, Meph appears...
2/...and offers him the bargain, & after 2nd, appears again & says, emergency, Marguerite about to be executed, but you can save her by signing HERE, no qs allowed; next, Meph is galloping w Faust down to Hell, here called Pandæmonium, where he assures pan dæmonia that Faust...
3/ is his bc “he has freely signed,” which of course Faust has not done, tho from all we’ve seen of him it wd be minimal loss if he had. So there’s this big non-social-distanced party among pan dæmonia, and it plainly sucks for Faust, but there’s a chorus that proclaims...
Read 6 tweets

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